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China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row
- rrggrr 8y agoChinese leadership doesn't want Meng Wanzhou to talk, revealing the full extent of Huawei misdeeds. The new sentence for Schellenberg is - I believe - a message of solidarity for Meng's consumption and less an attempt to manipulate the Canadian justice system. Keep in-mind Shellenberg was sentenced to 15 years. A re-sentencing like this is unusual and experts say manipulated. The sooner Meng is extradited to the US, the faster Canada can get of the middle... though I doubt it will help Shellenberg's plight.
- scrumper 8y agoA message of solidarity, which when you unwrap it contains a subtle threat.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoHow subtle a threat is a death sentence?
- scrumper 8y agoIt's interpretable as a subtle threat to Yang. The message looks on the surface like solidarity: "We'll step up tensions over your arrest. We're on your side. Hang tight." But really, it says, "We have no issues whatsoever with judicial murder so keep your mouth shut." It's not like Canada is going to release her to get a convicted drug smuggler out of jail after all. Maybe it is not so subtle!
- tomp 8y agoWhy would they want to threaten her publicly, as oppposed to say through her lawyer? I'm pretty sure whatever message there is, it was mean for Canada, US and the world.
- eunos 8y agoI do not see the connection between the sentencing and Huawei's case other than the timing.
- fermienrico 8y agoIt’s unusual to change a 15 year sentence straight to death penalty. What due process do Chinese courts have?
- dak1 8y agoChina took the highly unusual step of inviting western media to the man's appeal trial.
- m-p-3 8y agoAnd the resentencing is suspicious.
- b_b 8y agoThis man Winston Sterzel [0] has been predicting something like this will happen in China, as they have no tolerance for drugs due to the horrors of the opium crisis. [0] = https://www.youtube.com/user/serpentza https://www.youtube.com/user/serpentza
- hourislate 8y ago>they have no tolerance for drugs due to the horrors of the opium crisis. Are you sure? They are the huge exporter of Fentanyl to North America while the Chinese Government turns a blind eye.
- anonnyj 8y agoKey word "export".
- gnode 8y agoThat is: no tolerance for foreigners smuggling drugs to China and contributing to problems of domestic drug addiction. China historically fought wars against the British Empire over this issue, and see it in a context of anti-colonialism.
- codezero 8y agoThey are OK with harming other people, just not Chinese people. Kind of the same with every nation.
- thefounder 8y agoI guess they have no tolerance for drug use in their country. Exporting it makes sense from an economic perspective. I believe US and EU(i.e. with GMO prosucts) is doing the same.
- sverige 8y agoExports are one thing, addicts inside China are another. They still remember how Britain used opium addiction to control them. The Communist solution was to kill all the addicts after they took over.
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- b88d80170 8y agoIf he is not Canadian, would it be different for such drug case?
- vkazanov 8y agoNot sure about China but in many Asian countries drug-related crimes are considered to be very, VERY serious, and often lead to death sentencies: Vietnam, Thailand, Phillipines all have very strict laws here. For non-foreigners this normally means death sentence. Foreigners do sometimes get some sort of special treatment.
- threatofrain 8y agoThe timing for reviewing a case already concluded and the rare step of inviting western media suggests narrative play. China did warn of severe consequences. At the very least, China wouldn’t have allowed a low level official to determine international discourse. Perhaps China is at least suggesting the same thing to Canada -- don't allow a low level process to interfere with high stakes conversation.
- jdhn 8y agoMaybe, maybe not. I do believe that if he wasn't Canadian, we wouldn't be hearing about it.
- dwild 8y ago> Maybe, maybe not. I do believe that if he wasn't Canadian, we wouldn't be hearing about it. For sure and the same is true before Huawei arrest. This has nothing to do with his case but with how China use Canadian in their country to threaten us (I'm Canadian).
- schuke 8y agoProbably not. Death sentence for drug-related crimes are very common in China. A British citizen got death sentence too a few years back.
- mongol 8y ago
- CydeWeys 8y agoAt this point I think I'm too afraid to ever go to China. You can't get justice there, and you can be swept up into some stupid diplomatic spat. Don't they realize how short-sighted this is? This is incredibly harmful to tourism.
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- mikeash 8y agoHe was already a convicted drug trafficker. I don’t see any indication that his original 15-year sentence was improper. It is possible that he was falsely convicted, of course, but I don’t know that this is more likely in China than elsewhere. Suddenly changing his sentence to death is rather suspicious, but at least for me it doesn’t make a huge difference compared to a 15-year sentence. Random anecdote: I just got back to the US from several weeks in China. By far the most uncomfortable and worrying law-enforcement interaction of the trip was going through US immigration control on the way back.
- fermienrico 8y agoI’ve always had a pleasant experience returning home. I travel 200 days in a year and never have I had a bad experience during US Immigration. In fact, I look forward to “Welcome home” from an officer although now it’s more expedited with the automated passport control and they hardly take more than 20 seconds to let you go. I am curious of your bad experience, can you tell us more? Edit: I do not look like a typical US Citizen. Edit: Tangentially, I have also had great experience with American police. I’ve been pulled over a few times and the officers always have a calm demeanor with utmost level of professionalism. The narrative of US authorities mishaving happens in headline cases, not to vast number of people.
- Insanity 8y agoMaybe it is different when you don't _look_ like you're a US citizen.
- redleggedfrog 8y agoIt's interesting to me how much China is behaving very much like a "gang", like the Crips or Bloods from the 80's. "You take one of ours, we'll grab some of yours." Doesn't matter what the reasons for the grabs are, it's just posturing. It's sad when you're international relations are at the level of hoodlums.
- mdpopescu 8y agoThat's always the case. Interpreting international relations as spats between gang members (or 8 year-olds) clarifies a lot of things.
- mikeash 8y agoInternational relations become a lot more comprehensible once you realize that it is the one example of a true, pure anarchy you can find on this planet.
- fermienrico 8y agoI’d take a step deeper and realize that this is glorified tribalism that’s stuck in humans. We evolved into a civilized species but the idea of territorial tribalism is embedded deep into our very psyche.
- mdpopescu 8y agoYeah, but it can be fought. I was never a nationalist, but I didn't realize how ingrained a lot of habits are until I started traveling through Europe. I've once read that "weirdoes start 10 miles from home" - well, it's not that bad but it's still amazing to realize that yes, people in different countries are still people.
- fermienrico 8y agoI think it can be fought on an individualist level but difficult as it goes against the grain with political objectives and nationalist motifs. It’s so deeply engrained - see 1985 UN speech by Jiddu Krishnamurthy. It was a real eye-opener but everyone goes back to normality the next day. Tribalism is very active and impossible to get rid of in my view unless something totally disruptive happens (Alien invasion at which point we will engage in interplanetary tribalism).
- anilakar 8y agoThe moment anyone starts using a death row felon as a bargaining chip, the death sentence turns into a political murder.
- glogla 8y agoOf course, political murdes aren't exactly uncommon in dystopian dictatorships.
- Nasrudith 8y agoSadly history suggests the turn into part isn't new at all. Just look at pretextual abuses like troublesome political figures receiving it like union leaders and anarchists with only tennous links to crimes philosophically let alone evidentiary. And before that there was King Henry the 8th and he certainly wasn't remotely the first.
- roboys 8y agoTrue but taking drugs to Asia is generally a death sentence, anything less is usually due to a diplomatic favor or bargaining.
- mengxue 8y agoRen Zhengfei’s first wife was Meng Jun (the mother of Meng wan Zhou), the daughter of the former Sichuan Provincial Vice Governor Meng Dongbo. Meng Dongpo served as deputy secretary general of the East China Military and Political Committee. Director of the Infrastructure Department of the Ministry of Metallurgy, Director of the Metallurgical Industry Department of Sichuan Province, Director of the Provincial Economic Commission, Secretary of the CPC Dukou Municipal Committee, deputy governor of Sichuan Province,etc
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cobbzilla 8y agodons tinfoil hat... Chinese government unofficially encourages entrapment of high profile executives as bargaining chips. Canada doesn’t like when one of their citizens is ensnared, applies pressure by upping the ante - holding a legitimate financial criminal from China. China sees a game of chicken and ups the ante further - to “death” the ultimate expression of raw state power, intended to intimidate. What happens next? I just hope no one dies.
- johannkokos 8y agoI am confused by this article. It says, "Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 and received his original sentence in 2016 in a case that went unnoticed." But according to the Chinese court[link 1], he was first sentenced for 15 years in jail on 2018-11-20. Robert appealed to high court. On 2018-12-29, the high court decided the original sentence was too light and asked the intermediate court for a new trial. link 1: http://court.dl.gov.cn/info/122_138614.vm http://court.dl.gov.cn/info/122_138614.vm
- adventured 8y agoHe was held for four years before being found guilty, with that first verdict giving him 15 years. Not sure what to make of the 2016 part, I think that refers to the date of his first trial. Here's what the NY Times has on it: "Last month, a court ordered Mr. Schellenberg to be retried after he appealed a 15-year prison sentence for smuggling methamphetamines. ... After his arrest [in 2014], Mr. Schellenberg was held for 15 months before his first trial, and it took an additional 32 months before a court declared him guilty and sentenced him to 15 years in prison for his role in a failed attempt to smuggle drugs from China to Australia." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/world/asia/china-canada-schellenberg-retrial.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/world/asia/china-canada-s...
- tanilama 8y agoSo he smuggled 220kg of meth, while 50g is death penalty in China.
- chillacy 8y agoChina (vietnam, singapore, etc) has been executing drug smugglers for a long time now. Nobody really raised a fuss when they were executing africans who may not have been aware of the consequences. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16137327 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16137327
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ferrolho 8y agoDoes anyone actually know the reasons behind Meng's arrest?
- ardy42 8y agoThey're fairly easy to find out with a simple Google search. The tl;dr is the US government claims she lied to HSBC and other banks in a way that caused them to unwittingly violate US and UN sanctions against Iran.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- T-A 8y agohttps://www.scribd.com/document/395185756/Letter-from-the-U-S-Justice-Department https://www.scribd.com/document/395185756/Letter-from-the-U-...
- ferrolho 8y agothanks, I had been looking for a proper document such as this
- Cypher 8y agowhoops now that umm Huawei arrest is really going to hurt now.
- perlpimp 8y agoyou could be imprisoned if in china police raid an expat bar and deported and in light of current events jailed and persecuted if police find traces of THC in your blood. They do raid expat bars regularly just to do this. so really - reconsider going to china if you've been using any of recreational drugs in last while.
- pseingatl 8y agoIn the United States, the guidelines penalty for trafficking in 200 kilograms of meth is life without parole. Canada's sentencing rules are more lenient. The question is whether Canada will go the wall in what is really a dispute between China and the United States. China does have an aggressive regime of trying to protect its citizens overseas--see, William Sampson--that the U.S. lacks. Sampson was at least arguably innocent while this trafficker is not. There is no doubt that Canada will suffer because of its extradition treaty with the U.S. The question that Canadians have to ask themselves is this: is helping the U.S. to apply its laws globally worth all this trouble in the absence of international consensus?
- DeonPenny 8y agoI don't feel good about buying Chinese goods anymore. Look at what has happened. Even if he's not killed the fact that they brought media in is a subtle as a finger sliding across a throat.