11 ms·

Alternate title: China doesn't give carte blanche to foreign fraudsters and spies. In context of Victor and Cynthia Lu, the siblings father is accused of embez

Alternate title: China doesn't give carte blanche to foreign fraudsters and spies. In context of Victor and Cynthia Lu, the siblings father is accused of embezzling 1.4 billion. From memory, millions of assets was put under their names in form of US real estate making them legally culpable. More importantly: >The Chinese Foreign Ministry defended the holding of the three family members, saying: “The people you mentioned all own legal and valid identity documents as Chinese citizens. Because they are suspected of economic crimes, they are restricted from exiting the country by the Chinese police in accordance with the law.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/us/politics/china-exit-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/us/politics/china-exit-ba... China doesn't allow dual citizenship, Chinese nationals (including HKers) who naturalize abroad is suppose to renounce their Chinese citizenship. Many don't, choosing to travel on Chinese papers for expediency (no need for VISA) etc which subjects them to Chinese law. There's no extradition treaty to China which makes these dumb administration hacks backfire. The article also covered spouse of suspects arrested on suspicion of spying... which no shit justifies exit bans. E: I think the greater story is that white expats in some countries no longer get preferential treatment due to trade war (US + Canada), and ex Chinese nationals are not safe from CPC reach just because they have a passport with no PRC extradition treaty, but especially if they're being dumb and travelling to China using Chinese papers they were suppose to renounce.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Some of these exit bans might be in the situation you describe, but other ones are not. US citizens, born in the us, who also never had chinese passports, who aren't under any known investigations have also been held back in exit bans. Also, holding someone's adult children because their father is suspected of something is never acceptable. The fact that these bans are only becoming more frequent now with the trade war is evidence that they aren't just a neutral exercise.
- diego 7y ago
  Are they becoming more frequent or is the press mentioning them more often? Citations needed.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  > but other ones are not But what are these others. The article's examples are: billion+ fraud, espionage, and political corruption by family members. The last one is optically the most senselessly punitive. Clearly political retaliations which I oppose. For financial crimes, in absence of extradition treaties, China's hands are tied, we shouldn't expect them to just allow mass fraud to go unanswered. Punishing billionaires, albeit with bias, is one of the few things China does partially right. Espionage rationalizes itself. > holding someone's adult children because their father is suspected of something is never acceptable. From NYT: >The couple sold the Arcadia home in 2004 and bought a house in a gated community in Armonk, N.Y., an affluent town, records show. The home was transferred to Cynthia Liu’s name in 2011 and sold in 2014 for almost $900,000. There's shenanigans suggesting the kids were used to launder assets which makes them directly culpable. There's no telling how much of this is actually a family affair. They're not kids. They're adults who have benefited from embezzled money. >aren't just a neutral exercise. No they're not, Chinese law was never neutral when it comes to expats, but it's hard to feel sorry when western drug dealers or spies complain losing white privilege. The point is, China-US-Canadian relationships are cooling. If you have GOOD reason to be targeted by China, then don't go there. There are hundreds of thousands of expats in China, when some of them get arrested, the question should really be, why them in particular.
  - Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
    Chinese forecasts always seem to assume a slow march in a particular direction. What happens if cooling becomes a rapid heat up in tensions? The US is unpredictable and has always flourished when the world is in chaos. Good luck predicting when and how and who decides it is time to go over the waterfall
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > billion+ fraud, espionage, and political corruption by family members Detaining the estranged daughters of a suspected fraudster is not due process. It’s the sort of shenanigans that make Chinese courts the laughingstocks they are held to be.
    - 7y ago
- sandworm101 7y ago
  >> US citizens, born in the us, who also never had chinese passports, The simplistic American system of citizenship is not universal. Being born in a country does not always make one automatically a citizen of that country. So too does being born in country A not negate one's automatic citizenship in country B. From the perspective of China, that a person was born in the US is immaterial. If they are born to Chinese parents then they are Chinese, especially when now standing inside China. This is why one should always talk to a lawyer before visiting "the old country" with kids born elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law Bigger horror story: First generation Iranian-Canadian family fly to Iran to introduce canadian-born grandchildren to Iranian-born grandparents. At airport for flight home. 19 years old? Male? born to Iranian parents? standing inside Iran? Have you done your military service? Whether one can "disavow" a citizenship is a big question. Citizenship is not a hat. You cannot just move to Canada, marry a Canadian, and suddenly expect not to owe US taxes ... or not be drafted into a US war.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    Sounds like there's not a lot of difference between "citizen" and "subject". The claims of ownership across generations for births that occurred elsewhere are the most astonishing part of this for me.
    - sandworm101 7y ago
      Then don't look into who can acquire Israeli citizenship. They are open to "all Jewish persons", both people born to jewish mothers and converts "who are not a member of another religion". So citizenship, or not, can turn on the specifics of religious faith and ritual. (Isreal is not alone in this, they are just the most western-leaning nation for whom religious dogma is used in determining citizenship.)
      - maratd 7y ago
        I think you're confusing the word "can" and "must". A Jew can become an Israeli citizen. The issue here is that many of these people are not choosing to be China's citizens and yet are considered such.
khuey 7y ago
Despite your attempts to dress them up as being somehow "legally culpable" they have been charged with no crimes despite being detained for more than a year. Their mistake was traveling to a totalitarian communist dictatorship and expecting not to be at risk of arbitrary detention.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Remember the case of the German engineer who was arrested in Florida while trying to return home after his vacation? https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20171206/vw-executive-arrested-in-florida-gets-7-years-in-diesel-scandal https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20171206/vw-executive-arr...
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    ...who was complicit in a billion dollar fraud in the US. How is that comparable, exactly?
    - gumby 7y ago
      Because those siblings are believed to be complicit in a billion dollar fraud.
      - mlyle 7y ago
        Hardly works as a counterpoint, because doesn't satisfy what the original commenter said: "Despite your attempts to dress them up as being somehow "legally culpable" they have been charged with no crimes despite being detained for more than a year."
        8note 7y ago
        wouldn't an equivalent counterpoint then be to ship them to Guantanamo?
        7y ago
ajross 7y ago
I can't find corroboration for most of that. Per the Times story, the younger sibling was born in the US. None of the sources for this story seem to indicate that these two were travelling on PRC passports or otherwise in the country as citizens. Nor is there any claim of espionage on their part. I mean, the arc of your claim (that this is just fallout of an otherwise legitimate crime investigation and not a deliberate punishment for these kids or the US in particualr) is probably true. But still, fabricating arguments against them doesn't make it OK for them to be held against international law.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  There's no espionage claims, I think it's purely over economic crime. I don't know if they're complicit, their parents may have moved laundered assets under their name without their knowledge. I'm not even sure if their detainment is for the purpose of investigate, coercion or they're merely being made an example of to others. As for Chinese papers, this is speculation territory but with some personal knowledge. You can buy Chinese identities, there's a market for it. I know people who previously revoked their PRC citizenship but later acquired a dead persons identity to buy property and start business in mainland among other perks.
  - akamaka 7y ago
    > I'm not even sure if their detainment is for the purpose of investigate, cohesion or they're merely being made an example of to others. This is the crux of the problem. We have no idea whether they are legitimately being investigated, or if they are innocent people being held in the country to apply pressure on someone else. A low-level employee who travels to the PRC for work might end up in the same situation if his company faces accusations, and anyone who travels to the PRC, or an HK citizen who might face extradition for trial in the near future, needs to be aware of this.
thrwwy482 7y ago
>The article also covered spouse of suspects arrested on suspicion of spying... which no shit justifies exit bans. As a Westerner I have a lot of trouble understanding how you can consider what you just wrote as obvious. Could you describe your thinking about this more? I know you said it's obvious but I don't get why.
- hungryhobo 7y ago
  Do you consider the exit ban placed on Huawei's CFO as obvious?
  - khuey 7y ago
    She's been indicted and is subject to an extradition proceeding in a court of law. What legal process is this guy's spouse subject to that prevents her from leaving?
    - hungryhobo 7y ago
      Ah sorry I misread
  - thrwwy482 7y ago
    When I read this reply I thought you said "Huawei's CFO's spouse" (since my question was about spouses or family members) and I was shocked and didn't know what you were talking about, I certainly didn't know that happened, couldn't think of any reason for that to happen or for it to be obvious it should/would happen. Then I realized you didn't say spouse. I am asking about the spouse part! Can you tell me more of the parent poster's thinking? They implied it's really obvious, so I'd like to understand it. I realize you think it's obvious but I don't understand it and can't imagine what you and the other poster mean. Could you put it into words?
- zbxofnfkcnx 7y ago
  It’s right there in the sentence you quoted (albeit awkwardly written)! The spouse is also suspected of spying! Do you think the Chinese are idiots? Or that we don’t do the same??
stjohnswarts 7y ago
Your post doesn't cover all the cases where there is no valid reason for this ban on people who did nothing wrong and are just being denied because of the trade war.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  Do you have examples?
ummonk 7y ago
Wait, why should the spouse of a spy be subject to an exit ban?
- avocado4 7y ago
  Because China doesn't believe in individualism. You are defined by your party affiliation, friends, family, race (Han vs non-Han), and skin color (brown/"dirty"脏 Asian vs white Asian).
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - vankingd 7y ago
    This is underrated comment. Mainlanders firmly believe in collectivism; whereas, western audiences in individuality. Therefore, Chinese people believe it is okay to kill a person to save the group. Whereas, other countries do not. Mainlanders think that is being selfish.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      This isn't killing sometime to save a group, though. This is guilt by association. And it isn't even that (that's just the dishonest justification), it's just a shady hope that by detaining this fraudster's incident offspring, they can lure him back to China to arrest him. It's disgusting and reprehensible.
      - shard972 7y ago
        Again you have your individualist lens on and you are judging the situation purely based on that moral framework.
        kelnos 7y ago
        I don't think I am. The idea of prioritizing collective good means that it's ok to sacrifice one (or more) people if even more people will benefit from that action by a certain threshold amount. This... isn't that. Arresting this guy won't help or save a bunch of people. The government just wants revenge for his financial crimes, and they're unethically using his kids to try to get it.
Sam777666 7y ago
I agree, there was a big story about China'a arrest of an Indian business man, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-16381464 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-16381464 Years later it turned out he was one of the main scammers in Dubai https://gulfnews.com/uae/expose-trading-scam-masterminds-unmasked-in-the-uae-1.2093319 https://gulfnews.com/uae/expose-trading-scam-masterminds-unm...
mapgrep 7y ago
Punishing relatives for the crimes of family members is barbaric. I’d be surprised to see anyone at HN defending this sort of legal system.
- gruez 7y ago
  >I’d be surprised to see anyone at HN defending this sort of legal system. Not surprising at all if you check his comment history.
  - 044326throw 7y ago
    It looks like OP has different experiences that let’s them see the situation more clearly.
jjcc 7y ago
Great summary. Thanks for your bravery! Most readers who have the knowledge about China instantly know the author is misleading audience by put up half truth and remove important relevant context. But those readers might not dare to speak out because it would be heavily down voted because truth doesn't match the popular belief that Chinese government is an evil authoritarian regime. It's sad that quite large portion of population still can not differentiate facts and their own belief. HNer's are already much better than other online communities.
- jki275 7y ago
  China's place in the world as an evil authoritarian regime isn't seriously debated by anyone who has read even a little history. It's not a "belief", it's fact. Mao killed 45 million people.
  - 044326throw 7y ago
    And Washington was a big player in the Native American genocide. While Churchill’s actions led to the Indian famine, resulting in millions of deaths. If we are going to judge a country by its history, then no country is “good.”
    - jki275 7y ago
      You're playing whataboutism. Whether or not everyone else is perfect is not relevant to the statement I made. China has clearly and unapologetically established its place in the world.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    Real life is not a fantasy novel, it's far too complex to reduce down to good and evil, despite the temptations. Our founding fathers would probably be considered terrorists to the Crown.
    - jki275 7y ago
      Our founding fathers didn't murder 45 million people.
ipsocannibal 7y ago
> The article also covered spouse of suspects arrested on suspicion of spying... which no shit justifies exit bans. So mere association is the justification for the spouse's exit ban?
- jakeogh 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18771384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18771384
joelx 7y ago
This account appears to be a China Communist Party shill when you read the comments history.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

Some of these exit bans might be in the situation you describe, but other ones are not. US citizens, born in the us, who also never had chinese passports, who aren't under any known investigations have also been held back in exit bans. Also, holding someone's adult children because their father is suspected of something is never acceptable. The fact that these bans are only becoming more frequent now with the trade war is evidence that they aren't just a neutral exercise.

diego 7y ago
Are they becoming more frequent or is the press mentioning them more often? Citations needed.
dirtyid 7y ago
> but other ones are not But what are these others. The article's examples are: billion+ fraud, espionage, and political corruption by family members. The last one is optically the most senselessly punitive. Clearly political retaliations which I oppose. For financial crimes, in absence of extradition treaties, China's hands are tied, we shouldn't expect them to just allow mass fraud to go unanswered. Punishing billionaires, albeit with bias, is one of the few things China does partially right. Espionage rationalizes itself. > holding someone's adult children because their father is suspected of something is never acceptable. From NYT: >The couple sold the Arcadia home in 2004 and bought a house in a gated community in Armonk, N.Y., an affluent town, records show. The home was transferred to Cynthia Liu’s name in 2011 and sold in 2014 for almost $900,000. There's shenanigans suggesting the kids were used to launder assets which makes them directly culpable. There's no telling how much of this is actually a family affair. They're not kids. They're adults who have benefited from embezzled money. >aren't just a neutral exercise. No they're not, Chinese law was never neutral when it comes to expats, but it's hard to feel sorry when western drug dealers or spies complain losing white privilege. The point is, China-US-Canadian relationships are cooling. If you have GOOD reason to be targeted by China, then don't go there. There are hundreds of thousands of expats in China, when some of them get arrested, the question should really be, why them in particular.
- Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
  Chinese forecasts always seem to assume a slow march in a particular direction. What happens if cooling becomes a rapid heat up in tensions? The US is unpredictable and has always flourished when the world is in chaos. Good luck predicting when and how and who decides it is time to go over the waterfall
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > billion+ fraud, espionage, and political corruption by family members Detaining the estranged daughters of a suspected fraudster is not due process. It’s the sort of shenanigans that make Chinese courts the laughingstocks they are held to be.
  - 7y ago
sandworm101 7y ago
>> US citizens, born in the us, who also never had chinese passports, The simplistic American system of citizenship is not universal. Being born in a country does not always make one automatically a citizen of that country. So too does being born in country A not negate one's automatic citizenship in country B. From the perspective of China, that a person was born in the US is immaterial. If they are born to Chinese parents then they are Chinese, especially when now standing inside China. This is why one should always talk to a lawyer before visiting "the old country" with kids born elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law Bigger horror story: First generation Iranian-Canadian family fly to Iran to introduce canadian-born grandchildren to Iranian-born grandparents. At airport for flight home. 19 years old? Male? born to Iranian parents? standing inside Iran? Have you done your military service? Whether one can "disavow" a citizenship is a big question. Citizenship is not a hat. You cannot just move to Canada, marry a Canadian, and suddenly expect not to owe US taxes ... or not be drafted into a US war.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  Sounds like there's not a lot of difference between "citizen" and "subject". The claims of ownership across generations for births that occurred elsewhere are the most astonishing part of this for me.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    Then don't look into who can acquire Israeli citizenship. They are open to "all Jewish persons", both people born to jewish mothers and converts "who are not a member of another religion". So citizenship, or not, can turn on the specifics of religious faith and ritual. (Isreal is not alone in this, they are just the most western-leaning nation for whom religious dogma is used in determining citizenship.)
    - maratd 7y ago
      I think you're confusing the word "can" and "must". A Jew can become an Israeli citizen. The issue here is that many of these people are not choosing to be China's citizens and yet are considered such.

khuey 7y ago

Despite your attempts to dress them up as being somehow "legally culpable" they have been charged with no crimes despite being detained for more than a year. Their mistake was traveling to a totalitarian communist dictatorship and expecting not to be at risk of arbitrary detention.

djsumdog 7y ago
Remember the case of the German engineer who was arrested in Florida while trying to return home after his vacation? https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20171206/vw-executive-arrested-in-florida-gets-7-years-in-diesel-scandal https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20171206/vw-executive-arr...
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  ...who was complicit in a billion dollar fraud in the US. How is that comparable, exactly?
  - gumby 7y ago
    Because those siblings are believed to be complicit in a billion dollar fraud.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      Hardly works as a counterpoint, because doesn't satisfy what the original commenter said: "Despite your attempts to dress them up as being somehow "legally culpable" they have been charged with no crimes despite being detained for more than a year."
      - 8note 7y ago
        wouldn't an equivalent counterpoint then be to ship them to Guantanamo?
        7y ago

ajross 7y ago

I can't find corroboration for most of that. Per the Times story, the younger sibling was born in the US. None of the sources for this story seem to indicate that these two were travelling on PRC passports or otherwise in the country as citizens. Nor is there any claim of espionage on their part. I mean, the arc of your claim (that this is just fallout of an otherwise legitimate crime investigation and not a deliberate punishment for these kids or the US in particualr) is probably true. But still, fabricating arguments against them doesn't make it OK for them to be held against international law.

dirtyid 7y ago
There's no espionage claims, I think it's purely over economic crime. I don't know if they're complicit, their parents may have moved laundered assets under their name without their knowledge. I'm not even sure if their detainment is for the purpose of investigate, coercion or they're merely being made an example of to others. As for Chinese papers, this is speculation territory but with some personal knowledge. You can buy Chinese identities, there's a market for it. I know people who previously revoked their PRC citizenship but later acquired a dead persons identity to buy property and start business in mainland among other perks.
- akamaka 7y ago
  > I'm not even sure if their detainment is for the purpose of investigate, cohesion or they're merely being made an example of to others. This is the crux of the problem. We have no idea whether they are legitimately being investigated, or if they are innocent people being held in the country to apply pressure on someone else. A low-level employee who travels to the PRC for work might end up in the same situation if his company faces accusations, and anyone who travels to the PRC, or an HK citizen who might face extradition for trial in the near future, needs to be aware of this.

thrwwy482 7y ago

>The article also covered spouse of suspects arrested on suspicion of spying... which no shit justifies exit bans. As a Westerner I have a lot of trouble understanding how you can consider what you just wrote as obvious. Could you describe your thinking about this more? I know you said it's obvious but I don't get why.

hungryhobo 7y ago
Do you consider the exit ban placed on Huawei's CFO as obvious?
- khuey 7y ago
  She's been indicted and is subject to an extradition proceeding in a court of law. What legal process is this guy's spouse subject to that prevents her from leaving?
  - hungryhobo 7y ago
    Ah sorry I misread
- thrwwy482 7y ago
  When I read this reply I thought you said "Huawei's CFO's spouse" (since my question was about spouses or family members) and I was shocked and didn't know what you were talking about, I certainly didn't know that happened, couldn't think of any reason for that to happen or for it to be obvious it should/would happen. Then I realized you didn't say spouse. I am asking about the spouse part! Can you tell me more of the parent poster's thinking? They implied it's really obvious, so I'd like to understand it. I realize you think it's obvious but I don't understand it and can't imagine what you and the other poster mean. Could you put it into words?
zbxofnfkcnx 7y ago
It’s right there in the sentence you quoted (albeit awkwardly written)! The spouse is also suspected of spying! Do you think the Chinese are idiots? Or that we don’t do the same??

stjohnswarts 7y ago

Your post doesn't cover all the cases where there is no valid reason for this ban on people who did nothing wrong and are just being denied because of the trade war.

gtirloni 7y ago
Do you have examples?

ummonk 7y ago

Wait, why should the spouse of a spy be subject to an exit ban?

avocado4 7y ago
Because China doesn't believe in individualism. You are defined by your party affiliation, friends, family, race (Han vs non-Han), and skin color (brown/"dirty"脏 Asian vs white Asian).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vankingd 7y ago
  This is underrated comment. Mainlanders firmly believe in collectivism; whereas, western audiences in individuality. Therefore, Chinese people believe it is okay to kill a person to save the group. Whereas, other countries do not. Mainlanders think that is being selfish.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    This isn't killing sometime to save a group, though. This is guilt by association. And it isn't even that (that's just the dishonest justification), it's just a shady hope that by detaining this fraudster's incident offspring, they can lure him back to China to arrest him. It's disgusting and reprehensible.
    - shard972 7y ago
      Again you have your individualist lens on and you are judging the situation purely based on that moral framework.
      - kelnos 7y ago
        I don't think I am. The idea of prioritizing collective good means that it's ok to sacrifice one (or more) people if even more people will benefit from that action by a certain threshold amount. This... isn't that. Arresting this guy won't help or save a bunch of people. The government just wants revenge for his financial crimes, and they're unethically using his kids to try to get it.

Sam777666 7y ago

I agree, there was a big story about China'a arrest of an Indian business man, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-16381464 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-16381464 Years later it turned out he was one of the main scammers in Dubai https://gulfnews.com/uae/expose-trading-scam-masterminds-unmasked-in-the-uae-1.2093319 https://gulfnews.com/uae/expose-trading-scam-masterminds-unm...

mapgrep 7y ago

Punishing relatives for the crimes of family members is barbaric. I’d be surprised to see anyone at HN defending this sort of legal system.

gruez 7y ago
>I’d be surprised to see anyone at HN defending this sort of legal system. Not surprising at all if you check his comment history.
- 044326throw 7y ago
  It looks like OP has different experiences that let’s them see the situation more clearly.

jjcc 7y ago

Great summary. Thanks for your bravery! Most readers who have the knowledge about China instantly know the author is misleading audience by put up half truth and remove important relevant context. But those readers might not dare to speak out because it would be heavily down voted because truth doesn't match the popular belief that Chinese government is an evil authoritarian regime. It's sad that quite large portion of population still can not differentiate facts and their own belief. HNer's are already much better than other online communities.

jki275 7y ago
China's place in the world as an evil authoritarian regime isn't seriously debated by anyone who has read even a little history. It's not a "belief", it's fact. Mao killed 45 million people.
- 044326throw 7y ago
  And Washington was a big player in the Native American genocide. While Churchill’s actions led to the Indian famine, resulting in millions of deaths. If we are going to judge a country by its history, then no country is “good.”
  - jki275 7y ago
    You're playing whataboutism. Whether or not everyone else is perfect is not relevant to the statement I made. China has clearly and unapologetically established its place in the world.
- chillacy 7y ago
  Real life is not a fantasy novel, it's far too complex to reduce down to good and evil, despite the temptations. Our founding fathers would probably be considered terrorists to the Crown.
  - jki275 7y ago
    Our founding fathers didn't murder 45 million people.

ipsocannibal 7y ago

> The article also covered spouse of suspects arrested on suspicion of spying... which no shit justifies exit bans. So mere association is the justification for the spouse's exit ban?

jakeogh 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18771384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18771384

joelx 7y ago

This account appears to be a China Communist Party shill when you read the comments history.