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US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China
- ciguy 6y agoI've been to China a few times, most recently in late 2018. I traveled overland by train from Beijing to Xian and then to Shanghai. Everything as a non-chinese citizen was just harder than it was when I visited in 2014. Buying train tickets was a massive hassle without a Chinese ID. Paying for anything was difficult because many places no longer take cash and you can't really get a proper WeChat account as a foreigner. The entire time I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was living in a dystopian future. Security around Tiananmen Square in Beijing was so overdone it would almost have been funny if it wasn't scary. Facial recognition scans on the metro system. In Shanghai they use facial recognition at crosswalks and then put up the name and picture of violators on a huge screen at the intersection (I can only assume they also deduct from their social credit score). If this is the direction China wants to continue to go in, I no longer want anything to do with it. As long as the CCP is in power I won't be visiting again. And now that includes Hong Kong sadly.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoCompletely agree. I lived and worked in HK a number of years ago and find China and Chinese people to be some of the most beautiful and interesting cultural assets in the world. So it sucks that I likely will never visit again in my lifetime. China is already dying, the oppressionist leadership just is self-deluded and doesn’t understand it yet. The further you move away from liberal democracy with deliberately decentralized power, the more isolationist your economy becomes. On the scale of years, sure you can manipulate markets, send elite spy teams to kill foreign dissidents, pressure other developed economies to buy your exports and respect your authoritarian escalations. On the scale of decades you can’t. China foolishly underestimates how smart and hard working everyone else is, how easily a generation can be disenfranchised from Chinese exports, and how little of a threat Chinese cyber warfare truly is. China is just a large, slow North Korea with enough starting capital to superficially appear OK in the short run.
- jarfil 6y agoI'm not sure China is underestimating anything. They had an asset, in the form of millions of underqualified workers, and they've used it, to manufacture cheap stuff. But with increasing automation, that asset was never going to last; every passing year it's becoming easier for other countries to replace Chinese manufacturing with local developments, and I think they know it. In order to stay relevant, China needs a better educated workforce, but in order to control those better educated people, they will need ever better control mechanisms. I doubt they'll be able to make it work in the long run, so they likely will need to change strategies, but right now it makes sense.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoI think you misunderstand > “ but in order to control those better educated people, they will need ever better control mechanisms.” This is like a building whose own load directly undermines its own stability, or a roller coaster whose own construction dynamics tears itself apart little by little with each run. Trying to institute mass social control while changing a population to be highly educated knowledge workers is like boiling the ocean. In some small local patch of time, it looks scary (ooooh social credit system, face recognition everywhere, disappeared artists and journalists, cyber warfare.. spooky) Zoom out on the scale of 50 years and it’s farcically stupid. Wanting an enduring human population asset and wanting authoritarian control are fundamentally incompatible desires. At best they can be sustained through force on short time scales, then ending up very very bloody for the leadership involved.
- sterlind 6y agoYou can be highly educated at engineering and still know nothing about politics or philosophy. I think the best thing they can do is induce political apathy. Discourage people from trying to get into even the Party apparatus, except as functionaries doing repetitive, menial jobs, and then keep people prosperous so they don't question. I've certainly known a lot of engineers - Western engineers, even - who didn't care about politics because they simply didn't need to.
- tpmx 6y agoI last visited China a few years ago. I felt a bit sad, because I felt like it was the last time. It was. I got the same same feeling. They are building a new and technologically "better" Soviet Union, actually implementing a bunch of the ideas from Orwell's '1984' novel about totalitarian communism. I feel (selfishly) happy that I got to experience Hong Kong a bunch of times while it still existed as free city.
- rorykoehler 6y agoPosted 10 mins ago and already downvoted. Do HN not have algos to stop this astroturfing behaviour? It’s becoming very prevalent for anything that criticises the CCP.
- tpmx 6y agoIt will be on the second or third page in a few minutes, after a few "trusted" HN members object. That's the extent of the "algorithm".
- ciguy 6y agoYep, every time I post anything that mentions China I lose Karma, but I don't particularly care. Sometimes the comments start with 10+ upvotes and then suddenly a wave of downvotes comes. Most recently some very new accounts with mostly pro china submissions and comments began using my real name and posting it in comments, apparently thinking I would be scared of having my real name associated with anything critical of China.
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- Nginx487 6y agoKarma is just a counter in database. Hong Kongers do not afraid to face a death sentence for opposing the regime. Don't afraid to tell the truth, the worst may happen to you is a couple of downvotes by troll factory workers from Beijing.
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- TimTheTinker 6y agoComments about voting are generally off-topic. Although if you have genuine concerns about astroturfing, I suggest emailing hn@ycombinator.com.
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- rat323 6y agoI don't know how China will cope with you not visiting. This may destroy the CCP altogether!
- ketzu 6y agoI went to Beijing in 2019 and while I felt the security of subway stations was a bit overdone (metal detectors and bag scanners) I had little trouble buying things: while shops wanted me to pay with wechat they accepted cash all the time. I also found the security of tiennam square not much different from the eiffel tower (which I didn't enter because the security seems such a hassle at that time). Security of very high profile spots seems to be high in general these days. Not to deny your experience, I just had a different one. When talking to other travelers, it seems difference in experience happens all the time while traveling.
- ciguy 6y agoI've been to the Eiffel tower several times. The security there is not even in the same league as the security as Tiananmen Square.
- ketzu 6y agoMy experience in tienanmen: Showing my passwort and a bag scanner, going through. Area was limited with small metal fences. My experience at the eiffel tower: Bag scanner, didn't go through (because I had a huge bag which was not allowed). Area was limited with huge glass panes. (Don't know if they want to see any ID) So it felt very much the same to me, but the security in Paris was probably not police (I didn't go fully in, so I don't remember).
- ciguy 6y agoYou just ignored the armored vehicles and police station permanently setup at one end of the square? The facial recognition when you go through the scanners? The guards posted at vantage points with rifles? You were either paying no attention at all, or you are intentionally misrepresenting the situation.
- ebg13 6y ago> The guards posted at vantage points with rifles? Your other points notwithstanding, rifles aren't particularly special in French policing. Gendarmerie are basically everywhere.
- jackewiehose 6y ago> The entire time I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was living in a dystopian future [...] they use facial recognition at crosswalks and then put up the name and picture of violators on a huge screen at the intersection "feeling of a dystopian future"? That sounds straight like from an episode of Black Mirror.
- ciguy 6y agoYeah actually I did get a Black Mirror kind of vibe at certain times for sure.
- dehrmann 6y agoI regret that I wasn't able to see HK before China got to it. While I hope for the best for Taiwan, it might be one of the places I go next for that reason.
- gentleman11 6y agoThis is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying, all because of political retaliation over that rich lady
- adventured 6y agoFor Australia as well. They recently gave an Australian citizen a death penalty sentence in retaliation for the ongoing conflict between Australia and China. At the rate things are going, in another five years nobody from a liberal nation will be able to safely visit Xi's new hermit kingdom. It's a shame. I always thought it would be nice to visit Hong Kong.
- derefr 6y agoA real "hermit kingdom" has no exports, though, no? If China is going that way, I can't imagine how it plans to keep its economy going. Does it think its urban centers are already self-sufficient centers of economic demand for the products it produces currently?
- kolanos 6y agoDoesn't take much imagination. Pre-1975 China?
- poiuytrewqa 6y agopre 1975 China was pretty different and thinking that it will go back to that state is pretty arrogant. Now, compared to then, China has a huge internal market thanks to the rising of the middle class that could take the clash of a potential export collapse by leveraging their internal market. So said, whenever there's somebody exporting there's another one importing. Perhaps we should ask ourselves where are we going to get the goods that now are produced largely in China.
- adventured 6y agoI don't think total isolation in every regard is a requirement. Wikipedia refers to it as: "The term hermit kingdom is used to refer to any country, organization or society which willfully walls itself off, either metaphorically or physically, from the rest of the world." Seems reasonable. China is going to become increasingly walled off in terms of physical access into China (and they'll likely further restrict foreign travel by their citizens), matching how they've already walled the country off with regards to the Internet & foreign press. It had to happen, the smothering process has to continue indefinitely until or unless they reverse course on liberalization. These processes tend to spiral down by necessity. The more you clamp down, the more you have to clamp down; you can't allow challenges to the vast number of invented narratives (which comes from foreign injection: outside press, outside visitors, allowing a large number of your citizens to visit other nations and see that the narratives are falsified, etc). The exports would be the last thing to get walled off, I'd expect. Neither side of the wall really wants that. It's not hard to see a scenario where China is highly isolated socially and culturally, while still being an immense export power.
- eplanit 6y agoI get the impression that we're now in an undeclared Cold War with China.
- DuskStar 6y agoHow does a country declare a Cold War, anyways?
- User23 6y agoSerious answer: its national media starts saying there is one.
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- aspenmayer 6y agoMore to the point, how does a country end a Cold War? Hot wars have a formal end via truces and armistices; undeclared wars may continue unabated in other theaters and fronts, as well as different domains entirely.
- tpmx 6y agoThe most famous one ended when the soviet union collapsed (fatigue, economic stresses, random misunderstandings). I'm looking forward to the same thing happening to CCP/china in about a decade or so.
- wendyshu 6y agoNot just arrested but tortured, as we've seen with the two Canadian Michaels and the British Simon Cheng. Edit: British-employed not actually British
- hungryhobo 6y agoI would say only 1 Michael, The other one sold drugs in a country that specifically banned drugs
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- wendyshu 6y agoGood point, committing a crime there is an especially bad idea.
- poiuytrewqa 6y agoWhy there's a country where doing a crime is a good idea? I can recall that also US still have capital punishment for example
- justwalt 6y agoI’d imagine it’s far easier to be sentenced to death there as opposed to the US.
- poiuytrewqa 6y agoTo be honest, as European I think China and US are pretty similar in many ways (propaganda, law enforcement etc). So said each country has their own problem but if anybody focus more on resolving their internal problem before teaching everybody how to live would be better. In this forum is very hard to discuss anything serious that doesn't follow the prevalent opinion that you get down votes without reason.
- trixie_ 6y agoThe current administration has been bullying China incessantly. I'm not going to say if the reasons were justified or not because it's complicated, but we shouldn't be surprised by China's response. It's not like we're actively trying to improve relations either.
- asddubs 6y agoif the US gets to arbitrarily arrest US citizens, it's only fair that china should get to do it too
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- oddlyamused 6y agoThe world needs to start bullying China. I am sickened by how weak the EU is with china. They care only about profits. We need to start treating China like we treat Russia. They are a serious threat to the rest of the world environmentally, politically, and militarily.
- guitarbill 6y agoI think you're probably right... except the EU is also not very strong w.r.t. Russia, since they're so dependant on Russian oil and natural gas.
- trixie_ 6y agoSure bully China some more. Today they're kicking out foreigners, tomorrow they will take Taiwan. No dobut. Just like the world stood by as Hong Kong fell, the same will happen with Taiwan. China is only testing the waters with Hong Kong. That's what being tough is all about. Be careful what you wish for.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Just like the world stood by as Hong Kong fell Hong Kong was already PRC-administered Chinese territory.
- knolax 6y ago[removed]
- ketzu 6y ago> A bit of an oxymoron there isn't it. How do you enforce a law without maintaining law and order. The point is just that the intent of applying the law is not maintaining law and order. Lika a policeman seeing 100 people jaywalking, but only arrests the rich/poor/black/white/foreign/blonde/girl/guy, not because they want to maintain law and order by policing jaywalking, but for some other reason. > Of course anything and everything is a sign of a "New Cold War" Unfortunately. The respective threads are also often emotional, light on facts and relatively unreflected.
- hedora 6y ago> A bit of an oxymoron there isn't it. How do you enforce a law without maintaining law and order. Perhaps you should read up on the root causes of the recent Black Lives Matter protests in the US.
- DangitBobby 6y agoThis is a very uncharitable and pedantic reading of it. If there were a law to "kill political dissidents of party x" then enforcement of that law would technically be enforcement of the law, but it would certainly not be for the purposes of maintaining law and order in the manner that the term is commonly understood to mean.
- knolax 6y ago[removed]
- DangitBobby 6y agoLaw and Order the euphemism is not the same thing as Law and Order as it's commonly understood, even if the euphimistic usage appears more often in modern politics than the common usage. It's unfortunate that euphemisms dillute meaning (and it's probably unfortunate that they must exist at all), but that doesn't mean the actual meaning no longer exists.
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- outlace 6y agoI've visited China nearly every year for the past 6 years and never had any sort of issues. I thought all the security personnel I encountered at the airport, immigration, subway stations etc in China were very professional and respectful. In contrast to one of the last times I was returning from China to the U.S. and witnessed a highly unprofessional U.S. CBP officer who was yelling and berating incoming international visitors because they couldn't understand his English, which was infuriating. All this to say that if you want to visit China recreationally (outside of pandemics), you'll almost certainly be fine and treated well. *Edit: I'm just offering my personal experience here for others to consider amongst other sources of information.
- monksy 6y agoNot sure how you went from an article warning people that the new security regulations to well they're ok people. This security letter means that could have non-citizens detained/charged (penalties range from 10 years prision to life). Their decision to charge you is very badly defined. The offense doesn't even have to happen in their own country. Mentioning how Hong Kong is an independent region is one of those violating items in that letter.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoIn China if you're a (especially white) foreigner/tourist you tend to be treated better than the locals might be. But you should remember that you're a guest and not push your luck.
- jszymborski 6y agoI'm not sure how you can make that assurance. Fellow Canadians have had to watch as an increasing number of Canadians are arbitrarily detained and held in torturous conditions. These Canadians range from high-profile and wealthy[0] to low-profile [1,2], and the conditions in which they are detained are an affront to human rights. [0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-canadian-detainees-china-explainer/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kov... [1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-sentenced-to-eight-years-in-jail-by-china-renounces/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-sente... [2] https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-detained-in-chinese-jails-foreign-affairs https://torontosun.com/news/national/123-canadians-detained-...
- simonsarris 6y agoNote that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this, especially exit bans. From the state department in 2018: > Exercise increased caution in China due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws and special restrictions on dual U.S.-Chinese nationals. > Chinese authorities have the broad ability to prohibit travelers from leaving China (also known as ‘exit bans’); exit bans have been imposed to compel U.S. citizens to resolve business disputes, force settlement of court orders, or facilitate government investigations. Individuals not involved in legal proceedings or suspected of wrongdoing have also be subjected to lengthy exit bans in order to compel their family members or colleagues to cooperate with Chinese courts or investigators. > U.S. citizens visiting or residing in China have been arbitrarily interrogated or detained for reasons related to “state security.” Security personnel have detained and/or deported U.S. citizens for sending private electronic messages critical of the Chinese government. travel.state.gov archived from 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180112180843/https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180112180843/https://travel.st...
- JohnTHaller 6y ago> Chinese authorities have the broad ability to prohibit travelers from leaving China (also known as ‘exit bans’); exit bans have been imposed to compel U.S. citizens to resolve business disputes, force settlement of court orders, or facilitate government investigations. Individuals not involved in legal proceedings or suspected of wrongdoing have also be subjected to lengthy exit bans in order to compel their family members or colleagues to cooperate with Chinese courts or investigators. AKA taking hostages.
- genoapol 6y agoSounds like what the US & Canada did to Meng Wanzhou.
- jorblumesea 6y agoI don't think anyone would disagree that she's a pawn in a geopolitical struggle, but it also sounds like she absolutely and intentionally violated US law. There's pretty clear evidence, mostly in emails, of Huawei execs knowingly flaunting the export laws. It's unclear if the westerners detained in China have committed crimes. I think their detention is a good example of what this warning is about. Detained for unclear reasons under broad state security rules with little presented evidence of crimes. Indefinite detention without any hope of a trial, kept in total isolation, without any formal representation. Meng got her day in court, will the Michaels ever get that?
- 0x8BADF00D 6y agoIf you look at the history, China did much better under colonialism. Compare how much nicer Hong Kong looks to the average Chinese city, with waste and trash everywhere and heavy pollution being spewed in the air. It’s time we had an honest conversation about the benefits of colonialism, not just discussing the negative aspects of it.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoDunno. Colonialism led directly to the results you see today.
- 0x8BADF00D 6y agoIt is precisely the opposite. The rejection of Western colonial ideas, like the Enlightenment and the Protestant work ethic led to the results you see today. That is why China will still be behind the West. The culture does not have integrity. Without integrity, you can never have innovation. You just end up building a society of poor imitators. I see this any time I visit such places. Sadly the United States is becoming like this as well.
- boruto 6y ago> It’s time we had an honest conversation about the benefits of colonialism, not just discussing the negative aspects of it. I really wish this is not a troll and we as humans are past this thinking.
- magicsmoke 6y agoUse this to negotiate hazard pay with your company when traveling to China. There's money to be made by leveraging the difference between perceived and actual risk.
- hartator 6y ago> There's money to be made by leveraging the difference between perceived and actual risk. You think the risk is not that big?
- computerphage 6y agoHow big is "not that big"? What do you think it is?
- fermienrico 6y agoDeleting this comment - I will email dang.
- notaround1111 6y agoI've also noticed a large influx of new accounts posting low quality, politically charged comments in the past few months. You can find plenty of those in this thread. I think its pretty likely that we're headed for an extinction type event for upvote based "anonymous" message boards like HN, reddit ... or at least a significant decline in their usefulness
- fermienrico 6y agoWhat's a good alternative architecture that promotes quality content/comments and prevents regression short of manual compilation, moderation and curation? Edit: Jotting down some ideas: 1) Occlude/Delude/Fog-up the votes for newly created accounts. Mature accounts get to see gray posts. 2) Consesus amongst mature accounts has higher weight over newly created accounts. 3) Penalty for being flagged is higher for mature accounts as with power comes responsibility of good behavior. 4) Karma should have more meaning that just a tally of points. Upvoting costs Karma (-1 from balance). So, people are more careful and have to strongly agree to upvote. Probably some caveats and downsides here. 5) Buffer out the oscillations of upvotes/downvotes. Sort of like a mass-spring-damper system. 6) Hire moderators that are vetted and publicly funded by HN members. 7) Verified accounts with work email or some other means. These accounts would have the highest weight in anything they do.
- darawk 6y agoI think you essentially need something pseudonymous and reputation based. Something where getting banned has a reasonably high cost in terms of re-acquiring reputation required to post.
- rwmj 6y agoSlashdot only gave out a small number of moderator points per day (5 IIRC). Also you could not moderate and post on the same topic, which means you cannot downvote opposing views so easily.
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- john4534243 6y agoIts time to exclude china from international business. CCP is worse than kingship. What i don't understand is why is there people furiously defending china in almost all of the HN posts.