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Chinese activist Ai Weiwei says Credit Suisse closing foundation's bank account
- max-ibel 5y agoAre we heading for a future where dissidents in non democratic countries are marked as outlaws in democratic ones? Are we there already? Seems pretty sad. Where else could they bank? Bitcoin? It would be good to hear from the other side, but the “no comment” isn’t very reassuring.
- the_optimist 5y agoWe are actually in a present where dissidents in democratic countries are marked as outlaws in democratic countries. Sorry to tell you this, but the freedoms you thought you had were vacuumed away over the last two decades while you were not looking.
- routerl 5y ago> the freedoms you thought you had were vacuumed away over the last two decades while you were not looking. No, that's not true. We got to see it happening.
- em3rgent0rdr 5y ago"Where else could they bank? Bitcoin?" Given that it was "economic crimes" that China charged him with, and given how China has decided to crack down on bitcoin, then sadly Ai could not easily openly do all his transactions with cryptocurrency.
- zibzab 5y agoAlready there, this was on HN recently https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spotlights-chinas-influence-ld.1638771 https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spot...
- lelandfe 5y agoMan, what a tough article. The only scrap of evidence the professor could muster was a single complaint and a mention of the student losing his temper once, a year prior. Maddening.
- lenkite 5y agoThe US democracy has held Jan 6th protesters in jail without bail still awaiting a trial. This is being done to force a guilty plea before trial. Dissidents are marked as outlaws without justice even in democracies.
- dcl 5y agoChilling, and I suspect that western governments will do very little to prevent this kind of extra-territorial control exerted by the CCP. In a few years I expect it will be very increasingly difficult to criticise China.
- kasperni 5y ago> Chilling, and I suspect that western governments will do very little to prevent this kind of extra-territorial control exerted by the CCP. The US literally locks down countries that they think misbehave.
- L33tCrown 5y agoYour isn't a valuable comment to this news, whataboutism is a very poor rhetoric.
- dcl 5y agoTrue. But I fear China more.
- mushbino 5y agoExtraordinary rendition, CIA, regime change, foreign invasions. Compare US to China, please
- Proven 5y agoMultiple kidnappings of Hong Kong citizens, regime change in Hong Kong, widespread support for authocratic, corrupt regimes in Africa and Asia, invasions or conflicts with of Tibet, India, Vietnam, decades of violations against multiple countries and of international law in the South China Sea. Satisfied?
- arthurcolle 5y agoUyghur torture + concentration camps, Falun Gong forced vivisections, no free floating currency, domination of the public discourse via explicit propaganda, absurd social controls like 'no more than 3 hrs of video games', implicit eugenics policies via 1 child policy. Repeated and ongoing aggressions against other countries that have states that wish for their own independence. I wish for my own independence from the disgusting abuses from global states, so I sympathize with Hong Kong. China is definitely pretty bad. Wait, only a few of those things are exclusive to China. Weird... you're right. Maybe let's do away with states while we're waxing poetic. EDIT: I can't even fathom the confusion of ideas that would lead you to being pro-China when the ongoing current abuses are so expansive, but whatever works for you!
- Ekaros 5y agoMaybe make their own banking system? After all it's private company and they can choose their customers.
- rvz 5y agoThere you go. They can do that to anyone. Worse part is that he hasn't been formally charged or convicted of a crime. Maybe it's time to use decentralised alternatives such as cryptocurrencies then?
- the_optimist 5y agoYeah! He should just make his own economy. It's a privately controlled global economic system after all.
- mthld 5y agoA reminder for us all that Switzerland is not an heaven protecting the oppressed. Capitalism always win.
- robbedpeter 5y agoIt's only capitalism if the players are following the same rules. China cheats by abusing human rights, ecological treaties, stealing IP, and is unaccountable to any authority in any meaningful way. It's like playing poker with a really shitty Teller at the table, with a whipped and abused Penn standing to the side, handing him aces every game. It's getting old. China is not playing on the level. They should be shut out from civilized society until our unless they change their culture. It is abundantly clear that they will continue to act in bad faith, knowing that there are no consequences for lying, cheating, and stealing. Where is the "first they came for the Uyghurs" outrage? Where is the relentless criticism of child labor, abuses of women's rights, or anti nuclear proliferation crowd? They just straight up jacked ARM technology for themselves. The West can conduct business in good faith because we have a set of shared values and expectations of cooperation. We play by the same rules, and can trust each other to the extent that laws and treaties protect us. China's presence in the global markets completely undermines that trust and the underpinnings of cooperation. They are above any law and wield that fact like a club. The experiment has failed, its time to shut them out completely. Stop enabling.
- mthld 5y agoYou are completely true about China, and the bipartisan cooperation Switzerland is working on must cease. But alas, it’s not the trend. The Swiss government is even inviting China police investigators to come over and lead their investigations on China nationals directly on Swiss land. The whole situation is a shame, economics are indeed the reason behind all this.
- skummetmaelk 5y agoDo you have a source on that? I'd like to know more about it.
- 1cvmask 5y agoThis has a long history to it of targeting individuals and whole countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Sanctions_Unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Sanctions_Unit https://origins.osu.edu/article/economic-sanctions-history-trump-global https://origins.osu.edu/article/economic-sanctions-history-t...
- jlduan 5y agoUsed to be a fan of him until he actively spreading lies of US election. Turned me off. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-dissidents-back-trumps-claims-of-election-fraud-11606057766 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-dissidents-back-trumps-...
- the_optimist 5y agoCanceling political dissidents. If you don't mind me asking, how would you characterize your background and political leanings?
- zibzab 5y agoTechnically, both Biden and Trump are "the man" here. This is more of a case of enemy of my enemy is my friend that somehow leaked into US politics.
- the_optimist 5y agoI edited that out because it's distracting. Realistically, Trump was clearly a practical revolutionary, standing in stark contrast to a vested establishment that ceaselessly sought to upend him and his supporters.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rtpg 5y agoHow is saying Trump won the election an act of political dissent? Trump was president! The overton window has shifted so far on this site that saying "I don't like this person" is grounds for starting a whole debate about cancellation! Y'all are absolutely out of control People are allowed to not like other people. Sorry if people you like aren't liked by other people
- the_optimist 5y ago
- the_optimist 5y agoPro-freedom. Anti-censorship. Anti-authoritarian. Anti-totalitarian. Naturally he's a target of cancel culture and the establishment that wields it. Watch even here the Party at work.
- p1necone 5y agoThis is a silly comment. Don't conflate the ridiculous strawman that is "cancel culture" with actual oppression. Loudly parroting American right wing nonsense in the name of "freedom" is turning you into the boy who cried wolf and people are not going to take you seriously when you call out actual censorship like this.
- the_optimist 5y agoYour distinction holds no water. The end result is cancelling someone from the economic system for political cause. That happens in the US as well, in an identical manner. In practice it has happened on a much grander scale in the US than in this instance.
- the_optimist 5y agoPro-freedom. Anti-censorship. Anti-authoritarian. Anti-totalitarian. Naturally he's a target of certain groups of people that [you get flagged and censored if you state the obvious here].
- the_optimist 5y agoI'll add a convenient reminder that it is possible to view flagged comments by checking the appropriate box in your profile. If you don't mind the occasional, easily identifiable spam, you too can subvert those who elect censorship as their favored form of disagreement.
- krageon 5y agoCan you give an example of a worthwhile flagged post? I have read the ones that were part of threads where I found some value in the discourse, but I've never come away from that activity without feeling like I wasted my time (usually because it's nazism or crank theories, not because it's spam).
- the_optimist 5y agoDecent and self-respecting people will be aware of and dismiss hate-driven material. Topics involving (ironically) censorship, freedom, and opinions on the appropriate role of state and private (tech!) sector on those matters are aggressively policed. Anything remotely hailing from cypherpunk era is verboten; those guys look like outright philosophical renegades in comparison.
- d--b 5y agoWell, this is obviously not good. But in a similar situation the US would probably act similarly. In fact, IIRC, wikileaks’ own Swiss bank account got shut down.
- downWidOutaFite 5y agoHow many "whatabout the US" comments does an average China critical thread receive?
- nix23 5y agoBut at least Credit Suisse is proud to be an LGBTQ+ supporter since a week, but be aware they spy on you like china would do.
- ud_0 5y agoThe only reason why so many companies are openly in support of LGBTQ+ is that right now it costs them almost nothing and effortlessly paints the illusion of a human face onto their public image. I don't expect that to last. There are many influential countries that are increasingly intolerant of LGBTQ+ at a government level. If one of them just so much as mumbles something about "moral values", expect all of these over-eager LGBTQ-supporting companies to quietly delete all references that they ever supported this.
- Ekaros 5y agoIt's always fun to compare let's American and Russian social media presence... Goes to show how deep those convictions run...
- makomk 5y agoBig corporations already been doing this to a certain extent with China - it's amazing how gay characters just vanish from works like movies they want to sell there.
- CaptainZapp 5y agoMy employer, large financial institution, supports LGBTQ rights since I started to work there. That's 14 years ago. While you may be on to something that it's not purely altruistic there's a much more important reason for that stance. You lose out on a lot of very well educated, highly competent candidates for your workforce if you don't at least try to provide an inclusive work environment for minority groups. Smart employers figures that out a long time ago.
- Cameri 5y agoAnd this is why we need cryptocurrencies.