6 ms·

Genuine question: did anyone actually get locked up on a business trip to China?

genmud 3y ago
Yes, there are many examples if you simply google "china imprisoned business trip". When the Canadian government arrested a Huawei exec who was ignoring Iranian sanctions and lying to US investigators, the Chinese government arrested 2 Canadians as spies. Authoritarian governments fucking love to arrest people on "espionage" charges, since it is hard to prove and they can pretend to not be able to share because of national security.
- aerio 3y ago
  You forgot to mention how valuable they are as bargaining chips for mutual releases of prisoners. Case in point, the American basketball player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on accusations of having a cannabis vape pen - and was exchanged for the world's most notorious arms dealer, Victor Bout. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/08/brittney-griner-russia-us-prisoner-swap-viktor-bout https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/08/brittney-grine...
  - genmud 3y ago
    Thats kind of what I was getting at with the Canadians, but Griner is a good example too.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  No there aren't. There's like ~150 cases of exit bans of "foreigners" in PRC in the last 20 years. Vast majority of exit bans are ex Chinese (primarily financial) criminals who thought western passport would protect them only to be coerced back into PRC to face justice. Or established expats who gets dragged into legal issues, especially with local interests. Some of which might be sus. Just about the only westerners rounded up and severely punished in PRC during travel are drug smugglers. Statistically, a westerner (not ex Chinese national) has less chance of being thoroughly fucked with in PRC than an ethnically Chinese scientist in the US via China Initiative. On the two Michaels', of course they were spies, with the customary NGO cover. Useful idiots who lap up western propaganda love to think PRC... a surveillance state with extremely competent state security organ that completely dismantled CIA spy network this decade somehow needs to capture innocent westerners when they could just snatch up legitimate spies. There's a reason CSIS, Canadian CIA, publically celebrated their release on twitter [0]. Not to mention this tidbit: >Edith Terry: Michael Kovrig is a friend, and I am very conscious of the privations he has endured. And while his background is complex and possibly included intelligence gathering for the Canadian government during his diplomatic career, he was very open about his research interests and contacts. [1] The other Michael ran NKorean pertaining NGO out of PRC. Connect the dots. [0] https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441571942721593345 https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441571942721593345 [1] https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/will-i-return-china https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/will-i-return-china Like it's not hard to stay out of severe trouble in PRC as a foreigner. Don't traffic drugs, don't spy i.e. don't take pictures of military. Almost all the other small shit you get to drink tea with cops and sign some paperwork which is basically kid glove treament. The only real exception is journalism, hence most foreign media has left the country.
  - genmud 3y ago
    > Statistically, a westerner (not ex Chinese national) has less chance of being thoroughly fucked with in PRC than an ethnically Chinese scientist in the US via China Initiative. That has not been what I have observed with people I am friends with, nor the experience of other people I have worked with who go to China regularly. You call them useful idiots, but then call them spies. Which are they? Unknowingly assisting intelligence agencies or illegal spies? Where is the evidence, the PRC refused to provide any... and I'm sorry, but CSIS celebrating the release of a Canadian citizen isn't evidence they are a spy. Look at their feed, it's full of Canada related stuff all the time.
    - dirtyid 3y ago
      How many of your associates who goto PRC reguarly have exit bans or in prolonged legal limbo with the PRC security apparatus. I hazard to guess zero. If more than one, that's more reflection of who you are associating with. Charitably we're talking about 0.01% of the mainland expat population, realistically lower because majority of exit bans are ex PRC nationals who aren't connected to actual expat community. The reason why the Michael's arrest was even news is because they were anomolous incidents in the first place. I'm referring to people who believes western narrative that Michael's weren't spies as "useful idiots" for believing the innocent Michaels propaganda. Spavor was accused collecting info on PRC military on behalf of Korvig who used NGO as cover for intelligence work. That's about normal level of disclosure for national security, comparable to what US intelligence discloses on source and methods whenever they announce capture of PRC national taking photos of US defense installations. So yes, given all the context, CSIS celebrating their release + their NGO background + literal associate/friend admitting they had intelligence background + their subject matter interests all point to them being spies. It takes surpreme cognitive dissonance to assert otherwise in order to support the even less tenuous assertion that PRC security apparatus is so incompetent they have to hostage "innocent" westerners.
      - genmud 3y ago
        One was followed by police while he was in country, then detained by customs officials (I assume it was MSS) on exit, and was told in no uncertain terms not to come back. This is a regular cybersecurity person who was there to speak at a conference. He was given no records and when his company tried to dig into why he was detained, they unsurprisingly had no records of him being detained or questioned. I also done incident response for a number of companies targeted by Chinese state sponsored actors going after industrial and financial IP. You keep calling them spies, but in both cases it's not as clear as you make it out to be and there is no evidence they were spying. The US provides quite a bit of information when they charge someone with espionage. Kicking someone out of your country for taking photos of sensitive sites (US) and keeping quiet about sources/methods is different than arresting someone while refusing to show evidence of their crime(PRC). You act like someone with a regional interest will always be a spy if they have done intelligence work... there are tens of thousands of people who work for intelligence agencies in Canada and many more former employees. I'm not even denying they might have been spying or providing trip reports afterwards, but without evidence I have a choice between believing the Canadian government or the Chinese government... I'll choose to believe the Canadian government.

Yes, there are many examples if you simply google "china imprisoned business trip". When the Canadian government arrested a Huawei exec who was ignoring Iranian sanctions and lying to US investigators, the Chinese government arrested 2 Canadians as spies. Authoritarian governments fucking love to arrest people on "espionage" charges, since it is hard to prove and they can pretend to not be able to share because of national security.

aerio 3y ago
You forgot to mention how valuable they are as bargaining chips for mutual releases of prisoners. Case in point, the American basketball player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on accusations of having a cannabis vape pen - and was exchanged for the world's most notorious arms dealer, Victor Bout. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/08/brittney-griner-russia-us-prisoner-swap-viktor-bout https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/08/brittney-grine...
- genmud 3y ago
  Thats kind of what I was getting at with the Canadians, but Griner is a good example too.
dirtyid 3y ago
No there aren't. There's like ~150 cases of exit bans of "foreigners" in PRC in the last 20 years. Vast majority of exit bans are ex Chinese (primarily financial) criminals who thought western passport would protect them only to be coerced back into PRC to face justice. Or established expats who gets dragged into legal issues, especially with local interests. Some of which might be sus. Just about the only westerners rounded up and severely punished in PRC during travel are drug smugglers. Statistically, a westerner (not ex Chinese national) has less chance of being thoroughly fucked with in PRC than an ethnically Chinese scientist in the US via China Initiative. On the two Michaels', of course they were spies, with the customary NGO cover. Useful idiots who lap up western propaganda love to think PRC... a surveillance state with extremely competent state security organ that completely dismantled CIA spy network this decade somehow needs to capture innocent westerners when they could just snatch up legitimate spies. There's a reason CSIS, Canadian CIA, publically celebrated their release on twitter [0]. Not to mention this tidbit: >Edith Terry: Michael Kovrig is a friend, and I am very conscious of the privations he has endured. And while his background is complex and possibly included intelligence gathering for the Canadian government during his diplomatic career, he was very open about his research interests and contacts. [1] The other Michael ran NKorean pertaining NGO out of PRC. Connect the dots. [0] https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441571942721593345 https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441571942721593345 [1] https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/will-i-return-china https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/will-i-return-china Like it's not hard to stay out of severe trouble in PRC as a foreigner. Don't traffic drugs, don't spy i.e. don't take pictures of military. Almost all the other small shit you get to drink tea with cops and sign some paperwork which is basically kid glove treament. The only real exception is journalism, hence most foreign media has left the country.
- genmud 3y ago
  > Statistically, a westerner (not ex Chinese national) has less chance of being thoroughly fucked with in PRC than an ethnically Chinese scientist in the US via China Initiative. That has not been what I have observed with people I am friends with, nor the experience of other people I have worked with who go to China regularly. You call them useful idiots, but then call them spies. Which are they? Unknowingly assisting intelligence agencies or illegal spies? Where is the evidence, the PRC refused to provide any... and I'm sorry, but CSIS celebrating the release of a Canadian citizen isn't evidence they are a spy. Look at their feed, it's full of Canada related stuff all the time.
  - dirtyid 3y ago
    How many of your associates who goto PRC reguarly have exit bans or in prolonged legal limbo with the PRC security apparatus. I hazard to guess zero. If more than one, that's more reflection of who you are associating with. Charitably we're talking about 0.01% of the mainland expat population, realistically lower because majority of exit bans are ex PRC nationals who aren't connected to actual expat community. The reason why the Michael's arrest was even news is because they were anomolous incidents in the first place. I'm referring to people who believes western narrative that Michael's weren't spies as "useful idiots" for believing the innocent Michaels propaganda. Spavor was accused collecting info on PRC military on behalf of Korvig who used NGO as cover for intelligence work. That's about normal level of disclosure for national security, comparable to what US intelligence discloses on source and methods whenever they announce capture of PRC national taking photos of US defense installations. So yes, given all the context, CSIS celebrating their release + their NGO background + literal associate/friend admitting they had intelligence background + their subject matter interests all point to them being spies. It takes surpreme cognitive dissonance to assert otherwise in order to support the even less tenuous assertion that PRC security apparatus is so incompetent they have to hostage "innocent" westerners.
    - genmud 3y ago
      One was followed by police while he was in country, then detained by customs officials (I assume it was MSS) on exit, and was told in no uncertain terms not to come back. This is a regular cybersecurity person who was there to speak at a conference. He was given no records and when his company tried to dig into why he was detained, they unsurprisingly had no records of him being detained or questioned. I also done incident response for a number of companies targeted by Chinese state sponsored actors going after industrial and financial IP. You keep calling them spies, but in both cases it's not as clear as you make it out to be and there is no evidence they were spying. The US provides quite a bit of information when they charge someone with espionage. Kicking someone out of your country for taking photos of sensitive sites (US) and keeping quiet about sources/methods is different than arresting someone while refusing to show evidence of their crime(PRC). You act like someone with a regional interest will always be a spy if they have done intelligence work... there are tens of thousands of people who work for intelligence agencies in Canada and many more former employees. I'm not even denying they might have been spying or providing trip reports afterwards, but without evidence I have a choice between believing the Canadian government or the Chinese government... I'll choose to believe the Canadian government.