Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China • Hacker News Board

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#91

Post by uiri » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:39 PM UTC

brilliantcode wrote: post #80

micaksica wrote: post #28

I don't have a lot of sympathy for this man's problems. When you're making your billions from the corruption in the Chinese state, you run the risk of ending up on the wrong side of it. It's no different than any other organized crime. I will be very surprised if Canada does or says anything of significance, given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. China has all the p…

> given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. so who are you speaking for when you use the blanket term "these people"? Are Chinese Born Canadians and other East Asian Canadians included in your labels? I'm seeing more and more of these anti-Chinese comments popping up on reddit /r/vancouver and frankly annoyed to see similar fear mongering and FUD spreading fake comment…

I interpreted "these people" to mean wealthy Chinese-born Chinese nationals who are taking their wealth out of China and parking it in British Columbia real estate. This would exclude Canadian-born Canadian citizens of East Asian descent.

This man obtained Canadian citizenship. He must have ties to one province or another. British Columbia is the most likely candidate since it is on the West Coast.

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#92

Post by iaw » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

rbcgerard wrote: post #48

iaw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mr. Xiao’s fortunes rose after his graduation from the university in 1990, where he had been head of the official student organization and stayed loyal to the government during the pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989. This guy is Canadian and Antiguan in name only, he's Chinese-born and trying to use his resources to escape the government that created his wealth. Of all the human rights/border violations that Chin…

and by that you mean he's only LEGALLY Canadian and Antiguan...

No, I meant what I wrote.

He holds properties in Canada, and has diplomatic status from Antigua, but they were purchased and he hasn't shown loyalties to those countries.

He didn't take up actual residency in either of the countries, he used their names to suit his international agenda.

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#93

Post by iaw » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #54

iaw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mr. Xiao’s fortunes rose after his graduation from the university in 1990, where he had been head of the official student organization and stayed loyal to the government during the pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989. This guy is Canadian and Antiguan in name only, he's Chinese-born and trying to use his resources to escape the government that created his wealth. Of all the human rights/border violations that Chin…

That's probably why they forcibly moved him across the border, taking a step to normalize the behavior, before moving on to more sympathetic targets in the future.

Sadly, you're probably correct.

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#94

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:43 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #78

sampo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> minority The Republicans have a majority in the House, in the Senate, and they have the President. Is the American voting system so defective that a minority can achieve all that?

The idea is that Republicans are a numeric minority, because all the densely populated cities are Democratic and thus the population majority of America is Democratic. However the US isn't a population based democracy, so Republicans hold all majority power in all the branches of government because they have the widest geographical coverage of any political party. Is this good or bad? Well.... hypothetical question.…

[deleted]

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#95

Post by paulddraper » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:43 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #78

sampo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> minority The Republicans have a majority in the House, in the Senate, and they have the President. Is the American voting system so defective that a minority can achieve all that?

The idea is that Republicans are a numeric minority, because all the densely populated cities are Democratic and thus the population majority of America is Democratic. However the US isn't a population based democracy, so Republicans hold all majority power in all the branches of government because they have the widest geographical coverage of any political party. Is this good or bad? Well.... hypothetical question.…

> the US isn't a population based democracy

Incorrect. Population corresponds to representation at national and state levels. This is enforced with a Constitutional base.

"One person, one vote" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#96

Post by tacostakohashi » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:43 PM UTC

zkirill wrote: post #36

micaksica wrote: post #28

I don't have a lot of sympathy for this man's problems. When you're making your billions from the corruption in the Chinese state, you run the risk of ending up on the wrong side of it. It's no different than any other organized crime. I will be very surprised if Canada does or says anything of significance, given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. China has all the p…

I am a Canadian citizen who lives in British Columbia and is not Chinese or of Chinese descent. The fact that a Canadian citizen was "seized" is very concerning to me and I hope that our government gets on top of this swiftly. I also don't see any facts on which you can base your corruption claim.

You think that Canadians should essentially be immune from local enforcement while outside of Canada?

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#97

Post by sparky_z » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

jwtadvice wrote: post #65

sparky_z wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me whether the anti-corruption drive arises out of a genuine antipathy towards corruption or as a means for Xi Jinping to consolidate personal power. This is especially hard because it seems likely that every Chinese bigwig is at least somewhat corrupt, and high-level Chinese power politics is opaque enough that it's not clear if only Xi's rivals are being targeted. I really don't know how to unpick…

It seems to me that it's an actual genuine effort, given that the publicity of the drive has damaged Chinese public confidence in their institutions of government (high profile corruption is often featured in the news) and because many of the people taken to court have been in Xi Jinpeng's own circle and have represented for him a loss of personal power in the party. I haven't read much about Xi's personal power grow…

I'm not trying to claim that I'm more well versed on the subject than you. Almost certainly the opposite! But I would like to push back a little on a couple of the points you made.

> the publicity of the drive has damaged Chinese public confidence in their institutions of government

If Mr. Xi's goal were to stay on past the customary 10-year term, wouldn't he need to discredit the current institutions of government and portray himself as the antidote?

> many of the people taken to court have been in Xi Jinpeng's own circle

My overly-simplistic model of China's government is that it is basically a one-party system with a veneer of formality over back-room intra-party struggles (along with a regular calendar of leadership replacement to prevent too much consolidation of power around an individual, as happened to an extent with Deng Xiaoping in the aftermath of Mao's death). Under this model, official political power tends to correspond directly to internal party clout. So wouldn't anybody with enough clout to be a threat to Xi be likely to be found within his own circle (AKA, higher ups in the current government)? I admit I could be way off base in my analysis here, as I haven't studied China's government in depth.

> Documents and communications from Jinping or his circle discussing "who to go after" would represent a smoking gun (of course we haven't even smelled anything like this).

Just out of curiosity, have we seen any such documents or communications (on any subject) that weren't intended for public consumption? That seems like important context as to whether absence of evidence can realistically be considered evidence of absence.

Again, since you seem to have studied this in more detail than I have, I'm interested in your thoughts on these questions.

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#98

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

brilliantcode wrote: post #80

micaksica wrote: post #28

I don't have a lot of sympathy for this man's problems. When you're making your billions from the corruption in the Chinese state, you run the risk of ending up on the wrong side of it. It's no different than any other organized crime. I will be very surprised if Canada does or says anything of significance, given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. China has all the p…

> given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. so who are you speaking for when you use the blanket term "these people"? Are Chinese Born Canadians and other East Asian Canadians included in your labels? I'm seeing more and more of these anti-Chinese comments popping up on reddit /r/vancouver and frankly annoyed to see similar fear mongering and FUD spreading fake comment…

> so who are you speaking for when you use the blanket term "these people"?

I'm not the GP, but I think it very clearly means corrupt people.

Still, I have almost as much problem taking China's government accusation of corruption on face value as I have believing somebody can honestly become a billionaire in China.

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#99

Post by Tiktaalik » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 7:56 PM UTC

brilliantcode wrote: post #80

micaksica wrote: post #28

I don't have a lot of sympathy for this man's problems. When you're making your billions from the corruption in the Chinese state, you run the risk of ending up on the wrong side of it. It's no different than any other organized crime. I will be very surprised if Canada does or says anything of significance, given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. China has all the p…

> given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. so who are you speaking for when you use the blanket term "these people"? Are Chinese Born Canadians and other East Asian Canadians included in your labels? I'm seeing more and more of these anti-Chinese comments popping up on reddit /r/vancouver and frankly annoyed to see similar fear mongering and FUD spreading fake comment…

> I'm seeing more and more of these anti-Chinese comments popping up on reddit /r/vancouver and frankly annoyed to see similar fear mongering and FUD spreading fake comments outside of that cesspool of bitter and shut in crowd.

It's not really an 'anti-Chinese' sentiment I'm seeing. It's more that British Columbians aren't happy with the effects of the influx of global capital and high net worth individuals on Vancouver. An additional factor into the negative attitudes around the influx of high net worth foreigners there is a sense (coupled with a fair bit of evidence) that many of these real estate speculators and high net worth individuals aren't playing by the rules and are avoiding taxes and other rules.

Re: Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

#100

Post by hluska » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 8:03 PM UTC

brilliantcode wrote: post #80

micaksica wrote: post #28

I don't have a lot of sympathy for this man's problems. When you're making your billions from the corruption in the Chinese state, you run the risk of ending up on the wrong side of it. It's no different than any other organized crime. I will be very surprised if Canada does or says anything of significance, given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. China has all the p…

> given that these people are politically unpopular and causing issues for British Columbia. so who are you speaking for when you use the blanket term "these people"? Are Chinese Born Canadians and other East Asian Canadians included in your labels? I'm seeing more and more of these anti-Chinese comments popping up on reddit /r/vancouver and frankly annoyed to see similar fear mongering and FUD spreading fake comment…

I understand that this is a sensitive issue, but your point would be stronger if you dropped the tone by several degrees. In this case, you seriously misrepresented the parent and turned what should be a very civil conversation into the polarized bullshit that absolutely ruins the internet.