Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Second Canadian 'missing' in China

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 117 posts

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#51

Post by RidingPegasus »

nutcracker46 wrote: post #27
fatjokes wrote: post #5

The US has played Canada. They request this, Canada performs the arrest, Trump plays good cop ("I'll intervene if I have to"), and China can't retaliate against the US but can take it out on Canada. I'm sure Trump is giddy given how much he dislikes Trudeau.

Nobody played Canada. There is an extradition treaty which specifies when one country may arrest suspects in the other country. Rule of law. Neither popular opinion nor pressure from government executives supersede the law. If the law is thought to be wrong, then a challenge may be taken to the courts. When will China's pleistocene concept of law catch up to the 21st century?

That's not how it works, Canada has refused numerous extradition requests from the US.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#52

Post by kw71 »

wisdomoftheages wrote: post #21

Meng was arrested for fraud, lying to U.S. banks and violating financial disclosure laws; no different than any garden variety money-launderer. Most importantly, she's had a day in court, been granted bail in a hearing that was open to the media, and if extradited, will receive due process and a fair criminal trial where everyone will get to see the evidence against her. These two men have been 'disappeared'. Good lu…

None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved.

While the majority of US Federal prosecutions are honest, FBI agents and US attorneys do get involved in misapplication of the law and reckless prosecution for political or personal reasons.

And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior is a real tough sell. It would be easier to sell sand in the desert.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#53

Post by [deleted] »

RidingPegasus wrote: post #26
sonnyblarney wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What did they really expect arresting corporate dynasty?" Justice? Transparency? Rule of law? Freedom of conscience and expression? 'Doing business with Iran' is not what she was arrested for - she was arrested for proving tech made in the USA to Iran, which is definitely a different thing. Grated it was very low tech.

> Crown counsel told a Friday bail hearing in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver Friday that Meng is "charged with conspiracy to defraud multiple international institutions" https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bail-hearing... Do you foresee extradition requests for EU executives doing business with Iran? https://www.dw.com/en/eu-plan-to-sidestep-iran-sanctions-how...

[deleted]

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#54

Post by latch »

curiousgal wrote: post #30
wybiral wrote: post #20

People are jumping to a number of conclusions in these threads with little evidence. The rapid down-voting is crazy. There's no confirmation that this had anything to do with Meng, or that these people weren't guilty of something worth investigating. Wait for more details before assuming that everything is connected.

Extrapolating from that, I always find it amusing when people seem to have global politics figured out, not realizing that it's a complex dynamic system with hundreds if not thousands of agents at play, when they ,the very same people, would be lost watching a two-player poker game.

It's concerning. People have strong opinions (bordering on it being a "fact") about places they've never been to (or near). They might have never even left their country. It isn't something they've studied, it isn't remotely related to their work. But they still _know_ how it is.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#55

Post by gpm »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #8

Is this really retaliation for Meng? Wow that's incredibly artless and ham-fisted if true.

All evidence points towards it being so.

The first Canadian detained this time was a diplomat on a leave of absence from the foreign service [0]. As non politically neutral as you can get without seriously violating diplomatic protocol.

China has a history of detaining people over political issues like this. The last time (2014) we (Canada) were considering extraditing a spy to the US they arrested two random Canadians and held them for half a year and 2 years [1].

As a Canadian I certainly hope that the only reaction by the Canadian government to this will be sanctions and cooling of relationships. We should not give into this bullying. Having a totalitarian state behind you should not make you above the law. People who chose to visit foreign states have to accept the risk that they will be subject to unjust laws.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kovrig-detained-china-tuesd...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/canada/canadian-cou...

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#56

Post by monksy »

tinza123 wrote: post #46
monksy wrote: post #43

If this is a retaliation and they intend on continuing on this. China is going to find it's self on the bad end of travel advisories by a lot of western nations. BTW There have been videos about "tourist crackdowns" and how some of the authoritarian governments use visitors as scapegoats of bad behavior.

That seems to be the least of the problems right now. And of course when Canada just arrested business people they never need to worry about the travel advisories for Chinese ppl.

I'm suggesting is that a lot of western nations may place it on a "Risky Travel location" warning.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#57

Post by paraditedc »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
paraditedc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this brought up quite a lot, but to me, a Chinese national, it's confusing how judiciary branch is independent. Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? And isn't the nomination confirmed by congress? What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court? Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case? Edit: Great. Thanks for the downvotes as an…

> Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? Independent, not sovereign [1]. The branches can check each other, but a judge over whom the President has pretty much zero power will decide if Ms. Meng is guilty or not. For example, one of Trump's nominees recently voted to keep existing case law regarding Planned Parenthood in place [2]. This disappointed conservatives. But there isn't anything the President can…

Well things just got more ridiculous now that your comment is being downvoted. HN is weird sometimes.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#58

Post by gpm »

kw71 wrote: post #52
wisdomoftheages wrote: post #21

Meng was arrested for fraud, lying to U.S. banks and violating financial disclosure laws; no different than any garden variety money-launderer. Most importantly, she's had a day in court, been granted bail in a hearing that was open to the media, and if extradited, will receive due process and a fair criminal trial where everyone will get to see the evidence against her. These two men have been 'disappeared'. Good lu…

None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved. While the majority of US Federal prosecutions are honest, FBI agents and US attorneys do get involved in misapplication of the law and reckless prosecution for political or personal reasons. And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior…

Canada absolutely should not have considered it when deciding to get involved.

Canada, like any civilized nation, should follow the rule of law. If that has consequences for our deals with and nationals living in totalitarian states, so be it. You shouldn't get to be above the law just because a big trading partner wants you to be.

Canada doesn't have a president, but the idea that our Prime Minister, or more importantly, our government respects the rule of law more than China isn't a hard sell at all. As bad as Trump is, the same is true about him (even if arguably only because the system forces it on him), and is certainly true of the American government as a whole.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#59

Post by shard972 »

kw71 wrote: post #52
wisdomoftheages wrote: post #21

Meng was arrested for fraud, lying to U.S. banks and violating financial disclosure laws; no different than any garden variety money-launderer. Most importantly, she's had a day in court, been granted bail in a hearing that was open to the media, and if extradited, will receive due process and a fair criminal trial where everyone will get to see the evidence against her. These two men have been 'disappeared'. Good lu…

None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved. While the majority of US Federal prosecutions are honest, FBI agents and US attorneys do get involved in misapplication of the law and reckless prosecution for political or personal reasons. And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior…

> None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved.

Maybe on HN, but is this really old news to all of our governments? I was watching CBC last night on all the issues the Canadian government is now running into with their 5g rollout since they were one of the few western countries who decided to deal with china.

Either they didn't know what china was, or they have better information on china then we do.

> And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior is a real tough sell.

Is this a troll? Did we see trump pass a law unlocking the term limit for president? Because Xi did that, that's why hes even still in office.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#60

Post by abc-xyz »

paraditedc wrote: post #57
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn't Trump nominate the supreme court justice? Independent, not sovereign [1]. The branches can check each other, but a judge over whom the President has pretty much zero power will decide if Ms. Meng is guilty or not. For example, one of Trump's nominees recently voted to keep existing case law regarding Planned Parenthood in place [2]. This disappointed conservatives. But there isn't anything the President can…

Well things just got more ridiculous now that your comment is being downvoted. HN is weird sometimes.

Whenever you post something negative towards China then your post usually end up at -2 ~ -5 before slowly climbing up again. I personally don't care about karma but I do care about text becoming less readable, so it's unfortunate that it's so easy to game the system.
Post reply on HN