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Second Canadian 'missing' in China

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Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#61

Post by briandon »

RidingPegasus wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the alleged crimes here are nothing in comparison Willfully violating sanctions is a serious crime.

UN sanctions were lifted on 16 January 2016. The US unilaterally decided in May this year they want to pull out of that agreement. The EU is still pushing ahead to have their largest companies trading with Iran despite American protestations. We both know nothing will happen to Daimler or Societe General execs.

Meng has been arrested for her alleged involvement in sanctions violations that took place sometime between 2010-2013 (i.e. during the U.N. Sanctions on Iran era), not for violations of the the current US-led sanctions.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/huawei-s-...

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#62

Post by briandon »

lechiffre10 wrote: post #33
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the alleged crimes here are nothing in comparison Willfully violating sanctions is a serious crime.

Sanctions imposed by the U.S that hold no merit according to WTO or International law aren't even legal and are in fact considered an act of war. The only crime committed here is by the U.S.

Meng's arrest is for actions she allegedly took to help Iran evade sanctions years ago, during the period in which U.N. sanctions on Iran were in force.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-07/huawei-s-...

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#63

Post by throwawa485 »

ralph84 wrote: post #7

I have little doubt both of these guys are spies. A guy working for an NGO that does "crisis research" and a guy leading tours in North Korea. LOL. Any country with sufficiently advanced counter-intelligence has a list of spies operating on their soil that they monitor and keep in reserve for when it's politically favorable to round them up.

I totally agree. Or at the very least, assests to spies.

China knew about them but let them operate, since known spies are better than unknown ones.

I mean, since everyone is already jumping to conclusions with no proof, this seems just as valid.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#65

Post by throwawa485 »

str33t_punk wrote: post #9

China is making themselves look horrible here. Ms. Meng has a proper reason for being arrested (the allegations are that she committed fraud to bypass US sanctions against Iran and sell them US tech by lying about HuaWei and SkyComs involvement to HSBC). There will be a trial, this investigation has been happening for years, and it is by the Justice Department, not a request from Trump (who seems to have been caught…

Since no one has any actual proof, I’ll just guess that the arrested Canadians are spies.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#66

Post by throwawa485 »

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.

Wasn’t China going to buy a ton of Canadian soybeans since they were avoiding US ones?

Recent news says China is starting to buy US soybeans now. If this was an American plan, it was brilliant.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#67

Post by barry-cotter »

paraditedc wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meng's trial in the US would be subject to political or economic considerations Unlike in China, Canadian and American courts are fiercely independent of the executive.

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…

If a judge in China gets told to do something by someone above him in the CPC the judge will write a plausible or not so plausible legal opinion justifying what they were told to do. There is unlikely to be any explicit paper trail and from the outside you might confuse the Potemkin legal system for that of a Rechtstaat, where the government is, at least theoretically, bound by laws. In the US or Canada the government can interfere in the judicial process for reasons of national security and that’s really it. If Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton or any of the others called up a Supreme Court Justice and tried to tell them what to do they’d get told, politely or not, to go take a running jump. The government’s lawyers can make an application for evidence to be sealed from public view if it’s classified, or they can ask that a prosecution be aborted for reasons of national security.

The big difference is that things do not work on the basis of discretion or chain of command. If the sub mayor of Baoshan District Shanghai tells a police officer to cover up a murder or charge a foreigner with drugs offences because they broke up with the sub mayor’s daughter it will happen. If Trump tries to shut down the Huawei investigation for national security reasons the court could listen to his justifications and say no.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#68

Post by diminish »

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.

US has become a risky destination for ordinary business travel. I suppose business and tech conferences better take place in neutral places where rule of law prevails.

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#69

Post by barry-cotter »

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.

I suggest you learn more about China before expressing opinions about the plausibility or not of these theories. Some good websites would be Balding’s World, written by Christopher Balding, or Scholar’s Stage, written by Tanner Greer.

Alternatively you could follow the two of them on Twitter, @BaldingsWorld or @Scholars_Stage

Re: Second Canadian 'missing' in China

#70

Post by gpm »

paraditedc wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meng's trial in the US would be subject to political or economic considerations Unlike in China, Canadian and American courts are fiercely independent of the executive.

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

Yes, nominating judges is basically the extent to which the judiciary is not independent, nominated justices are very much expected to act independently and without regards to who nominated them. Some examples of what Trump and Congress cannot do would be removing someone from the court, forcing the court to rule in a certain way, and so on.

> Also, didn't Trump himself say that he can intervene in Ms. Meng's case?

Trump regularly claims to be able to do things he can't in my experience - but yes. Trump can, perhaps, intervene in choosing not to prosecute Ms. Meng for a crime she did in fact commit. That's because how a court case works in the US is two sides argue their case to a judge. The judge is part of the judicial branch, but the side of the case representing the government is the executive branch of the government, which Trump is the head of. Prosecutors (the part of the executive branch that prosecutes people) have discretion towards which crimes they prosecute. With most prosecutions the president actually influencing the use of that power would probably be near impossible (but likely legal), extradition is more political as I understand it so he might actually be able to do so.

What Trump can't do is influence how that judges will react to the prosecution. If Ms. Meng did not commit a crime she will be found innocent (and indeed, if the government can't show that she committed a crime in a public trial with legally gathered evidence beyond a reasonable doubt). If the government can be shown to be knowingly maliciously prosecuting her despite her being innocent the attorney's involved will be sanctioned and she can likely sue the government for significant sums of money.

> What about the constant conservative vs democrat number battle in the supreme court?

This is basically entirely an unrelated internal politics thing. The US constitution is a rather vague document really, and as such there are some different interpretations. One party would prefer one set, another party would prefer another set, and they both try and nominate supreme court justices that will agree with their set. This has to do with things like "does the second amendment protect carrying handguns or just owning them". A "democratic" justice isn't going to be ruling on things because one side of a case is a democratic or anything like that.

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