31–40 of 226 posts
At this point I think I'm too afraid to ever go to China. You can't get justice there, and you can be swept up into some stupid diplomatic spat. Don't they realize how short-sighted this is? This is incredibly harmful to tourism.
At this point I think I'm too afraid to ever go to China. You can't get justice there, and you can be swept up into some stupid diplomatic spat. Don't they realize how short-sighted this is? This is incredibly harmful to tourism.
I don't think that tourism is as much of a big deal to China as you think, and additionally I've got a feeling that most potential tourists wouldn't be aware of this news item or could dismiss it as "those people probably did something stupid, it won't apply to me"
It's interesting to me how much China is behaving very much like a "gang", like the Crips or Bloods from the 80's. "You take one of ours, we'll grab some of yours." Doesn't matter what the reasons for the grabs are, it's just posturing. It's sad when you're international relations are at the level of hoodlums.
That's always the case. Interpreting international relations as spats between gang members (or 8 year-olds) clarifies a lot of things.
This man Winston Sterzel [0] has been predicting something like this will happen in China, as they have no tolerance for drugs due to the horrors of the opium crisis. [0] = https://www.youtube.com/user/serpentza
>they have no tolerance for drugs due to the horrors of the opium crisis. Are you sure? They are the huge exporter of Fentanyl to North America while the Chinese Government turns a blind eye.
Chinese government unofficially encourages entrapment of high profile executives as bargaining chips.
Canada doesn’t like when one of their citizens is ensnared, applies pressure by upping the ante - holding a legitimate financial criminal from China.
China sees a game of chicken and ups the ante further - to “death” the ultimate expression of raw state power, intended to intimidate.
What happens next? I just hope no one dies.
It's interesting to me how much China is behaving very much like a "gang", like the Crips or Bloods from the 80's. "You take one of ours, we'll grab some of yours." Doesn't matter what the reasons for the grabs are, it's just posturing. It's sad when you're international relations are at the level of hoodlums.
at risk of sounding like an edgy libertarian, what do you think is the difference between a government and a gang with internal rules?
Gangs rule territory and the people within it almost strictly by violence. The closest similar in governments is a dictatorship, which must rule by the constant arbitrary application of violence to keep people terrified. A proper government operates by the peaceful consent - representative government, democratic systems, constitutional rights protections - of citizens of that government.
This is obviously not always the case with governments, however it is overwhelmingly (nearly exclusively) the case in the more prosperous, stable nations.
Gangs don't operate by the democratic vote of those that suffer/live within their dominion, they operate by the stray, subjective, whim based application of extreme violence. Codes of honor that are strictly adhered to within the mafia or gangs is wholly a fantasy, a lie, cheap hollywood bullshit at odds with all of history. Brutal behavior is a requirement of maintaining power as a gang. Gangs must also constantly murder or intimidate other neighboring gangs, to maintain their territorial control. Properly a government does not behave that way. The US doesn't need to kill everyone in Canada and take what they have, in order for the US to be prosperous or to maintain US sovereignty and power; the same goes for the relations between eg Finland and Sweden, or Australia and New Zealand.
Gangs very specifically do not primarily operate by an objective application of rules of justice. Stable, prosperous nations & their governments tend to thrive precisely due to the application of objective laws, the steady enforcement of and protection of human liberty. Gangs operate by the subjective command at the top and the effective enslavement of productive people through terror. The rules are subject to arbitrary, often extreme, change when it's convenient to the gang's ruler/s. A new gang leadership can pivot the gang to an entirely different behavior on a whim; such behavioral change is wrong in a civilized nation, where human rights protections should be the primary concern and are not up for arbitrarily being tossed out the window. When the next leadership of the governments of Australia or Sweden come into being, they aren't going to randomly decide to murder a lot of people to establish their dominance.
This list doesn't stop, the differences between a proper government and a gang is elaborate. They're nearly polar opposites.
At this point I think I'm too afraid to ever go to China. You can't get justice there, and you can be swept up into some stupid diplomatic spat. Don't they realize how short-sighted this is? This is incredibly harmful to tourism.
He was already a convicted drug trafficker. I don’t see any indication that his original 15-year sentence was improper. It is possible that he was falsely convicted, of course, but I don’t know that this is more likely in China than elsewhere. Suddenly changing his sentence to death is rather suspicious, but at least for me it doesn’t make a huge difference compared to a 15-year sentence. Random anecdote: I just got…
I am curious of your bad experience, can you tell us more?
Edit: I do not look like a typical US Citizen.
Edit: Tangentially, I have also had great experience with American police. I’ve been pulled over a few times and the officers always have a calm demeanor with utmost level of professionalism. The narrative of US authorities mishaving happens in headline cases, not to vast number of people.
The moment anyone starts using a death row felon as a bargaining chip, the death sentence turns into a political murder.
At this point I think I'm too afraid to ever go to China. You can't get justice there, and you can be swept up into some stupid diplomatic spat. Don't they realize how short-sighted this is? This is incredibly harmful to tourism.
He was already a convicted drug trafficker. I don’t see any indication that his original 15-year sentence was improper. It is possible that he was falsely convicted, of course, but I don’t know that this is more likely in China than elsewhere. Suddenly changing his sentence to death is rather suspicious, but at least for me it doesn’t make a huge difference compared to a 15-year sentence. Random anecdote: I just got…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was already a convicted drug trafficker. I don’t see any indication that his original 15-year sentence was improper. It is possible that he was falsely convicted, of course, but I don’t know that this is more likely in China than elsewhere. Suddenly changing his sentence to death is rather suspicious, but at least for me it doesn’t make a huge difference compared to a 15-year sentence. Random anecdote: I just got…
You don't think there is a big difference between 15 years in prison and the death penalty? You still have a lot of time left in life after 15 years so it is major difference.