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China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

washingtonpost.com

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Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#51

Post by scrumper »

mikeash wrote: post #40
abbe_k wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really. In terms of “this has completely ruined my life,” 15 years in a Chinese prison would rate about 9.8 out of 10 for me, while death is 10 out of 10. In terms of balancing the benefits of travel versus the risk of law enforcement misconduct, that additional 0.2 out of 10 makes no noticeable difference.

That seems a little glib. They're not going to scoop out your brain in prison and you have _a_ future, even if it's not the one you were planning for.

Invert it: if faced with the death penalty, how much effort would you expend to get it commuted to 15 years?

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#53

Post by mikeash »

fermienrico wrote: post #37
mikeash wrote: post #28

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…

I’ve always had a pleasant experience returning home. I travel 200 days in a year and never have I had a bad experience during US Immigration. In fact, I look forward to “Welcome home” from an officer although now it’s more expedited with the automated passport control and they hardly take more than 20 seconds to let you go. I am curious of your bad experience, can you tell us more? Edit: I do not look like a typical…

Weird. I have never had a pleasant experience with US customs. They are usually not unpleasant either, but they’re never friendly or even more than vaguely polite.

(I say “usually” because my wife was once told off quite rudely when she went through the visitors line as a permanent resident, because she wanted to help and translate for visiting family members she was with.)

The worst part of the experience is knowing they will not hesitate to fuck me over if they decide they want to, and I have little recourse. They can’t keep me out of the country, but they can screw me up for hours or days if they want. They can keep my wife out of the country arbitrarily, and the only fix there would be a lengthy and expensive legal process with no guarantee of success.

It’s minor compared to the hypothetical example of being imprisoned or executed on false drug charges, but my point isn’t that US immigration isn’t equivalently bad, but that I felt and experienced no menace whatsoever from Chinese law enforcement.

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#54

Post by roboys »

ubercow13 wrote: post #31
CydeWeys wrote: post #4

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.

Multiple popular tourist destination countries execute people for drug offences and it doesn't seem to be that big of an issue.

Most asian countries execute because colonizers were drug dealers. All the famous people we love like Thomas Jefferson's family, the Roosevelt clan, and extensions of the British Royal Family.

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#55

Post by [deleted] »

rando444 wrote: post #17
redleggedfrog wrote: post #5

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.

If you read the article, you'll note that he was already arrested and convicted before all of this began. It's his sentencing that is being used to "make an example". Clearly this is done for political reasons to "send a message" .. and judges in the US routinely use sentencing as a means to do the same. The only thing here is the disconnect between the harsh sentencing and the perceived reasons for it. I mean, you'r…

[deleted]

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#56

Post by ReptileMan »

b88d80170 wrote: post #3

If he is not Canadian, would it be different for such drug case?

Doubtful. In China (and majority of east and se asia) severe drug penalties are common. Do not touch drugs in the areas. A friend from Shanghai once told me that he has heard (apply huge grain of salt) that there are 5000 drug related executions in China yearly - mostly in the southern and western parts of the country.

It is probably his original sentence was a show of clemency towards canadian citizen which they now take back.

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#57

Post by scrumper »

rrggrr wrote: post #23

Chinese leadership doesn't want Meng Wanzhou to talk, revealing the full extent of Huawei misdeeds. The new sentence for Schellenberg is - I believe - a message of solidarity for Meng's consumption and less an attempt to manipulate the Canadian justice system. Keep in-mind Shellenberg was sentenced to 15 years. A re-sentencing like this is unusual and experts say manipulated. The sooner Meng is extradited to the US,…

A message of solidarity, which when you unwrap it contains a subtle threat.

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#58

Post by roboys »

CydeWeys wrote: post #4

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.

If you don't take drugs there you have nothing to worry about.

Reminds me of all the people complaining about Singapore's tough laws when they punish American vandals and execute druggies.

Don't break the law, drugs are not a joke in Asia (especially true since western governments proved they were/are not above using drugs as an economic attack vector).

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#59

Post by mikeash »

scrumper wrote: post #51
mikeash wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. In terms of “this has completely ruined my life,” 15 years in a Chinese prison would rate about 9.8 out of 10 for me, while death is 10 out of 10. In terms of balancing the benefits of travel versus the risk of law enforcement misconduct, that additional 0.2 out of 10 makes no noticeable difference.

That seems a little glib. They're not going to scoop out your brain in prison and you have _a_ future, even if it's not the one you were planning for. Invert it: if faced with the death penalty, how much effort would you expend to get it commuted to 15 years?

I don’t think the inversion is a useful way to look at it.

Here’s the right way to look at it: what do you consider to be the acceptable odds of being imprisoned for 15 years while traveling to a foreign country? And what are the acceptable odds for being killed?

I don’t have a concrete number for either one, but they wouldn’t be much different.

Consider also that your odds of dying in a traffic accident are much higher than your odds of being executed on false pretenses by the state in most places (especially China, where they’ve only recently decided that wearing seat belts is something you should actually do, and the annual per-vehicle fatality rate is almost 10x that of the US), so the added risk from executions is hard to even detect.

Re: China sentences Canadian man to death in drug case linked to Huawei row

#60

Post by [deleted] »

mikeash wrote: post #28
CydeWeys wrote: post #4

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…

[deleted]
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