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US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

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Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#51
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Australia as well. They recently gave an Australian citizen a death penalty sentence in retaliation for the ongoing conflict between Australia and China. At the rate things are going, in another five years nobody from a liberal nation will be able to safely visit Xi's new hermit kingdom. It's a shame. I always thought it would be nice to visit Hong Kong.

A real "hermit kingdom" has no exports, though, no? If China is going that way, I can't imagine how it plans to keep its economy going. Does it think its urban centers are already self-sufficient centers of economic demand for the products it produces currently?

I don't think total isolation in every regard is a requirement.

Wikipedia refers to it as:

"The term hermit kingdom is used to refer to any country, organization or society which willfully walls itself off, either metaphorically or physically, from the rest of the world."

Seems reasonable.

China is going to become increasingly walled off in terms of physical access into China (and they'll likely further restrict foreign travel by their citizens), matching how they've already walled the country off with regards to the Internet & foreign press. It had to happen, the smothering process has to continue indefinitely until or unless they reverse course on liberalization. These processes tend to spiral down by necessity. The more you clamp down, the more you have to clamp down; you can't allow challenges to the vast number of invented narratives (which comes from foreign injection: outside press, outside visitors, allowing a large number of your citizens to visit other nations and see that the narratives are falsified, etc).

The exports would be the last thing to get walled off, I'd expect. Neither side of the wall really wants that. It's not hard to see a scenario where China is highly isolated socially and culturally, while still being an immense export power.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#52
post #2

I've been to China a few times, most recently in late 2018. I traveled overland by train from Beijing to Xian and then to Shanghai. Everything as a non-chinese citizen was just harder than it was when I visited in 2014. Buying train tickets was a massive hassle without a Chinese ID. Paying for anything was difficult because many places no longer take cash and you can't really get a proper WeChat account as a foreigne…

Posted 10 mins ago and already downvoted. Do HN not have algos to stop this astroturfing behaviour? It’s becoming very prevalent for anything that criticises the CCP.

10 minutes? Luxury!

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#53
post #38

[removed]

> A bit of an oxymoron there isn't it. How do you enforce a law without maintaining law and order.

The point is just that the intent of applying the law is not maintaining law and order.

Lika a policeman seeing 100 people jaywalking, but only arrests the rich/poor/black/white/foreign/blonde/girl/guy, not because they want to maintain law and order by policing jaywalking, but for some other reason.

> Of course anything and everything is a sign of a "New Cold War"

Unfortunately. The respective threads are also often emotional, light on facts and relatively unreflected.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#54
post #31

The current administration has been bullying China incessantly. I'm not going to say if the reasons were justified or not because it's complicated, but we shouldn't be surprised by China's response. It's not like we're actively trying to improve relations either.

China's state-sponsored IP theft has been called the largest transfer of wealth in history. I'm honestly curious what the best diplomatic strategy is to combat it, other than declaring war.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#56

This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying, all because of political retaliation over that rich lady

For Australia as well. They recently gave an Australian citizen a death penalty sentence in retaliation for the ongoing conflict between Australia and China. At the rate things are going, in another five years nobody from a liberal nation will be able to safely visit Xi's new hermit kingdom. It's a shame. I always thought it would be nice to visit Hong Kong.

I'm very glad that I managed to visit it in the early 2000s.

One of my abiding impressions and favourite photos of the trip was a street where signage had proliferated so much that it was solid, and the only constraint on incursion into the street was whether or not it got hit by a bus. The ubiquitous vendors of fake watches and shops offering to make you a suit. Skyscrapers on every surface that wasn't a 45 degree slope. The outdoor escalator. Huge, neat, organised, airconditioned subway.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#57
post #2

I've been to China a few times, most recently in late 2018. I traveled overland by train from Beijing to Xian and then to Shanghai. Everything as a non-chinese citizen was just harder than it was when I visited in 2014. Buying train tickets was a massive hassle without a Chinese ID. Paying for anything was difficult because many places no longer take cash and you can't really get a proper WeChat account as a foreigne…

> The entire time I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was living in a dystopian future [...] they use facial recognition at crosswalks and then put up the name and picture of violators on a huge screen at the intersection "feeling of a dystopian future"? That sounds straight like from an episode of Black Mirror.

Yeah actually I did get a Black Mirror kind of vibe at certain times for sure.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#58
post #8

Not just arrested but tortured, as we've seen with the two Canadian Michaels and the British Simon Cheng. Edit: British-employed not actually British

Well Canada really defied China by arresting Huawei CFO and (could then extradite to US). China is really in a weird coldish war with the West, especially when you throw in England defying them with sanctuary for HKers.

They must be getting pissed, curious how things could escalate.

Re: US citizens warned they face arbitrary arrest in China

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why there's a country where doing a crime is a good idea? I can recall that also US still have capital punishment for example

I’d imagine it’s far easier to be sentenced to death there as opposed to the US.

To be honest, as European I think China and US are pretty similar in many ways (propaganda, law enforcement etc).

So said each country has their own problem but if anybody focus more on resolving their internal problem before teaching everybody how to live would be better.

In this forum is very hard to discuss anything serious that doesn't follow the prevalent opinion that you get down votes without reason.

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