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Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

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Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#121

Post by goodcanadian »

dirtyid wrote: post #102
goodcanadian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never before heard of Canadian Patriot, but from the first sentence of the editor's note, I am led to strongly doubt its impartiality: Canadian Patriot Review Editor’s note: On September 24, 2021, an agreement was reached to free Meng Wanzhou who had been illegally held captive in Canada since December 2018 . . . There was nothing illegal about Meng Wanzhou's arrest. The U.S. made a request under a long extant…

The process for detaining the Michaels was legal as well. Every nation has authority to round up spies. Here's Kovrig's friend playing coy about his intelligence past. >Edith Terry: Michael Kovrig is a friend, and I am very conscious of the privations he has endured. And while his background is complex and possibly included intelligence gathering for the Canadian government during his diplomatic career, he was very o…

Yes, I almost added an addendum pointing out that China probably had the legal right to detain the Michaels under Chinese law (China is not always great at following its own written laws). In this whole business, let's just say that I have far more confidence in the fairness of the Canadian justice system than I do in the Chinese one.

I also agree that the U.S. most likely took advantage of the Canadian legal system to push a political agenda. That does not mean that the Canadian justice system did anything wrong. An extradition request was received, and so the process has to be followed in order to give a fair outcome under Canadian law. It is possible that extradition would have been refused and Meng Wanzhou would have been released. A big part of the reason that it dragged on for so long is that it was not an obvious straightforward case like most extradition hearings (though coronavirus certainly didn't help).

As for the claim that the Michaels actually were spies, well, I will keep an open mind, but I have not seen any credible evidence of that.

EDIT:

Nevermind that Canada had legally right to drop extradition if case is sufficiently politicized as well. But laws are subservient to politics.

You are seriously misunderstanding the Canadian legal system and the rule of law if you believe this. Laws generally are not subservient to politics except to the extent that Parliament can change the law. The law applies to everyone, politicians included. Yes, extradition can be refused if the motive for the request is determined to be political, BUT the court case must play out in order to determine this. Yes, the foreign minister can block any extradition if they believe there is a good reason to do so, but this would be a highly unusual thing to do as politicians avoid interfering in the legal system. It would be a very controversial thing to do.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#122

Post by jjeaff »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #56
enriquto wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a business perspective And that is our fault, to a great extent. By "we", here I mean citizens of western countries that put up with this bullshit. When one of "our" companies engages in this shameful authoritarian appeasement we should boycott them to oblivion. If we fail to do so, we are enabling this behavior. There's not much that we can do about human rights abuses in other countries. But there's a lot th…

>> When one of "our" companies engages in this shameful authoritarian appeasement we should boycott them to oblivion. What's the difference between what you're promoting and the knee-jerk cancel culture that's as bad as what it punishes? I like to think we can influence and change behaviours without "boycotting companies into oblivion", even if that was realistic or likely. There's a large distance between your aggre…

Just because some cancel culture is knee-jerk does not mean all attempts to cancel someone or something is necessarily wrong.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#123

Post by jjeaff »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #113
artificialLimbs wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plug the leaking holes in the boat and worry about getting the sail replaced when you get to shore. It's certainly easy to brush it off if you're not a murdered Uyghur.

> Plug the leaking holes in the boat and worry about getting the sail replaced when you get to shore. This is meaninglessly abstract. Anyone can offer trite platitudes. Concretely, how do we meet climate targets by the end of the century without China's participation? What additional burden does that put on the rest of the world, and how are we going to meet that when no one is on track to meet their current obligati…

You seem awfully convinced that this is an either/or situation.

I see no direct evidence that trying to help the Uyghurs necessarily inhibits our ability to pressure China to slow their climate destruction.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#124

Post by throwaway894345 »

jjeaff wrote: post #123
throwaway894345 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plug the leaking holes in the boat and worry about getting the sail replaced when you get to shore. This is meaninglessly abstract. Anyone can offer trite platitudes. Concretely, how do we meet climate targets by the end of the century without China's participation? What additional burden does that put on the rest of the world, and how are we going to meet that when no one is on track to meet their current obligati…

You seem awfully convinced that this is an either/or situation. I see no direct evidence that trying to help the Uyghurs necessarily inhibits our ability to pressure China to slow their climate destruction.

I think we can try to help the Uyghurs, but I think we have to do so in a way that allows China to save face (in contrast to the sort of cathartic, show-China-who's-boss sentiment upthread). But yeah, Washington and Beijing don't get along well, and a very fragile peace is emerging on climate. I think an aggressive push on the Uyghur issue would set back Chinese climate policy by years, and scientists seem to be telling us that we need to make a certain amount of progress by the end of the decade. So yeah, it kind of feels like a dichotomy to me.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#125

Post by burgerzzz »

I worked at Nike and we had the same thing occur. Basically change any and all references of Taiwan to “Taiwan - A province of China” or they threatened to shut down Nike.com in China. Everything else stopped until we made the change. I thought it was weird and showed how much influence China had over even a huge American company and brand. I quit three months ago, have vowed that I will never work for a corporation that chooses greed over people again.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#126

Post by weare138 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #91
artificialLimbs wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> they pale in comparison to its climate abuses Ah yes, the old "murdering a few people now is less of a problem than potentially murdering more people down the road" argument.

Yeah, I guess in my mind it’s worth finding face-saving means to alleviate Uyghur suffering in order to save humanity as we know it. But again I ask: what is your solution?

It's not our responsibility you refute your claims. It's yours to prove them. How is turning a blind eye to China's human rights abuses going to force their hand when it comes to climate change? What exactly is your plan here? Clearly explain how we get from point A to point B.

And when has this strategy ever worked? We did the same thing with Poland in WWII and look where that got us. You can't make deals with despots.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#127

Post by ncallaway »

mikestew wrote: post #93
ncallaway wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just as much evidence in the article that it was Marriott as a whole refusing. The original rejection email specifically said: "We consulted the whole matter with our corporate management" > "Thank you very much for your visit today. Unfortunately, I have to inform you that we are not able to offer the premises. We consulted the whole matter with our corporate management. For reasons of political neutrality,…

And not but two lines below what you quoted was corporate's response, which doesn't match what the local hotel was saying: "The Marriott spokesperson clarified in a statement to Axios that hosting the conference would not have violated any "political neutrality" policy, and said the reference to 'corporate management' in the email referred to 'hotel-level management.'" IOW, it sounds like the local hotel said to them…

I acknowledge there’s a dispute there, but I’m not going to uncritically accept the statement from Marriott’s spokesperson on this issue.

I’m not saying they’re lying, but I also think it would be naive to simply assume that their statement is definitely true.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#128

Post by throwaway894345 »

weare138 wrote: post #126
throwaway894345 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I guess in my mind it’s worth finding face-saving means to alleviate Uyghur suffering in order to save humanity as we know it. But again I ask: what is your solution?

It's not our responsibility you refute your claims. It's yours to prove them. How is turning a blind eye to China's human rights abuses going to force their hand when it comes to climate change? What exactly is your plan here? Clearly explain how we get from point A to point B. And when has this strategy ever worked? We did the same thing with Poland in WWII and look where that got us. You can't make deals with despo…

> How is turning a blind eye to China's human rights abuses going to force their hand when it comes to climate change?

That’s not my claim.

Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”

#129

Post by lenkite »

mleonhard wrote: post #120
enriquto wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a business perspective And that is our fault, to a great extent. By "we", here I mean citizens of western countries that put up with this bullshit. When one of "our" companies engages in this shameful authoritarian appeasement we should boycott them to oblivion. If we fail to do so, we are enabling this behavior. There's not much that we can do about human rights abuses in other countries. But there's a lot th…

You're putting responsibility on individuals to enforce ethical behavior. This has two problems: 1. People don't have enough motivation, knowledge, and free time to find and keep track of which companies behave ethically. Also, people are generally selfish and will buy from unethical companies if it saves them money or time. (I did this yesterday.) 2. Liars deceive large groups of people and escape punishment or caus…

> How about adding a law forbidding US people from discriminating in business based on political or religious affiliation?

Such laws would be terrific. Example: Gofundme will not be permitted to ban Kyle Rittenhouse's fundraising.

The number of folks on the right being discriminated against outnumber the folks on the left by several orders of magnitude.

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