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If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

harrisbricken.com

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Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think my freedom is at risk when I go there honestly. There are probably people in some fields or businesses that do have some risk. But I think the fears are overblown.

As long as you or any relation/acquaintance/company/nation you belong to do not offend China, you're cool. Case in point: the two Michaels from Canada detained 'suddenly' after a Huawei executive was detained in Canada in relation to a US govt case: https://globalnews.ca/news/8224094/canada-china-two-michaels... Though a third Canadian had his conviction retried to a worse sentence - death.

The arrest of the Michaels may or may not have been justified, but they were hardly average Canadian tourists. To put this into context:

Michael Kovrig is a former diplomat who at the time of his arrest worked for International Crisis Group, an NGO which is directly funded by a number of government organizations.

Michael Spavor was deeply and highly visibly involved in North Korean international affairs, and reportedly met Kim Jong-Un himself.

Most people will never come close to the government relationships and risk profiles these two had.

Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#152
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exceptionally rare in other civilised countries, in the USA it's an order of magnitude more common. You've somehow normalised your own employees killing your own citizens.

It's not "orders of magnitude bigger". Canada is half of the US per capita rate. So is Luxembourg. Are Canada and Luxembourg "uncivilized"? And an exceptionally rare event that is 2-10x more common is still exceptionally rare. Don't scare monger.

An order of magnitude.

Just one. Ballpark 10x greater. Per capita.

I'm being numerically accurate.

Next you'll be telling us that school shootings are exceptionally rare .. and what, they don't matter because of that?

As I said, the US has normalised behaviour considered abhorent and deviant elsewhere.

Both morally and numerically.

Them's the facts.

Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#153
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "orders of magnitude bigger". Canada is half of the US per capita rate. So is Luxembourg. Are Canada and Luxembourg "uncivilized"? And an exceptionally rare event that is 2-10x more common is still exceptionally rare. Don't scare monger.

An order of magnitude. Just one. Ballpark 10x greater. Per capita. I'm being numerically accurate. Next you'll be telling us that school shootings are exceptionally rare .. and what, they don't matter because of that? As I said, the US has normalised behaviour considered abhorent and deviant elsewhere. Both morally and numerically. Them's the facts .

But it's not an order of magnitude higher than other countries like Canada or Luxembourg. It's 50% higher.

Why did you avoid addressing that question?

And saying "them's the fact" doesn't really change anything if you don't address the fact shown.

And I as said (and you ignored), you stand a 20x higher chance of dying in a car accident. Do you avoid using cars at all? If you have to travel in a car, do you say "I'm not doing that! Too risky!"

If not, why would you be concerned at all about something with 20x less risk?

Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And miss making a personal impression of a country surrounded by so many myths? Good advice for people scared of their own shadow, bad advice for everyone else. Because honestly: > The typical reasons for the Chinese government imposing an exit ban that prohibits a foreigner from leaving China is for allegedly committing a crime, allegedly owing money to a Chinese company, or being in some other sort of dispute with…

Russians use diplomacy passports for their spies. It's not ironic that they are being checked extra while they are threatening with nuclear war every week :)

All countries that can afford spies use diplomatic passports for some of them.

Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#155
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russians use diplomacy passports for their spies. It's not ironic that they are being checked extra while they are threatening with nuclear war every week :)

All countries that can afford spies use diplomatic passports for some of them.

Based on what? Russia is absolutely a record holder of abuse of diplomatic passports

Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it a fascist police state, or just a different set of expected behavior patterns? Unequivocally yes, it absolutely is a fascist police state by any definition of the notion, even when compared to other notoriously authoritarian states. Sure, many countries have their flaws and legal quirks, but to claim legal ambiguity about the status of China despite absolute mountains of evidence to the contrary on all kinds o…

> Nazi-type > Nazi It gets harder and harder to take this kind of rhetorics seriously these days, especially the last few years - everyone labels everyone else they don't like as "nazis". This is borderline Nazi apologizm. They recycled people into furniture, butchered millions based on genetics alone. I honestly couldn't care less for that westsplaining about China at this point (or any other culture European civili…

First: Yes, while comparisons to nazis can become tiresome, China sincerely does fit the bill, at least as far as the Nazi state before the second world war goes. Imprisoning and socially repressing millions of uyghurs can be described in few other fitting ways. Maybe Stalin's mass repressions of nationalities fit too, but that's hardly a morally better comparison.

Second: I don't give a shit what the west did in its past or how anyone is ignoring that. It doesn't change the basic realities of how the Chinese state, now, today, treats a certain minority in its borders (and outside them too) and how it controls the rest of its population. The history of the west is irrelevant in the context of condemning a current repression and to say that this repression shouldn't be called out because of some past event by another culture to which someone belongs is ridiculous.

As for "westplaining" what the hell are you even talking about? What a cheap label for shutting down legitimate arguments about specific real events happening now that fully deserve condemnation.

Re: If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nazi-type > Nazi It gets harder and harder to take this kind of rhetorics seriously these days, especially the last few years - everyone labels everyone else they don't like as "nazis". This is borderline Nazi apologizm. They recycled people into furniture, butchered millions based on genetics alone. I honestly couldn't care less for that westsplaining about China at this point (or any other culture European civili…

First: Yes, while comparisons to nazis can become tiresome, China sincerely does fit the bill, at least as far as the Nazi state before the second world war goes. Imprisoning and socially repressing millions of uyghurs can be described in few other fitting ways. Maybe Stalin's mass repressions of nationalities fit too, but that's hardly a morally better comparison. Second: I don't give a shit what the west did in its…

Except there is no "legitimate argument" here. Just throwing emotive words around and hoping some of that sticks.

If you feel like the matter of "a certain minority" in China is any way relevant to what Nazis did, then maybe you wasted your time at school and should open up a history book and look up what exactly was the context of what Nazi were doing to Jewish and Romani people.

As distasteful as China's actions might seem to be, their end goal is assimilation, unlike Nazi's goals of isolation and physical extermination - I'll refer you to the fate of "The Association of German National Jews" on this one.

Westsplaining is just a phenomenon of certain people rationalizing their own xenophobia without actually caring about the principles they talk about so much when trying to take some moral highground. Which is why the "history" (as if it happened too long ago or seized to be the case now, yeah, right) of western civilization dealing with similar issues is "irrelevant". This term should be in the "see also" section under "looking at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and paying no attention to the plank in your own eye".

You can condemn all you want, but I don't personally see why objectively China should deserve to be treated any worse than say United States, that had fared far worse in similar situations, like it's reaction to 9/11 with torching a whole other fucking side of the planet, or it's ICE detention camps - the last one being actually much closer to Nazi isolation policies than China's assimilation policy of Wahhabism-leaning minorities.

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