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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

#161

Post by chillacy »

tanilama wrote: post #69
johannkokos wrote: post #50

I am confused by this article. It says, "Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 and received his original sentence in 2016 in a case that went unnoticed." But according to the Chinese court[link 1], he was first sentenced for 15 years in jail on 2018-11-20. Robert appealed to high court. On 2018-12-29, the high court decided the original sentence was too light and asked the intermediate court for a new trial. link 1: http…

So he smuggled 220kg of meth, while 50g is death penalty in China.

China (vietnam, singapore, etc) has been executing drug smugglers for a long time now. Nobody really raised a fuss when they were executing africans who may not have been aware of the consequences. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16137327

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

#162

Post by raydev »

foldr wrote: post #139
mikeash wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what the experience is most of the time. It’s unpleasant because they’re not nice and they have way too much power, but it’s not a big deal. Again, my point is not that it’s completely awful, but rather that this minor unpleasantness still manages to be the worst thing on these trips.

I guess I don't understand what level of "niceness" you're expecting. Most of the time they've been friendly and polite (to me). Given that they're humans doing a basically crappy job, I don't expect any more than that.

I get more polite service from minimum wage workers at Burger King or a regional grocery chain.

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

#163

Post by jimclegg »

curiouserrr wrote: post #82
bauhw wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of the tourism in China is domestic. Foreigner shouldn't have white cards on the law because of tourism, that's arrogant and unhealthy. I was afraid of China because of these random news. But when I finally went there in September, I was surprised as all the internet fear mongering was wrong. When you read your local newspaper and see a murder, are you afraid to go out ? No because it's an outlier, as is the case…

It’s interesting how new accounts get created to defend China every time a negative piece about China shows up.

True. I signed up because US audiences though intelligent don't always have a good grasp on international historical context.

A lot of wars can be avoided when this education gap is filled.

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

#164

Post by foldr »

raydev wrote: post #155
foldr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through many times as white British person (both as a visitor and on various visas) and have never had a bad experience. I'm not denying that people do have bad experiences. But I find it kind of hard to believe that as a US citizen, you've never once had an experience of re-entering the country that didn't involve the customs agent asking you a couple of simple questions and then sending you on your way.

I'm a US citizen living abroad, and when I flew into Newark once, an agent turned me away because I could not give him an address for where I was staying, since my mother had just moved. I believe his words were "no, no, no, I can't deal with this right now" and he yelled at me when I tried to explain. There was literally nowhere else for me to go. After walking around flustered, I decided to try another kiosk and th…

Customs agents everywhere freak out if you don't have $INFORMATION to hand. That's not something unique to the USA. If you travel a lot, you learn to have this sort of information readily available whenever you cross a border.

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

#165

Post by jopsen »

factsaresacred wrote: post #87
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.

Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who led China's market reform, had a saying along the lines of “hide your strength and bide your time”. Xi Jinping appears to believe China's time has come and you're seeing the results: they're behaving like the authoritarian and petulant bullies that they've always been. Personally I think this behaviour is gift. For too long we've been fed the narrative of China's 'peaceful rise'…

> In the decades to come, making China a superpower will be looked upon as one of the most foolish things The West has ever done.

This assumes this is something the west did. Or that this is something the west should have prevented.

By trading with China the west certainly accelerated growth. But let's be clear hundreds of millions of people have been pulled up from extreme poverty -- overall I think that's a good thing.

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

#166

Post by mikeash »

raydev wrote: post #155
foldr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through many times as white British person (both as a visitor and on various visas) and have never had a bad experience. I'm not denying that people do have bad experiences. But I find it kind of hard to believe that as a US citizen, you've never once had an experience of re-entering the country that didn't involve the customs agent asking you a couple of simple questions and then sending you on your way.

I'm a US citizen living abroad, and when I flew into Newark once, an agent turned me away because I could not give him an address for where I was staying, since my mother had just moved. I believe his words were "no, no, no, I can't deal with this right now" and he yelled at me when I tried to explain. There was literally nowhere else for me to go. After walking around flustered, I decided to try another kiosk and th…

Yikes. Just FYI in case it’s useful in the future, as a US citizen you have an absolute right to enter the country. They cannot keep you out, period. They can cause you a great deal of trouble first, but they can’t outright turn you away. Hopefully you never have occasion to use this knowledge!

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

#167

Post by pseingatl »

In the United States, the guidelines penalty for trafficking in 200 kilograms of meth is life without parole. Canada's sentencing rules are more lenient. The question is whether Canada will go the wall in what is really a dispute between China and the United States. China does have an aggressive regime of trying to protect its citizens overseas--see, William Sampson--that the U.S. lacks. Sampson was at least arguably innocent while this trafficker is not. There is no doubt that Canada will suffer because of its extradition treaty with the U.S. The question that Canadians have to ask themselves is this: is helping the U.S. to apply its laws globally worth all this trouble in the absence of international consensus?

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

#168

Post by mikeash »

jopsen wrote: post #123
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…

> Random anecdote: I just got back to the US from several weeks in China. I'm sure most people will be fine visiting China, but personally I like rule-of-law :) No justice system is perfect. Coming from Denmark, I'm not impressed by the US justice system. But if you hire a lawyer your odds of a fair trial is decent. But in China there is no assumption of regularity, or assumption of good faith. If someone powerful do…

I totally see where you’re coming from and I have no problem with such a decision. It’s not the decision I make, but I wouldn’t try to argue that you’re wrong.

My main point isn’t that everyone should go to China worry-free, but rather that a years-old drug conviction being bumped up from a long prison sentence to a death sentence isn’t going to make much difference to the decision. People like you probably wouldn’t go either way, and people like me aren’t going to change their minds because of it.

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

#169

Post by zrobotics »

treis wrote: post #116
foldr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If we start banning Chinese phones we'll buy American ones come in instead. Which American phones are these? The iPhone isn't made in the US, it's made by Foxconn.

Foxconn is Taiwanese not Chinese. Most of their manufacturing is in China so I'm not sure how much that distinction matters in this scenario but I thought it helpful to clarify.

Note that, as far as China is concerned, Taiwan is a part of China. So from their perspective that is even less of a useful distiction.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy

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

#170

Post by jimclegg »

AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #154
adventured wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Properly governments operate by the consent of those they govern. 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 protectio…

> Properly governments operate by the consent of those they govern. Don't gangs operate by the consent of their members? > Gangs rule territory and the people within it almost strictly by violence Is this not the case in real world governments? After all they use the police to enforce their rule via violence. > by the constant arbitrary application of violence to keep people terrified Isn't this already the case in t…

You are right, the real test of a "proper government" will be after the economy crashes for extended periods of time. For USA it will be after our bull run slows down over the next century.

Germany failed the test last century.

Side note: Germany's "proper government" in the 20th century, was building concentration camps like "Shark Island" in West Africa for human experimentation pre-WWI and WWII while the economy was booming. So IMO it would fail many tests in the foreign policy department.

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