What's funny is that the Chinese natural language community seems to be way ahead of the regulator's ability to censor content, at least in eastern China (and the fact that there is still a reliance on the usage of Windows, Linux, Android, and IOS, and the easiness of transcoding between GB18030 and Unicode). This is true of the tech savvy community in China in general, but the proliferation of English auto translated internet text/videos virtually impossible for the government to monitor. It's wide scale overrunning of government controls from what I hear. The world is more intertwined than you think due to the inter webs.
Of course the opposite is true in the other side of China.
If Zuck lost an extradition hearing and then hid out in a foreign embassy for years I suspect he would be arrested when the embassy finally kicked him out, yes.
There's a difference between being arrested and put in jail until your bond hearing 24-48 hours later and being blackbagged and "interrogated" for 2 months before anyone knows where you are. We only do that to people in Europe and the Middle East, duh.
The unfortunate truth is that many people do successfully commit suicide in federal penitentiary. The Epstein "truthers" are firmly in the same group as the JFK truthers, moon landing denialists, and flat earthers.
ofc not. he is rich and famous. this helps in the US and A a lot. China does not care. Everything is shit in front of the law. Ironic that there is more equality than here.
Let me get this straight, a senile old woman who couldn’t do anything to stop the legislative agenda of Sudafed addled bankrupt reality star is going to covertly disappear mark zuckerberg.
How on earth can you hold these contradictions together in your brain?
Stop speculating. The CCP has its reasons. This is how it works over there. Fix your own problems first, acknowledge and work up the death of almost 100 mio Indians, fix the shit you created in the Middle East, stop doing war crimes all around the world and stop running secret prisons. THEN you have the moral ground to speak about shit China is doing.
I am not American and I have not condemned (or supported) "shit China is doing". I was just trying to gauge your personal opinion so I could better understand your comment.
This level of government intervention, censorship and alleged intimidation should be a warning to world-class talent and entrepreneurs who might be attracted to China.
I really doubt something bad will happen to him even if he is under CCP custody. CCP can't be that stupid that they let a successful entrepreneur with an amazing story and global appeal go missing.
Because if he really disappears it will cause talent drain like anything, which will be just stupid to the ambitions CCP has for PRC.
Yes, and what if they see extraordinary people as a threat? They might be willing to sacrifice some potential growth if it helps them staying in power...
Yes, and everyone gets the message that even if successful and immense value generator for PRC, you can't expect to be safe for saying even non political stuff. This will just cause a chilling effect, there are plenty of brilliant Chinese people who might not like that.
Cultural revolution was not that long ago: 1966-1976. There has already been a chilling effect before Jack Ma. I would wager control is utmost importance to CCP. Not as concerned about the chilling effect on their top performers.
There are two key areas of focus for the Chinese government, there's growing the power of their country as a whole, and there's maintaining the party's power over the country. Take a look at Hongkong - is it a smart move for China to destroy one of its wealthiest, most powerful international cities? No. But it is vital to China's second goal - to maintain absolute control over the country.
So far it's been pretty clear cut the first goal hasn't been too badly impacted by their second goal.
The Hong Kong episode might not upset people in PRC as they are being brought under same laws as people in PRC. Top entrepreneurs/researchers/engineers can buy HK activists being malicious or they can be just indifferent to them as that is not their problem.
But this will be as this is a lot more relatable.
Also, the value of HK for PRC has reduced over time so PRC could afford to do it now.
My money is on the military invasion of Taiwan happening in May of this year.
Not only is the incoming Biden administration entirely favorable to China (and includes some of the same advisors who had Obama stand down during the Scarborough Shoal incident), but May is the month where China once again will hold the Presidency over the UN Security Council and gets to set its agenda.
They're perfectly set up to stymy any international response that may be called for. Given the money flowing westward under Belt and Road, I imagine that won't be much of an outcry anyway, save for the expected parties (Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam).
Does the security council thing even matter honestly?
Like even if PLA marches on Taiwan now and US doesn't want to get in the war, what difference can security council make which otherwise would not have been possible outside security council?
No. Actually it doesn't matter at all, but China would rather not lose face of it being on the agenda to discuss at all. And that does matter, at least to China.
If they can sew up the whole thing inside of the month, I think it's a move they'll definitely make.
Plus the rest of the world is preoccupied with this virus.
I think the appeal of 'successful entrepreneur' vanishes quickly if those in power feel that entrepreneur is not doing as they wish / they feel threatened / or some other situation.
I remember a while back there were a number of stories about Chinese government officials embezzling money and then fleeing the country suddenly over night.
At that time that seemed pretty brazen, but perhaps those folks are more aware of how often random people who displease the powers that be may be disappeared or used as an example... and they knew that if there was any risk it was time to get out of town.
This is far from the only example of business people, even local celebs disappearing for a time.
> I remember a while back there were a number of stories about Chinese government officials embezzling money and then fleeing the country suddenly over night.
At that time that seemed pretty brazen, but perhaps those folks are more aware of how often random people who displease the powers that be may be disappeared or used as an example... and they knew that if there was any risk it was time to get out of town. This is far from the only example of business people, even local celebs disappearing for a time.
Unless you can buy/obtain citizenship from somewhere else, that only gets you so far. Eventually China will get you back on Chinese soil. You're going to need a passport renewal eventually.
China is widely known for pursuing dissidents outside its borders and is not above kidnapping. They also have the political leverage to make Khashoggi-like incidents go away.
IIRC at the time a lot of countries these officials ran to were actually providing them with citizenship or some level of permanent residency. The Chinese government wasn't happy about it but as they also weren't likely to hand anyone over to their home country it was mostly a stalemate.
Not sure how frequent that is now.
The "Khashoggi-like" examples area always mentioned in these situations but I think those events are much more rare than people seem to imagine....
Would you please stop using HN primarily for political and ideological battle? We ban that sort of account because it destroys the curious conversation we're trying for here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Occasional political discussion is fine, but when it becomes the main activity of an account, that's quite different. There are lots of past explanations about this:
57 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] thread(For lose definitions of what they're educating on)
What's funny is that the Chinese natural language community seems to be way ahead of the regulator's ability to censor content, at least in eastern China (and the fact that there is still a reliance on the usage of Windows, Linux, Android, and IOS, and the easiness of transcoding between GB18030 and Unicode). This is true of the tech savvy community in China in general, but the proliferation of English auto translated internet text/videos virtually impossible for the government to monitor. It's wide scale overrunning of government controls from what I hear. The world is more intertwined than you think due to the inter webs.
Of course the opposite is true in the other side of China.
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/083456-000-A/china-the-disappe...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/fan-bingbing-c...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627043
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25636045
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627398
We _ALL_ know the harm of facebook and _ALL OF US_ wished this platform would be shut down immediately. But the state has nothing to say here.
How on earth can you hold these contradictions together in your brain?
Because if he really disappears it will cause talent drain like anything, which will be just stupid to the ambitions CCP has for PRC.
And a almighty Party who exactly wants that.
Pretty clear now that he's willing to be as ruthless as he thinks he can get away with... and this likely counts.
With what they've been doing in surveillance infra and hk in recent years though it does look like they're not nearly as subtle anymore
Possibly also just a change in our awareness, but I wouldn't be surprised if they write him off in a covid fatality or something
So far it's been pretty clear cut the first goal hasn't been too badly impacted by their second goal.
But this will be as this is a lot more relatable.
Also, the value of HK for PRC has reduced over time so PRC could afford to do it now.
Not only is the incoming Biden administration entirely favorable to China (and includes some of the same advisors who had Obama stand down during the Scarborough Shoal incident), but May is the month where China once again will hold the Presidency over the UN Security Council and gets to set its agenda.
They're perfectly set up to stymy any international response that may be called for. Given the money flowing westward under Belt and Road, I imagine that won't be much of an outcry anyway, save for the expected parties (Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam).
Like even if PLA marches on Taiwan now and US doesn't want to get in the war, what difference can security council make which otherwise would not have been possible outside security council?
If they can sew up the whole thing inside of the month, I think it's a move they'll definitely make.
Plus the rest of the world is preoccupied with this virus.
There are always more entrepreneurs.
Watch the documentary:
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/083456-000-A/china-the-disappe...
At that time that seemed pretty brazen, but perhaps those folks are more aware of how often random people who displease the powers that be may be disappeared or used as an example... and they knew that if there was any risk it was time to get out of town.
This is far from the only example of business people, even local celebs disappearing for a time.
Unless you can buy/obtain citizenship from somewhere else, that only gets you so far. Eventually China will get you back on Chinese soil. You're going to need a passport renewal eventually.
China is widely known for pursuing dissidents outside its borders and is not above kidnapping. They also have the political leverage to make Khashoggi-like incidents go away.
Not sure how frequent that is now.
The "Khashoggi-like" examples area always mentioned in these situations but I think those events are much more rare than people seem to imagine....
The best option right now for him is to avoid exposure and shut his mouth, TBH.
Fuck, my cat just pooed on the floor. I am sure, the CCP is also the reason for that.
Occasional political discussion is fine, but when it becomes the main activity of an account, that's quite different. There are lots of past explanations about this:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
If you or anyone still has a question after reading some of that material, I'd be interested to know what it is.