Given that it was "economic crimes" that China charged him with, and given how China has decided to crack down on bitcoin, then sadly Ai could not easily openly do all his transactions with cryptocurrency.
Man, what a tough article. The only scrap of evidence the professor could muster was a single complaint and a mention of the student losing his temper once, a year prior. Maddening.
We are actually in a present where dissidents in democratic countries are marked as outlaws in democratic countries. Sorry to tell you this, but the freedoms you thought you had were vacuumed away over the last two decades while you were not looking.
The US democracy has held Jan 6th protesters in jail without bail still awaiting a trial. This is being done to force a guilty plea before trial. Dissidents are marked as outlaws without justice even in democracies.
Multiple kidnappings of Hong Kong citizens, regime change in Hong Kong, widespread support for authocratic, corrupt regimes in Africa and Asia, invasions or conflicts with of Tibet, India, Vietnam, decades of violations against multiple countries and of international law in the South China Sea.
Uyghur torture + concentration camps, Falun Gong forced vivisections, no free floating currency, domination of the public discourse via explicit propaganda, absurd social controls like 'no more than 3 hrs of video games', implicit eugenics policies via 1 child policy. Repeated and ongoing aggressions against other countries that have states that wish for their own independence. I wish for my own independence from the disgusting abuses from global states, so I sympathize with Hong Kong.
China is definitely pretty bad. Wait, only a few of those things are exclusive to China.
Weird... you're right. Maybe let's do away with states while we're waxing poetic.
EDIT: I can't even fathom the confusion of ideas that would lead you to being pro-China when the ongoing current abuses are so expansive, but whatever works for you!
For the most part, US foreign policy broadly attempts to promote and spread those values, though there are some notable areas where it disregarded them or failed (though to properly see those, you sometimes have to look at the big picture).
"For the most part, US foreign policy broadly pretends to promote and spread those values"
I think is more accurate. I'm not sure it matters if China is opposed to my basic values but doesn't do anything about it, and the US isn't opposed to my basic values, but kidnaps and tortures me for a few years because I've grown a beard and went on a pilgrimage to Pakistan.
> "For the most part, US foreign policy broadly pretends to promote and spread those values"
No, it's not "pretend." For instance the US just sunk something like 2 trillion dollars trying to build a democracy in Afghanistan, and you don't blow 2 trillion on anything you're only pretending to do (and if you think it's some conspiracy to line the pockets of defense contractors, there are far more efficient ways of doing that and it wouldn't have stopped).
> I'm not sure it matters if China is opposed to my basic values but doesn't do anything about it, and the US isn't opposed to my basic values, but kidnaps and tortures me for a few years because I've grown a beard and went on a pilgrimage to Pakistan.
You think China doesn't do that? I mean having "grown a beard and went on a pilgrimage to Pakistan" is a literally entry criteria to get sent to a camp in Xinjiang. Also:
You really don't need a conspiracy for the government to pay large sums to domestic industries. It's what governments do. That it's also used for global power projection is without question.
To believe in good intentions, you need to also believe in complete idiocy. "Hey, let's just remove the authoritarian leaders and watch countries descend into civil war, that'll surely bring about democracy, right?" is a weird idea.
> You think China doesn't do that?
No, I'm not aware that China buys German Muslims from Pakistan's military in order to illegally torture & imprison them.
See, the whole spiel would be so much easier to believe if the acts would at least roughly align with the stated intentions. But they generally don't. I don't believe that the US government is made up of idiots, so "they meant well but were misguided" isn't on the table.
This is a slash piece my a media outlet owned by an explicit political adversary. There are no doubt things in China some folks would find difficult to swallow, but a US news outlet is not the place to find them.
I'm not a country. I'm not worried about Uncle Sam taking me down for (1A) protected speech. I am worried about China taking me out for comments like this.
Not GP, but I think the point made was that McCarthyism is precedent of US citizens getting into serious trouble because of things they said. It's a counter-example to the assumption that the US government will protect its citizens' free speech.
While it’s true that the US used to be much more intrusive about policing “seditious” speech, it’s also true that this occurred a long time ago.
McCarthyism ended in around 1962.
During this era, homosexuality was still illegal, abortions were punished with prison time, and people with varying skin complexions still couldn’t drink from the same water fountains.
In terms of social progress, McCarthyism was only acceptable to a society totally alien to the one we live in today.
I'd argue McCarthyism ended not because the US has "progressed" socially, but because the US had won the Cold War and there has not been a "worthy adversary" for the US until the rise of China.
I wouldn't be surprised if the US start to make the life of China sympathizers difficult in near future if China becomes more competitive.
McCarthyism's end predates the cold war. It also predates all other markers of social progress in the last 50 years.
To me, the end of McCarthyism is the first point in the great wave of American social change that began in the 60s.
But moving on...
> I wouldn't be surprised if the US start to make the life of China sympathizers difficult in near future if China becomes more competitive.
I think that China is largely viewed as a 'foregin nation', whereas communism (whcih is what McCarthyism railed against) was an ideology.
You can adopt an ideology and still remain patriotic--China is a good example of how to take communism and fuse it with your countries national soul. However, you can't really 'adopt' a foregin power.
Because of that China will likely find itself with a lot less sympathizers than communism. The existing sympathizers will likely be people who are ethnically Chinese, which would make it difficult for the government to pressure them due to concerns over racism.
well we're only twenty one years into this century - they did give you an example from within living memory. I'm pretty sure plenty other examples from the U.S can be picked up with much shorter distances than the one between now and McCarthy.
While it is living memory, it is about 60 years ago. Which is two whole generations.
On the one hand, people are alive who suffered under McCarthyism. On the other hand, much of the population will react strongly at being judged for the sins of their grandparents.
it's difficult not to reply sarcastically to this but - how about the Move bombing - 1981.
oh wait, that was local government. So how about the anti-war movement in the late 1960s, closer, but not much closer.
Before I go further though I start to wonder about your requirements, I mean from where I'm sitting it is a 'commonly' understood thing that the anti-war movements in the U.S are often targeted for investigation and attack by government agents, but for every commonly understood thing there are people that do not agree for some reason that the thing that is the common understanding of the situation is correct.
So - before continuing - what is your position on the Chicago 7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven)? Was there a conspiracy by the American government there or not? If there was then I have given an example even though not so far after McCarthyism was done, but more importantly if we can agree that there was then it is pretty easy to keep coming with examples over the years. If your opinion was there was not - but McCarthyism I take it was a bad thing in your book - what aspects of McCarthyism is needed to make an example you would find acceptable but would leave the Chicago 7 out?
on edit: of course my point with the Move bombing is that local government also counts in the U.S, although I suspect you would disagree otherwise there's lots of cops killing citizens and taking their property all over the country for you to choose from.
Isolated incidents of local police terrorism do not count.
Didn't we already rule out the 1960's? That type of political violence really doesn't exist here anymore. Your perception of the country notwithstanding.
You mean killing you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's far, far easier for your country in general (and for the US specifically) to imprison you if you're a dissident (see whistleblowers, for example) than a foreign country (and China specifically) to kill you in foreign soil.
Great for you, what about all non-citizens ( what, most of the world) who have no protections under US law, but have their rights as humans violated by the US?
The US establishment has wholly abandoned historic ideals in favor of a new era that aligns with much of what you'd see in Chinese governance. We in fact witness below US citizens faithful to the Party who devotedly support this act because they believe this individual has infringed upon the propriety of their Party.
1. Augustine Pinochet was arrested in London, UK on the principle of - and you'll love this one - universal juristiction.
2. the following countries have some form of universal juristiction: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, Senegal, Spain, United Kingdom, USA [1]
3. the USA passed the PEESA act [2] in their own congress/parliament where they grant themselves the right to unliterally decide - for the the entire of Europe - which natural gas suppliers are allowed to send gas to Europe.
To be fair to the Russians: he was also a Russian citizen and the US has long established the right to wipe their own citizens on foreign soil without a peep from the UK. [1]
The fact that the US treats their citizenry as personal property, able to be snuffed out by assassination at any time without due process, does not in any way whatsoever normalize or justify Russia doing the same.
China claims that the South China Sea is its internal affairs too [0][1].
If China succeeds, soon it will claim every part of the Mongol empire (including almost all of Eastern Europe and some parts of Central Europe) is its internal affairs, because China considers the Mongol empire as merely one of its dynasties. Remember how China censored a French exhibition about Genghis Khan? [2]
Only a fool would believe their claim about “internal affairs”.
Obviously they project soft power further, but it is based on economic leverage in the same way that the USA has been doing since WW2. For example, that French museum exhibition was dependent on a Chinese museum to do their exhibition. That dependency came with strings. Only a fool would think that means the Red Army is about to invade Eastern Europe.
My point was “internal affairs” is just an arbitrary excuse.
Are you trying to justify China’s claim about the South China Sea and surrounding areas as “internal affairs” with that blog post?
Whether or not the Red Army will invade Eastern Europe with the excuse of “internal affairs” has nothing to do with my point.
To be honest, if China succeeds in invading Taiwan because of “internal affairs”, they will likely go after Japan and Vietnam next (perhaps with other excuses), even though none of them fell to the Mongol empire.
I’m don’t want a lengthy discussion about what will happen next. I was just pointing out the arbitrariness of “internal affairs”. Sorry if you couldn’t get my point.
I get your point, I was just trying to divert the conversation away from an unsubstantiated "domino theory" that seems to be grounded in hysterics and towards analysis of history, geography and geo-politics.
Taiwan isn't a part of China, therefore it's not internal by definition. Of course the CCP doesn't like that, but it's a fact that won't be changed by just harassing media for showing the correct map.
That policy is a nice PR name for the intention to take foreign territories, but it's not something anyone else has to respect. They can say One-China means the whole world belongs to them if they like, that still doesn't give their claims any more weight.
You may want to brush up on your international recognition history. Officially, for the UN and literally all countries bar a few microstates, Taiwan is a province of China. The fact that they are, for (almost) all intents and purposes an independent separate country isn't recognised by anyone officially, and that probably won't change unless a regime change happens in China.
Sure, because "literally all countries" made themselves dependent on China economically and so are more or less forced to go along with it. But I personally am not.
No, this dates to the 1970s when China was an underdeveloped country with a mainly agrarian economy, and it was just accepting the facts from the late 1940s when the Chinese Civil war ended with the RoC running away to Taiwan (up until the 1970s most countries recognised RoC as the China, even though it controlled only Taiwan - now it's the opposite, the PRC is recognised as the China, even though it doesn't control Taiwan).
Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Though it often doesn't seem that clear-cut when e.g. the WHO ignores question even mentioning Taiwan or companies apologize for stupidly minor details - things like that don't make the chinese government look very confident in their status.
The WHO doesn't have much choice because, again, Taiwan officially doesn't exist, and it would be scandalous for a UN agency such as the WHO to recognise them by mentioning them.
I can't think of a democratic, free country where the government started flipping tables because one TV station on the other end of the world showed the wrong version of a map. At worst the citizen of that country would make jokes and memes about it for a week.
The WHO didn't have to mention Taiwan...they pretended they didn't even hear a question mentioning Taiwan. That's self-censorship beyond reason.
> I can't think of a democratic, free country where the government started flipping tables because one TV station on the other end of the world showed the wrong version of a map
You think Ukraine would enjoy a map showing Crimea as a part of Russia? Poland with Danzig/Gdansk as German? France with Alsace-Lorraine as German? India with Kashmir Pakistani? Argentina with the Falklands as British and vice versa? Etc. Many countries' citizens and governments would be rightfully agitated by maps hitting open or old wounds, and depending on the country and desperation of the government it could escalate to table flipping as well.
> The WHO didn't have to mention Taiwan...they pretended they didn't even hear a question mentioning Taiwan. That's self-censorship beyond reason
If they did respond to the question, they would be talking about information provided by Taiwan's government, implicitly recognising it as an independent authority.
It’s far worse than that. They literally kidnapped a Swedish citizen and tortured him into a confession, and claimed jurisdiction just because he used to be a Chinese citizen.
Gui Minhai was kidnapped as a Swedish. While in detention, he was forced to surrender his Swedish citizenship to restore the Chinese citizenship. You got the timeline wrong. China’s tactic is a breach of Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Perfectly in line with the contrast between the U.S. meddling in international affairs and their outrage when it happens to them.
This isn't whataboutism, to be clear - I'm just pointing out that this is what big governments DO. It becomes less about ideals and more about expedience.
It's silly to equate market access with extra-territorial control. Credit Suisse wants to court PRC money, they need to be mindful of PRC interests.
Actual Chinese extra-territorial controls in the form of sanctions and other legitimate instruments will come. More foreign banks start operating in the PRC now that the financial market is opening up to foreign institutions, more coupling and ability for PRC to assert legal extra-territorial mechanisms. Until then, this is just banks being prudent out of their own volition. Like Hollywood catering to the Chinese market.
If it’s any consolation, US will probably legislate a zone of exception preventing US banks from cooperating with CCP interests.
It’s disappointing to see American companies and celebrities also cave into the CCP’s pressure. For example consider LeBron James’s spineless parroting of CCP talking points against free speech (https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/467295-uighurs-chin...) and his stance criticizing those who spoke in defense of Hong Kong protesters (https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/14/us/lebron-james-nba-china-int...). All of this suggests that despite the woke bonafides of companies like Nike or Disney or sports organizations like the NBA or celebrities like LeBron or The Rock, they too ultimately care mainly about their self interests to the point that they will stand up and defend an illiberal authoritarian genocidal communist government (https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2019-10-14/lebro...). Remember these are the same people and groups that will readily attack America’s values and founding principles. I think you are right about the difficulty of criticizing China but it might be a present reality rather than a future possibility.
I was pointing out the absurdity of celebrities and companies amplifying messages that criticize America, a land with an abundance of freedoms and classic liberal values, when they are unwilling to level any critique against China, a country that is very much on the other side of the value spectrum. It shows that China's power to compel foreign speech is much stronger than we think, because even these outspoken people/organizations can be silenced.
Western governments don't even protect their own citizens from this. In fact they encourage it if they deem you a political enemy.
There are many European political dissidents here that had dozens of bank accounts canceled on them. Sometimes the only way to have a bank account after reaching a certain level of popularity is to bank in countries like Georgia, Bulgaria etc. where nobody has heard of you. Until they, too, cancel your account and you're unbanked again and unable to participate in a modern economy.
IMO the only way out of this kind of oppression is crypto, at least in the long term.
Crypto cannot be a way out IMHO - resistance, outrage and press coverage can be. If you rely on technical measures to fight opression, you're doomed long term.
Because the problem here is companies being pressured by states for political ends.
So okay, route around the banking problem by switching to crypto. It's just 100 times harder for somebody to donate, and for the foundation to spend, but whatever.
Now this rogue nation state targets your landlords, your water company, your kids' school. How much can you route around or DIY before you're a prisoner?
The fix has to be other countries pushing back, ensuring freedom.
Just like with anything security, it's not about eliminating 100% of the risk but making it harder for enemies to attack you. Crypto might not be the holy grail solution, but securing your lifeline for living in society (money), is a pretty good start.
> Now this rogue nation state targets your landlords, your water company, your kids' school.
Without access to money you can't get any of these things. With cash, you can manage to find lodging, food and education for your kids.
"Technical measures" are the necessary leverage to get into negotiation. Without any teeth, you can do as many demonstrations as you want, the enemy probably has a better propaganda machine than you and can win the pure opinion-shaping war long term.
People shape their opinion around the perceived space of possibilities. Good luck sustaining outrage on the long term against an enemy who can incentivize friendly public discourse with tangible rewards.
I'm not aware of any Western European political dissidents who have had bank accounts cancelled, but it wouldn't surprise me if a fascist/racist like Tommy Robinson violated some hate speech law and had bank accounts he was receiving donations to cancelled.
It's very common for Venezuelan, Iranian and Cuban citizens to be targeted in this way, however. Even those with dual nationality.
The fundamental problem is that bank accounts are not considered a human right. As we become increasingly cashless this becomes more and more of a problem.
Yes, but to be fair that can just as easily be because as soon as you earn enough reputation as a dissident you are buried (metaphorically! Western Europe is very velvet glove when it comes to murder).
> I'm not aware of any Western European political dissidents who have had bank accounts cancelled
It’s not the same but it’s on its way there - in New Zealand Nicky Hagar wrote Dirty Politics - shady deals and hatchet jobs being performed by a sleazy blog at the behest of politicians (primarily the current leader of New Zealand’s largest opposition party, Judith Collins).
Under political pressure to act, police asked Westpac bank for 10 months of Hager's bank records and received them, falsely claiming he was being investigated for fraud. They did not have a warrant.
The whole disgusting episode was made farcical by the later revelation that police had searched Hagars house but missed documents leaked by Snowden.
Hi there, if it's ok with you I'm going to address subsequent commenters for a moment. Anyone smarter than me, let's focus on this comment. Isn't this the type of social media post that would be immediately dismissed as self-serving propaganda that has the effect of undermining both democracy and the dollar? What is the essential difference between this post and the kind of nonsense that is now being patrolled on other social media platforms?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but yes, it does make it tricky to hold the line against this sort of egregious interference while also imposing this kind of egregious interference.
I didn’t see this comment so much as “two wrongs don’t make a right” but rather “the us, and likely the majority of its people, are perfectly comfortable with this approach”
Even 'enemies' have quid pro quos - in order to exert your extra-territorial control you must turn a blind eye to others doing it some times.
IF you are going to blow up your ability to control practically every human being on the planets ability to have and use money within a golbal finacial system, it had better be worth it. I suspect this guy aint worth the trouble.
Given that currently it is a career-ending move in big enterprise or government to criticise the US right now, that's not unreasonable to think. Especially given that the US is (and has been) in decline.
> western governments will do very little to prevent this kind of extra-territorial control
Yeah remember Meng?
A Chinese businesswoman showed some PPT to a HK based bank, then got arrested by RCMP for "bank fraud", at a time when Canada had no sanctions against Iran.
Meng did obviously and intentionally lie to US banks and got them to commit illegal acts without their knowledge. There is a good argument to be made that others also did this and this is selective enforcement but that is another matter.
It's only capitalism if the players are following the same rules. China cheats by abusing human rights, ecological treaties, stealing IP, and is unaccountable to any authority in any meaningful way.
It's like playing poker with a really shitty Teller at the table, with a whipped and abused Penn standing to the side, handing him aces every game. It's getting old. China is not playing on the level. They should be shut out from civilized society until our unless they change their culture.
It is abundantly clear that they will continue to act in bad faith, knowing that there are no consequences for lying, cheating, and stealing.
Where is the "first they came for the Uyghurs" outrage? Where is the relentless criticism of child labor, abuses of women's rights, or anti nuclear proliferation crowd?
They just straight up jacked ARM technology for themselves. The West can conduct business in good faith because we have a set of shared values and expectations of cooperation. We play by the same rules, and can trust each other to the extent that laws and treaties protect us. China's presence in the global markets completely undermines that trust and the underpinnings of cooperation. They are above any law and wield that fact like a club. The experiment has failed, its time to shut them out completely. Stop enabling.
You are completely true about China, and the bipartisan cooperation Switzerland is working on must cease. But alas, it’s not the trend. The Swiss government is even inviting China police investigators to come over and lead their investigations on China nationals directly on Swiss land. The whole situation is a shame, economics are indeed the reason behind all this.
What does that have to do with Switzerland? Credit Suisse is an international organization. When HSBC or Deutsche Bank are doing bad stuff that has little to do with the country where they have been originally established in.
How does capitalism (private ownership of assets) win with this? Your statement presumes government influence over all private assets. That is not a capitalist construct, quite at odds with it in freedom-loving societies.
Instead of staying, 'government influence always wins' (which is both what you're implying and what is being observed here), you've replaced 'government influence' with the word capitalism. Nonsense where words have meaning.
I edited that out because it's distracting. Realistically, Trump was clearly a practical revolutionary, standing in stark contrast to a vested establishment that ceaselessly sought to upend him and his supporters.
How is saying Trump won the election an act of political dissent? Trump was president!
The overton window has shifted so far on this site that saying "I don't like this person" is grounds for starting a whole debate about cancellation! Y'all are absolutely out of control
People are allowed to not like other people. Sorry if people you like aren't liked by other people
That article mentioned Ai Weiwei spread misinformation doubted the result of the US election and was accused of spreading conspiracy theory on Twitter.
I have watched several documentaries produced by him in the past. Quite disappointed.
> Used to be a fan of him until he actively spreading lies of US election. Turned me off.
You have to look at things from the perspective of those people. They're not part of your domestic political faction, they're dissidents from a foreign country. Western politicians have been mealy mouthed and soft for decades with regards to the PRC. As far as I know, Trump was the first American president to take a hard line against them in my conscious lifetime (even though his motives were unprincipled), and they probably decided to throw their weight behind him lest things return to the status quo and they lose hope for the thing they really care about: China.
Or postal vote... Like how would you ever secure such system to acceptable level. Maybe it is barely acceptable in limited scale. But in general it seems open to exploitation and something that would only be used in countries without real democracy.
How would you corrupt a postal election without getting caught? Maybe you could get a handful of bad votes in, but I don’t know how you could do it at scale.
Where I live there are nested envelopes. The outside envelope is associated with you, but the inner envelope that has your vote is not. So they can see that you voted, but not how you voted.
A frequent schema in my country is to buy votes from local drunks. Go to a local bar with minivan. Grab a bunch of people, drive them to polling station, drive them back, buy beer and give some change.
This doesn't scale that much because you can't verify the vote and you're limited to few days. It's pretty easy to spot it too. Other politics' support is on the lookout for returning cars and scout cheap bars too.
Now move this schema to postal voting. You've plenty of time to buy voting ballots off drunks. And you can fill them in yourself. It's much harder to spot too.
Yeah, and I don't have anything against it as custody of votes is clears as is who was the voter. On other hand systems where you just put ballot in regular mail or some box without oversight and verification is done by signature... No words...
It's insane to me to see so many other countries have ways to verify you're a citizen of the country when going to vote, but in America it's such a controversial issue that anybody mentioning it is immediately bombarded with heinous accusations and name-calling.
> It's insane to me to see so many other countries have ways to verify you're a citizen of the country when going to vote, but in America it's such a controversial issue that anybody mentioning it is immediately bombarded with heinous accusations and name-calling.
Yeah. It's so stupid that the Democrats don't knock the wind out of the Republicans' sails by embracing voter ID requirements coupled with an intense, funded push to provide an ID to everyone who lacks one (e.g. have government employees who go around to places like homeless shelters and jump through all the bureaucratic hoops and pay all the fees to get someone an ID).
Lacking official ID is a serious hindrance to modern life (and fixing that can have a lot of Catch 22s), so getting people ID is a great way to help the disadvantaged.
Bcs maybe Blue corp dont want to make itself useless solving problems? Its the loop of getting votes by crying Wolf as opposition even while ruling and never solving the issues to use them as votes grab next cycle
See most other Chinese dissidents given sanctuary in the US so they may be wielded as propaganda mouth pieces / geopolitical tools. Ultimately these people are more interested in undermining the land they left then the wellbeing of their host countries, i.e. survey of 300K Hong Kong Canadians living in HK indicated their primary concern during last federal election was wellbeing of HK not Canada. Countries reliant on immigration ultimately imports drama from their most vocal diasporas, but very few managed to gain clout like the anti PRC crowd who has heavy support from the US political establishment. Though hilariously, at this point, FLG / Epochtimes has caused more harm to US society than it ever did to China. I mean it's their right since they are mostly naturalized Americans afterall, but in my experience diasphora democracy activists tend not to care about democracy of their new "home" because their identity and paycheck doesn't depend on it.
Chinese government even get benefit from FLG in such a way that FLG create a lot oversea Chinese support CPP. Maybe due to FLG members zest behavior.
I don't believe CPP intentionally doing anything manipulating FLG that but there are some conspiracy theory about controlled opposition.
At least there's a very good strategy that attack a political opponent in a very bad way, for example smear in very stupid lies, can actually give the opponent a boost. I haven't seen any real sample of a politician using this strategy yet.
He is much better than average dissidents who are usually worse on integrity. It's a very mysterious phenomenon that the dissidents, whether inside China or overseas, almost all happened to have integrity issues. A lot of them including a few famous dissednets, are quite abnormal. There's an exception named ZHANG heci who keeps his integrity but has been often attacked by his fellows.
It's also very interesting that western journalists have been hiding the integrity issues related to Chinese dissidents by portraying them as heroes until last election that a lot Chinese dissidents involved in US domestic politics. WSJ is one example.
Western public are not aware of this wired issue because most of them don't read Chinese. For those who read Chinese, here's a site that exists for almost 20 years.
> It's a very mysterious phenomenon that the dissidents, whether inside China or overseas, almost all happened to have integrity issues.
Oh, so very mysterious!
It's called a smear campaign. The government purposefully discredits the people it does not like because it is unable to directly address the dissident propositions. It is a very simple and old propaganda trick, and yet you allowed yourself to become a complete victim to it.
He also called Germany "still a Nazi country" because one(!) Taxi driver in Berlin refused service after threw an entitlement fit. That's after he lived in Germany for many years and was supported by the government in every way possible.
Dude has delusions of grandeur.
The article (If you listen to it if you can't get around the paywall) mentions that Ai Weiwei spread information that doubted the results of the US 2020 election and was accused of 'spreading conspiracy theories' on social media.
Maybe the parent comment agrees that having an opinion (conspiracy or not) is a crime in the US, otherwise what was the 'criminal record' that Credit Suisse is mentioning on a person that was never charged or convicted of any crimes?
This is a silly comment. Don't conflate the ridiculous strawman that is "cancel culture" with actual oppression.
Loudly parroting American right wing nonsense in the name of "freedom" is turning you into the boy who cried wolf and people are not going to take you seriously when you call out actual censorship like this.
Your distinction holds no water. The end result is cancelling someone from the economic system for political cause. That happens in the US as well, in an identical manner. In practice it has happened on a much grander scale in the US than in this instance.
I'll add a convenient reminder that it is possible to view flagged comments by checking the appropriate box in your profile. If you don't mind the occasional, easily identifiable spam, you too can subvert those who elect censorship as their favored form of disagreement.
Can you give an example of a worthwhile flagged post? I have read the ones that were part of threads where I found some value in the discourse, but I've never come away from that activity without feeling like I wasted my time (usually because it's nazism or crank theories, not because it's spam).
Decent and self-respecting people will be aware of and dismiss hate-driven material.
Topics involving (ironically) censorship, freedom, and opinions on the appropriate role of state and private (tech!) sector on those matters are aggressively policed. Anything remotely hailing from cypherpunk era is verboten; those guys look like outright philosophical renegades in comparison.
Well, this is obviously not good. But in a similar situation the US would probably act similarly. In fact, IIRC, wikileaks’ own Swiss bank account got shut down.
The only reason why so many companies are openly in support of LGBTQ+ is that right now it costs them almost nothing and effortlessly paints the illusion of a human face onto their public image.
I don't expect that to last. There are many influential countries that are increasingly intolerant of LGBTQ+ at a government level. If one of them just so much as mumbles something about "moral values", expect all of these over-eager LGBTQ-supporting companies to quietly delete all references that they ever supported this.
Big corporations already been doing this to a certain extent with China - it's amazing how gay characters just vanish from works like movies they want to sell there.
My employer, large financial institution, supports LGBTQ rights since I started to work there. That's 14 years ago.
While you may be on to something that it's not purely altruistic there's a much more important reason for that stance.
You lose out on a lot of very well educated, highly competent candidates for your workforce if you don't at least try to provide an inclusive work environment for minority groups.
179 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadSeems pretty sad. Where else could they bank? Bitcoin?
It would be good to hear from the other side, but the “no comment” isn’t very reassuring.
Given that it was "economic crimes" that China charged him with, and given how China has decided to crack down on bitcoin, then sadly Ai could not easily openly do all his transactions with cryptocurrency.
https://www.nzz.ch/english/swiss-phd-students-dismissal-spot...
No, that's not true. We got to see it happening.
In a few years I expect it will be very increasingly difficult to criticise China.
The US literally locks down countries that they think misbehave.
Satisfied?
China is definitely pretty bad. Wait, only a few of those things are exclusive to China.
Weird... you're right. Maybe let's do away with states while we're waxing poetic.
EDIT: I can't even fathom the confusion of ideas that would lead you to being pro-China when the ongoing current abuses are so expansive, but whatever works for you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Humanitari...
> Extraordinary rendition, CIA, regime change, foreign invasions. Compare US to China, please
The PRC is explicitly opposed to a lot of basic values nearly all Westerners care a great deal about:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea...
For the most part, US foreign policy broadly attempts to promote and spread those values, though there are some notable areas where it disregarded them or failed (though to properly see those, you sometimes have to look at the big picture).
I think is more accurate. I'm not sure it matters if China is opposed to my basic values but doesn't do anything about it, and the US isn't opposed to my basic values, but kidnaps and tortures me for a few years because I've grown a beard and went on a pilgrimage to Pakistan.
No, it's not "pretend." For instance the US just sunk something like 2 trillion dollars trying to build a democracy in Afghanistan, and you don't blow 2 trillion on anything you're only pretending to do (and if you think it's some conspiracy to line the pockets of defense contractors, there are far more efficient ways of doing that and it wouldn't have stopped).
> I'm not sure it matters if China is opposed to my basic values but doesn't do anything about it, and the US isn't opposed to my basic values, but kidnaps and tortures me for a few years because I've grown a beard and went on a pilgrimage to Pakistan.
You think China doesn't do that? I mean having "grown a beard and went on a pilgrimage to Pakistan" is a literally entry criteria to get sent to a camp in Xinjiang. Also:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48634136
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/world/europe/repression-u...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/world/asia/china-canada-s...
To believe in good intentions, you need to also believe in complete idiocy. "Hey, let's just remove the authoritarian leaders and watch countries descend into civil war, that'll surely bring about democracy, right?" is a weird idea.
> You think China doesn't do that?
No, I'm not aware that China buys German Muslims from Pakistan's military in order to illegally torture & imprison them.
See, the whole spiel would be so much easier to believe if the acts would at least roughly align with the stated intentions. But they generally don't. I don't believe that the US government is made up of idiots, so "they meant well but were misguided" isn't on the table.
McCarthyism ended in around 1962.
During this era, homosexuality was still illegal, abortions were punished with prison time, and people with varying skin complexions still couldn’t drink from the same water fountains.
In terms of social progress, McCarthyism was only acceptable to a society totally alien to the one we live in today.
I wouldn't be surprised if the US start to make the life of China sympathizers difficult in near future if China becomes more competitive.
To me, the end of McCarthyism is the first point in the great wave of American social change that began in the 60s.
But moving on...
> I wouldn't be surprised if the US start to make the life of China sympathizers difficult in near future if China becomes more competitive.
I think that China is largely viewed as a 'foregin nation', whereas communism (whcih is what McCarthyism railed against) was an ideology.
You can adopt an ideology and still remain patriotic--China is a good example of how to take communism and fuse it with your countries national soul. However, you can't really 'adopt' a foregin power.
Because of that China will likely find itself with a lot less sympathizers than communism. The existing sympathizers will likely be people who are ethnically Chinese, which would make it difficult for the government to pressure them due to concerns over racism.
1962 wasn't even 60 years ago. The president of the USA was already an adult at that time.
On the one hand, people are alive who suffered under McCarthyism. On the other hand, much of the population will react strongly at being judged for the sins of their grandparents.
This happens today in every western country, there's nothing unusual about it.
oh wait, that was local government. So how about the anti-war movement in the late 1960s, closer, but not much closer.
Before I go further though I start to wonder about your requirements, I mean from where I'm sitting it is a 'commonly' understood thing that the anti-war movements in the U.S are often targeted for investigation and attack by government agents, but for every commonly understood thing there are people that do not agree for some reason that the thing that is the common understanding of the situation is correct.
So - before continuing - what is your position on the Chicago 7 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven)? Was there a conspiracy by the American government there or not? If there was then I have given an example even though not so far after McCarthyism was done, but more importantly if we can agree that there was then it is pretty easy to keep coming with examples over the years. If your opinion was there was not - but McCarthyism I take it was a bad thing in your book - what aspects of McCarthyism is needed to make an example you would find acceptable but would leave the Chicago 7 out?
on edit: of course my point with the Move bombing is that local government also counts in the U.S, although I suspect you would disagree otherwise there's lots of cops killing citizens and taking their property all over the country for you to choose from.
Didn't we already rule out the 1960's? That type of political violence really doesn't exist here anymore. Your perception of the country notwithstanding.
Also, public forfeiture laws are not terrorism - they are policy.
What is your position on Aaron Schwartz then?
> No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_cam...
One could possibly argue additional articles, particularly around fair tribunals also apply to the above situation above.
Maybe we want interference from neither country?
For the sake of discourse, could you list the countries that are allowed to extert extra-terratorial control.
Really?
1. Augustine Pinochet was arrested in London, UK on the principle of - and you'll love this one - universal juristiction.
2. the following countries have some form of universal juristiction: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, Senegal, Spain, United Kingdom, USA [1]
3. the USA passed the PEESA act [2] in their own congress/parliament where they grant themselves the right to unliterally decide - for the the entire of Europe - which natural gas suppliers are allowed to send gas to Europe.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction
[2] https://www.state.gov/protecting-europes-energy-security-act...
So what's one more?
The FSB also seems to get to (try to) assassinate certain crown subjects on British soil without consequence if they want to badly enough.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
Remember, saying Hong Kong or Taiwan as a caster at a video game competition organized by a US company will get you fired.
Or are we forgetting these incidents now?
If China succeeds, soon it will claim every part of the Mongol empire (including almost all of Eastern Europe and some parts of Central Europe) is its internal affairs, because China considers the Mongol empire as merely one of its dynasties. Remember how China censored a French exhibition about Genghis Khan? [2]
Only a fool would believe their claim about “internal affairs”.
[0] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/21...
[1] https://www.js7tv.cn/news/201806_147250.html (in Chinese)
[2] https://www.france24.com/en/20201013-french-museum-halts-gen...
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/what-china-wan...
Obviously they project soft power further, but it is based on economic leverage in the same way that the USA has been doing since WW2. For example, that French museum exhibition was dependent on a Chinese museum to do their exhibition. That dependency came with strings. Only a fool would think that means the Red Army is about to invade Eastern Europe.
Are you trying to justify China’s claim about the South China Sea and surrounding areas as “internal affairs” with that blog post?
Whether or not the Red Army will invade Eastern Europe with the excuse of “internal affairs” has nothing to do with my point.
To be honest, if China succeeds in invading Taiwan because of “internal affairs”, they will likely go after Japan and Vietnam next (perhaps with other excuses), even though none of them fell to the Mongol empire.
I’m don’t want a lengthy discussion about what will happen next. I was just pointing out the arbitrariness of “internal affairs”. Sorry if you couldn’t get my point.
I can't think of a democratic, free country where the government started flipping tables because one TV station on the other end of the world showed the wrong version of a map. At worst the citizen of that country would make jokes and memes about it for a week.
The WHO didn't have to mention Taiwan...they pretended they didn't even hear a question mentioning Taiwan. That's self-censorship beyond reason.
You think Ukraine would enjoy a map showing Crimea as a part of Russia? Poland with Danzig/Gdansk as German? France with Alsace-Lorraine as German? India with Kashmir Pakistani? Argentina with the Falklands as British and vice versa? Etc. Many countries' citizens and governments would be rightfully agitated by maps hitting open or old wounds, and depending on the country and desperation of the government it could escalate to table flipping as well.
> The WHO didn't have to mention Taiwan...they pretended they didn't even hear a question mentioning Taiwan. That's self-censorship beyond reason
If they did respond to the question, they would be talking about information provided by Taiwan's government, implicitly recognising it as an independent authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Minhai#2020_trial_and_sent...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-...
They were completely complicit in human rights violating, american extraditions.
Still, it doesn't change anything about China kidnapping a Swedish citizen and torturing him into a confession because he dared to criticize China.
This isn't whataboutism, to be clear - I'm just pointing out that this is what big governments DO. It becomes less about ideals and more about expedience.
Actual Chinese extra-territorial controls in the form of sanctions and other legitimate instruments will come. More foreign banks start operating in the PRC now that the financial market is opening up to foreign institutions, more coupling and ability for PRC to assert legal extra-territorial mechanisms. Until then, this is just banks being prudent out of their own volition. Like Hollywood catering to the Chinese market.
If it’s any consolation, US will probably legislate a zone of exception preventing US banks from cooperating with CCP interests.
You lost me with that one. What does one have to do with the other?
There are many European political dissidents here that had dozens of bank accounts canceled on them. Sometimes the only way to have a bank account after reaching a certain level of popularity is to bank in countries like Georgia, Bulgaria etc. where nobody has heard of you. Until they, too, cancel your account and you're unbanked again and unable to participate in a modern economy.
IMO the only way out of this kind of oppression is crypto, at least in the long term.
Now this rogue nation state targets your landlords, your water company, your kids' school. How much can you route around or DIY before you're a prisoner?
The fix has to be other countries pushing back, ensuring freedom.
> Now this rogue nation state targets your landlords, your water company, your kids' school.
Without access to money you can't get any of these things. With cash, you can manage to find lodging, food and education for your kids.
I'm not saying it's worthless, it's far better than nothing, but you're still a prisoner if you're being denied mainstream staples like banking.
People shape their opinion around the perceived space of possibilities. Good luck sustaining outrage on the long term against an enemy who can incentivize friendly public discourse with tangible rewards.
It's very common for Venezuelan, Iranian and Cuban citizens to be targeted in this way, however. Even those with dual nationality.
The fundamental problem is that bank accounts are not considered a human right. As we become increasingly cashless this becomes more and more of a problem.
Yes, but to be fair that can just as easily be because as soon as you earn enough reputation as a dissident you are buried (metaphorically! Western Europe is very velvet glove when it comes to murder).
It’s not the same but it’s on its way there - in New Zealand Nicky Hagar wrote Dirty Politics - shady deals and hatchet jobs being performed by a sleazy blog at the behest of politicians (primarily the current leader of New Zealand’s largest opposition party, Judith Collins).
Under political pressure to act, police asked Westpac bank for 10 months of Hager's bank records and received them, falsely claiming he was being investigated for fraud. They did not have a warrant.
The whole disgusting episode was made farcical by the later revelation that police had searched Hagars house but missed documents leaked by Snowden.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/police-pay-nicky-hager-substan...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Politics
Founder's family has also been blacklisted, because apparently they are guilty by association.
FACTA - US legislation, impossed upon every financial institution on the planet.
IF you are going to blow up your ability to control practically every human being on the planets ability to have and use money within a golbal finacial system, it had better be worth it. I suspect this guy aint worth the trouble.
Given that currently it is a career-ending move in big enterprise or government to criticise the US right now, that's not unreasonable to think. Especially given that the US is (and has been) in decline.
Yeah remember Meng?
A Chinese businesswoman showed some PPT to a HK based bank, then got arrested by RCMP for "bank fraud", at a time when Canada had no sanctions against Iran.
last time I chcked, HSBC is not a US bank. Which US ban are you referring to?
Maybe it's time to use decentralised alternatives such as cryptocurrencies then?
It's like playing poker with a really shitty Teller at the table, with a whipped and abused Penn standing to the side, handing him aces every game. It's getting old. China is not playing on the level. They should be shut out from civilized society until our unless they change their culture.
It is abundantly clear that they will continue to act in bad faith, knowing that there are no consequences for lying, cheating, and stealing.
Where is the "first they came for the Uyghurs" outrage? Where is the relentless criticism of child labor, abuses of women's rights, or anti nuclear proliferation crowd?
They just straight up jacked ARM technology for themselves. The West can conduct business in good faith because we have a set of shared values and expectations of cooperation. We play by the same rules, and can trust each other to the extent that laws and treaties protect us. China's presence in the global markets completely undermines that trust and the underpinnings of cooperation. They are above any law and wield that fact like a club. The experiment has failed, its time to shut them out completely. Stop enabling.
Instead of staying, 'government influence always wins' (which is both what you're implying and what is being observed here), you've replaced 'government influence' with the word capitalism. Nonsense where words have meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_sanctions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Sanctions_Unit
https://origins.osu.edu/article/economic-sanctions-history-t...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-dissidents-back-trumps-...
If you don't mind me asking, how would you characterize your background and political leanings?
This is more of a case of enemy of my enemy is my friend that somehow leaked into US politics.
The overton window has shifted so far on this site that saying "I don't like this person" is grounds for starting a whole debate about cancellation! Y'all are absolutely out of control
People are allowed to not like other people. Sorry if people you like aren't liked by other people
The premise is "A is being suppressed. The response is 'I don't like A.'" Do you think that is a valuable insight? Is that useful received wisdom?
There is strong of evidence that introduction of reactionary 'feeling' consideration acts as a countervailing force to analysis.
I have watched several documentaries produced by him in the past. Quite disappointed.
You have to look at things from the perspective of those people. They're not part of your domestic political faction, they're dissidents from a foreign country. Western politicians have been mealy mouthed and soft for decades with regards to the PRC. As far as I know, Trump was the first American president to take a hard line against them in my conscious lifetime (even though his motives were unprincipled), and they probably decided to throw their weight behind him lest things return to the status quo and they lose hope for the thing they really care about: China.
If my country allowed to vote without a national ID, I'd not trust the outcome of such election at all.
This doesn't scale that much because you can't verify the vote and you're limited to few days. It's pretty easy to spot it too. Other politics' support is on the lookout for returning cars and scout cheap bars too.
Now move this schema to postal voting. You've plenty of time to buy voting ballots off drunks. And you can fill them in yourself. It's much harder to spot too.
- mail-in is limited to municipality buildings
- mail-in is limited to wednesday-thursday in a week leading up to the election day
- you can go to any municipality regardless of your legal address
- you have to show your ID to get voting papers
- election officials and community supervisors are present in voting hall
- votes are counted along with normal votes after polling station closes on sunday
Yeah. It's so stupid that the Democrats don't knock the wind out of the Republicans' sails by embracing voter ID requirements coupled with an intense, funded push to provide an ID to everyone who lacks one (e.g. have government employees who go around to places like homeless shelters and jump through all the bureaucratic hoops and pay all the fees to get someone an ID).
Lacking official ID is a serious hindrance to modern life (and fixing that can have a lot of Catch 22s), so getting people ID is a great way to help the disadvantaged.
I don't believe CPP intentionally doing anything manipulating FLG that but there are some conspiracy theory about controlled opposition.
At least there's a very good strategy that attack a political opponent in a very bad way, for example smear in very stupid lies, can actually give the opponent a boost. I haven't seen any real sample of a politician using this strategy yet.
It's also very interesting that western journalists have been hiding the integrity issues related to Chinese dissidents by portraying them as heroes until last election that a lot Chinese dissidents involved in US domestic politics. WSJ is one example.
Western public are not aware of this wired issue because most of them don't read Chinese. For those who read Chinese, here's a site that exists for almost 20 years.
http://www.duping.net/XHC/list.php?bbs=11
It's very good for homo sapien research which is not available very often. Need some patience to understand though.
Oh, so very mysterious!
It's called a smear campaign. The government purposefully discredits the people it does not like because it is unable to directly address the dissident propositions. It is a very simple and old propaganda trick, and yet you allowed yourself to become a complete victim to it.
Hope the 50 cents was worth it!
Maybe the parent comment agrees that having an opinion (conspiracy or not) is a crime in the US, otherwise what was the 'criminal record' that Credit Suisse is mentioning on a person that was never charged or convicted of any crimes?
Naturally he's a target of cancel culture and the establishment that wields it. Watch even here the Party at work.
Loudly parroting American right wing nonsense in the name of "freedom" is turning you into the boy who cried wolf and people are not going to take you seriously when you call out actual censorship like this.
Naturally he's a target of certain groups of people that [you get flagged and censored if you state the obvious here].
Topics involving (ironically) censorship, freedom, and opinions on the appropriate role of state and private (tech!) sector on those matters are aggressively policed. Anything remotely hailing from cypherpunk era is verboten; those guys look like outright philosophical renegades in comparison.
I don't expect that to last. There are many influential countries that are increasingly intolerant of LGBTQ+ at a government level. If one of them just so much as mumbles something about "moral values", expect all of these over-eager LGBTQ-supporting companies to quietly delete all references that they ever supported this.
Maybe next it'll be european/american actors that get put on the chopping block?
While you may be on to something that it's not purely altruistic there's a much more important reason for that stance.
You lose out on a lot of very well educated, highly competent candidates for your workforce if you don't at least try to provide an inclusive work environment for minority groups.
Smart employers figures that out a long time ago.