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| ▲ | observationist 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >>> Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes. This is standard operating procedure for the CCP. They are a truly ruthless, sinister group who have no scruples about ensuring compliance and using leverage on behalf of Chinese interests. Just look at what happened to Jack Ma. | | |
| ▲ | xtracto 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Gemini, Give me examples of people that the US has retained passports pending investigations It's standard procedure in every country for some investigations. | | |
| ▲ | giwook 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And what exactly are these founders being investigated for? | |
| ▲ | 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | nutjob2 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is false equivalence. Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail. That power can only be granted by a judge. China arbitrarily traps people in China without any such thing or any due process whatsoever. | | |
| ▲ | BigTTYGothGF 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail This has historically not been the case, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haig_v._Agee and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson | | |
| ▲ | nsagent an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The first case makes sense: ex-CIA officer explicitly outing CIA officers. Naturally, the government is going to step in and it's a false equivalence to compare to restricting random citizens. As for your second case, US schools teach about the perils of McCarthyism. You neglected to link to the subsequent Supreme Court ruling in 1958 overturning the confiscation of the passport over protected speech. Note how long ago that was and how it's taught as a black stain on US history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_v._Dulles | |
| ▲ | mothballed 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Anyone with a child support order that makes decent money is only one misrecorded or bounced payment away from being ineligible for a passport. The trigger is only 4 digits of USD. | |
| ▲ | Avicebron an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You didn't have to bring out the big gun usernames, we get it, you run a bot farm. |
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| ▲ | andersonpico 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > China arbitrarily traps people in China without any such thing or any due process whatsoever. What makes you think there's no legal process for blocking nationals from leaving China?It's a very common instrument and in a bunch of countries it's an administrative measure with even less scrutinity than a judicial mandate. Do you consider France or the UK to be a countries without rule of law or due process? But to the point in the US, for example, the government can just issue a warrant for you as a material witness or flag your passport and then you can't leave; these are hardly due processes and more like legal workarounds to do exactly the same thing; the US has disappeared plenty of people in much more sinister ways than that, however, so I agree that there's no equivalence here: the US is worse. |
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| ▲ | Computer0 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They are good actually. | |
| ▲ | Fricken 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Jack Ma is fine. If that's what you mean by ruthless then it's not really a big deal. | | |
| ▲ | nutjob2 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | He's fine because he complied with the authorities. | | |
| ▲ | yakbarber 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | that's true in every country. | |
| ▲ | Fricken 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | All states, by definition, are authorities that demand compliance. You're not saying anything that distinguishes Jack Ma's condition from anyone else's just about anywhere. | | |
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| ▲ | conradev 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Jack Ma comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma#During_tech_crackdown Ma's voting rights were reduced from 50% to 6%.
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| ▲ | cineticdaffodil 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Usually they just threaten the family that stayed in china to enforce compliance. As in visit by police and do a video call. Good old socialist playbook. Guess the CEOs were to workaholic ti be threatened with the mafia methods. | |
| ▲ | cermicelli 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | guywithahat 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes I don't think it's actually that uncommon in China, especially with high profile people. To China's credit, we often bar people from leaving the country if they're charged with a crime but not convicted of anything. While it's certainly scary and authoritarian, I think it's par for the course in China. Most companies have some amount of CCP representation in them, either on the board or some level of management. | | |
| ▲ | dublinstats 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Shouldn't every country be barring people from leaving the country if they've been charged with a crime? At least if there's a good chance they will flee justice. This seems like a side issue from the question of whether the charges are legitimate. | | |
| ▲ | Invictus0 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The Manus founders had already left China. They were called back and went willingly, because if you don't go back, then China disappears your family. | | |
| ▲ | threethirtytwo 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This is an exaggeration. But there are things China can do that are legal in the name of national security. I would say it’s just as extreme as what the US would do to Snowden if he came back. | |
| ▲ | intrasight 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Thanks for explaining why they would willingly return. |
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| ▲ | mothballed 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's extremely common even without a crime. US block or cancel people with extremely small child support debts (I think like $1000 which is a single missed payment for middle class person) and people with moderate tax debts (I think about $25,000) for instance from getting a passport. | |
| ▲ | skippyboxedhero 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, everyone country does this. You can be barred from travel in a wide range of other circumstances in many other countries. Every person has a nationalistic solipsism that renders them incapable of understanding events that occur outside of their own country. China and the US are two countries where this tends to be most severe, people outside these countries seem to believe they possess a profound and innate understanding of events there that renders them capable of offering a complete opinion (and, in reality, that opinion will almost always be entirely self-referential, 20% of the comments on this thread seem to be talking about the US). At a high-level, the characterization of China as a lawless dictatorship is undermined somewhat by the higher levels of crime in almost every other country. You will see this interpretation of China from people in the US who live in places where there are constant, visible signs of crime. | | |
| ▲ | glerk 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Just because the US also does this doesn’t make it right for China to do it and vice versa. Team coca-cola and team pepsi are both evil and illegitimate. | | |
| ▲ | skippyboxedhero 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Every country does it. Doing it is a central function of having a government. The number of, presumably, left-wing people who advocate for the most extreme forms of libertarianism is truly incredible. | | |
| ▲ | glerk 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Every country does it. Doing it is a central function of having a government. You are falling back on whataboutism. This is irrelevant. If we were having a similar debate in the middle ages, you would probably say something like: > Every church is burning witches and heretics at the stake. Doing it is a central function of having a church. The CCP has abducted these individuals and is preventing them from leaving the country. This is not ok. You can't justify this by saying "yeah, but they're the government, so it's their right to abduct whoever they want". A government is just a corporation with a bit more power than the others, not some sacred entity that sits above us. | | |
| ▲ | Fricken 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >A government is just a corporation with a bit more power than the others, not some sacred entity that sits above us. Well yes, a government doesn't need to be sacred to sit above you, it need only have more power. It's legitimacy is conditional on maintaining a monopoly on violence. | | |
| ▲ | glerk 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If we’re going to descend into pedantry, my statement was normative, not descriptive, as in “I agree this is what a government does, I disagree this is what it _should_ do”. “Beneath me” is _my_ value judgement that I pass on this government and its appendages as in “it has been weighed in the balance and has been found unworthy”. That this government has more power than me doesn’t make it sit above me as a moral absolute, and it doesn’t magically give it legitimacy. | | |
| ▲ | Fricken 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The government sits above you because it makes you do things under the threat of violence. Why do you stop at the stop sign? because the government reserves the right to hurt you if you don't. The government's legitimacy comes from it's stick being bigger than yours. It's not sacred, it's not magic. It's a bigger stick. Your value judgement would have weight if your stick was bigger. The guy with the bigger stick decides what you (or Jack Ma) is worthy of. | | |
| ▲ | glerk 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > The government's legitimacy comes from it's stick being bigger than yours By the same argument, are Somalian warlords and Mexican drug cartel also legitimate in the territories they control? I don't think "legitimate" is the word you are looking for to describe pure power dynamics, since "legitimate" is imbued with a moralistic judgement (look up is vs ought etc.). But yes, in practice, if I have a gun pointed at my head, I could be forced to do things that go against my judgement (within limits!). |
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| ▲ | mothballed 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Luckily china has a litany of 3rd world countries land borders surrounding it with porous borders, and in a great deal of them no one who gives too many shits about some poor chinese villager crossing. Americans on the other hand have Canada which for LEO purposes is basically an extension of the US, and Mexico which due to the drug trade and other unique factors mean anyone getting caught jumping the border in either direction is likely to owe the cartel a massive amount of money or some extremely undesirable favors. I would definitely rather be a trapped Chinese trying to escape than a trapped American. |
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| ▲ | defrost 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Would that be lower or higher than the number of people who endlessly bang on about "lefties" and or "fascists", "nazis" et al. I myself find the numbers that engage in political reductionism and sophism to be truly incredible .. easily a double digit percentage of any population, actual billions in total globally. Wait, is that actually "incredible" though, or just merely "expected"? |
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| ▲ | soperj 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes. Feels like Guantanamo Bay all over again. | | |
| ▲ | EA-3167 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | In what conceivable way? | | |
| ▲ | T-A 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residential_Surveillance_at_a_... | | |
| ▲ | EA-3167 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | This seems like, to be very very VERY generous as per the guidelines, a case of limited superficial similarities being blown out of proportion. Assuming the best of intentions. | | |
| ▲ | T-A 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wikipedia's description of RSDL does not go into gory details. They are not hard to look up though. See e.g. https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/michael-caster-on-chinas-for... | | |
| ▲ | EA-3167 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you really believe that "activists" and suspected criminals are given the same treatment as some entrepreneurs who just lost their shirts? This feels like an excuse to bring up something that's fundamentally unrelated to the subject at hand, because there are a dozen closer and more useful comparisons to make than Gitmo. For example how Japan can hold and question people without access to a lawyer, outside of police stations. |
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| ▲ | soperj 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Indefinite detention without charges. Sounds exactly the same. | | |
| ▲ | EA-3167 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | This strikes me as a classic case of, “Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby, watching his second movie:
‘Getting a lot of 'Boss Baby' vibes from this!’” |
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| ▲ | ahmadyan 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes. Pure speculation on my part, but i would be surprised if China didn't have our equivalent of export control laws, not difficult to fabricate a crime and pin it on founders. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They do have export control laws and such, but based on current and past behavior China’s Communist Party doesn’t need those laws to disappear people or create crimes and then make people guilty of said crimes. Worth mentioning though that this is not how America functions, nor our rule of law. | | |
| ▲ | wahnfrieden 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | What do you make of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47927544 | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not much, none of those cases from the US resulted in disappearing the founders. The US is a nation of laws, no matter how imperfect. Stark contrast to the CCP. | | |
| ▲ | rvnx 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | At the end of the day, the process itself, years of investigation, millions in legal fees, frozen assets, destroyed careers is often the punishment regardless of whether charges stick or convictions hold up. Not sure we can give any lessons to the world. | | |
| ▲ | cataphract 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The US is a democracy, and people are given many procedural and substantive rights, even Guantanamo detainees (we can argue if Boumediene had any practical effect, but we wouldn't have seen the same from China). But Americans are under the impression that what the world sees is what they mostly see -- the domestic side. And to a certain extent, they do thanks to its cultural influence. This democracy/rule of law, however, is completely absent in way it behaves outside its borders and it's now clearer than ever to everyone that the US is the biggest source of instability in the world. More than Russia. Certainly more than China. | | | |
| ▲ | Levitz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Then you probably are not fit to comment on this matter. I'm sorry to be that blunt but if you don't understand the value of rule of law, the difference in incentives, the consequences of separation of powers, I can't even grasp what kind of perspective you can build. It's genuinely baffling to me. |
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| ▲ | foxes 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | lol, your current president and congress dont seem to be following your own laws. |
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| ▲ | refulgentis 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yr parent is new to standard China legal mechanisms and you pivoted off of that to invent a chain of stuff that isn’t real. Are they unfamiliar to us? Yes. But it’s worth speaking to whether the speculation is rational. |
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