For at least ten years, the Chinese Communist Party has been abducting its overseas citizens on EU territory and forcibly returning them to China - violating the rule of law and public security in Europe - a new report finds.
  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    177·
    8 months ago

    This is not a good comparison and isn’t necessary to show this report is bullshit. It isn’t even internally coherent:

    “Indeed, the official methodology involves kidnapping,” Harth said. “Citizens are persuaded to return…”

    They’re talking about China telling its citizens to return, which is nothing like kidnapping, but they’re calling it that anyway to gin up outrage. Between that and the telltale “Chinese Communist Party” mislabeling, they’re obviously not interested in doing any sort of objective analysis.

    • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
      93·
      8 months ago

      Yes, the CCP is notorious for being super friendly when persuading people. They would never ever threaten a person’s entire family to get people to step in line.

      Grabbing a person off the streets and throwing them into a van isn’t the only method of kidnapping.

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        116·
        8 months ago

        Pg. 18 of the full report, linked in the post:

        Ye is the former mayor of Chuanliao Town Government in Qingtian County, Zhejiang. Accused of bribery, he fled to Milan, Italy, in July 2001.

        In December 2014, the Zhejiang Public Security Department and the Protectorate sent a joint working group to Italy and Spain to carry out persuade to return operations of fugitives from the Lishui and Wenzhou areas.

        After being persuaded face-to-face by the working group, Ye flew back to China with the working group to surrender himself on December 23, 2014.

        Not only is there no evidence of what you’re suggesting, but this anti-China group’s own report paints a pretty mundane picture.

        Their strategy is to create an unfalsifiable position:

        1. Print a bunch of “China Bad” bullshit, like this report.
        2. People skim the headlines and think “China Bad.”
        3. Other people read the report and point out how the facts presented don’t show anything objectionable.
        4. The first group thinks “but we all know China Bad, so I’ll just read that into the facts, no matter how tame they are.”
    • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      108·
      8 months ago

      I did not even click the link because it’s obvious on its face that it’s bullshit anti-china propaganda in like 7 different ways. My comment is essentially a steel-man argument: Even if I assume that the liberal bullshit propaganda is 100% true, the US is still far worse in every way.

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        65·
        8 months ago

        Ah, makes sense. I’d look more at the U.S. drone assassination program and its (actual) kidnapping and torture operations. That’s the best comparison to what this report alleges.

        • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          35·
          8 months ago

          Well, I don’t appreciate the implication that the time I was in the wrong place at the wrong time so I got forced into the back of a stranger’s car at gunpoint and driven 30 minutes to the stranger’s HQ where I was then locked in a room and interrogated doesn’t count as “abduction” or “kidnapping”

          • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            35·
            8 months ago

            I mean, that wasn’t an abuction or kidnapping. There are countless actions that are legal when the government does them but criminal if done by a private citizen. In many cases there’s probable cause to make an arrest, but the person is later cleared, which sounds like it happened to you. That doesn’t make the arrest illegal, much less kidnapping.

            This isn’t a technical point, either. Mischaracterizing lawful government conduct as criminal is exactly what this report is attempting to do, and we shouldn’t do it ourselves.

            • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              44·
              8 months ago

              I mean, that wasn’t an abuction or kidnapping.

              It was exactly both of those things, and I don’t understand why you are the second person to reply to me under the mistaken impression that abduction and kidnapping are only possible when they are done illegally. Where are you getting this nonsense from?

              • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                44·
                8 months ago

                Where are you getting this nonsense from?

                The law. Yes, abduction and kidnapping are only possible when they are done illegally. Illegality is a crucial part of what those terms mean.

                You’re essentially making the libertarian “tax is theft” argument: it would be criminal if I did it to you, so it must be criminal when the government does it to you.

                • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  33·
                  8 months ago

                  Illegality is a crucial part of what those terms mean.

                  No dude, it isn’t. At all. You literally have it backwards. The law uses these terms because they are English terms with meanings. The law doesn’t give them their meanings.