The China Thread

[The Brain]

Is there a max to the score?

[Grey Fox]

I think the time to debate the National Security Law is over.  It is being enforced, and it is here to stay.  Don't like it?  Leave.  Those who stay, however, need to adapt and live with it.  The question isn't "will it scare foreign investors away?"  It is "how do we attract foreign investors and keep them here given that the law is here to stay?"

Those are both questions.

The time to debate the international response to the National Security Law is beginning.

I am sure you guys have better things to do, like the international response to COVID 19, global warming, Brexit, racial stuff, gays rights, women, dead elephants etc etc.

Xi the Pooh wants to be seen as a super power. Being ignored is not something that a superpower usually want.

[Tonitrus]

Is there a max to the score?

Whatever score Xi JinPing has.

[Monoriu]

Is there a max to the score?

Whatever score Xi JinPing has.

I'll be very surprised if Xi and the politburo members have scores.  They are above such things. 

[Tonitrus]

So much for a communist paradise. 

[Monoriu]

So much for a communist paradise. 

A big part of having authority is ability to follow a different set of rules without suffering any consequence.  But of course you know that already. 

[Tamas]

So much for a communist paradise. 

A big part of having authority is ability to follow a different set of rules without suffering any consequence.  But of course you know that already.

Clearly a big cultural difference we have here is that we at least like to pretend this is not what we want, and thus make laws against it (which then we largely ignore but still).

[Monoriu]

I may be wrong, but as far as I know, the scoring system is never explained clearly.  That is deliberate.  You need to guess how it works.  You don't know for sure what works and what doesn't.  That makes people think twice before they try anything, because they never know what they are going to do is going to harm them or not. 

[celedhring]

I may be wrong, but as far as I know, the scoring system is never explained clearly.  That is deliberate.  You need to guess how it works.  You don't know for sure what works and what doesn't.  That makes people think twice before they try anything, because they never know what they are going to do is going to harm them or not.

What a paradise.

[Admiral Yi]

From what I've read there are obvious things like committing crimes and not paying debts.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Hong Kong police have been granted sweeping new powers, including the ability to conduct raids without a warrant and secretly monitor suspects, after controversial security laws were imposed on the city by the Chinese central government.

The powers allow for the confiscation of property related to national security offences, and allow senior police to order the takedown of online material they believe breaches the law. The city's chief executive can grant police permission to intercept communications and conduct covert surveillance. Penalties include HKD$100,000 (£10,300) fines and up to two years in prison.

They also allow police to enter and search premises for evidence without a warrant "under exceptional circumstances", to restrict people under investigation from leaving Hong Kong, and to demand information from foreign and Taiwanese political organisations and agents on their Hong Kong-related activities.

Ausweis bitte!

[Razgovory]

Sounds like one of those "throw you in jail for whatever we want" laws.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Sounds like one of those "throw you in jail for whatever we want" laws.

that's because it's that type of regime

[Eddie Teach]

And now Hong Kong is getting integrated. Brave resistance fighters must build up their strength to repel PLA troops with melee combat. We should support them by posting this emoji 

[Syt]

https://www.axios.com/china-hong-kong-law-global-activism-ff1ea6d1-0589-4a71-a462-eda5bea3f78f.html

With new security law, China outlaws global activism

The draconian security law that Beijing forced upon Hong Kong last week contains an article making it illegal for anyone in the world to promote democratic reform for Hong Kong.

Why it matters: China has long sought to crush organized dissent abroad through quiet threats and coercion. Now it has codified that practice into law — potentially forcing people and companies around the world to choose between speaking freely and ever stepping foot in Hong Kong again.

What's happening: Article 38 of the national security law states, "This Law shall apply to offences under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region."

In other words, every provision of the law applies to everyone outside of Hong Kong — including you.

Several experts in Chinese and international law confirmed this interpretation of the law to Axios.

"It literally applies to every single person on the planet. This is how it reads," said Wang Minyao, a Chinese-American lawyer based in New York. "If I appear at a congressional committee in D.C. and say something critical, that literally would be a violation of this law."

This means that anyone advocating democracy in Hong Kong, or criticizing the governments in Hong Kong or Beijing, could potentially face consequences if they step foot in Hong Kong, or have assets or family members in Hong Kong.

What they're saying: "One of the main purposes of having the national security law is to quash the international front of the movement," said Nathan Law, a Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker, who spoke to Axios after he fled the city last week.

"For Hong Kong, we have to understand that it is the foreground of a very global fight, authoritarianism versus democracy."

He and other leaders of the pro-democracy movement, including Joshua Wong, have traveled the globe in recent years to promote their cause, including meeting with U.S. lawmakers — an activity that the new law prohibits.

The big picture: This marks a historically unprecedented expansion of extraterritoriality — the application of a country's domestic laws abroad.

U.S. counterterrorism laws have a degree of extraterritoriality, but those laws are intended to fight actual violent terrorism — not free speech — and are not used to crush peaceful political organizing.

The new law codifies and extends to non-Chinese nationals the extraterritorial practices that the Chinese Communist Party has long applied to its own citizens abroad.

Earlier this year a Chinese student at the University of Minnesota was sentenced to six months in prison after returning home to China for the summer, for a tweet criticizing Xi Jinping that he posted while in the U.S.

Chinese officials have also threatened people of Chinese heritage abroad who are no longer Chinese citizens, in some cases kidnapping them, taking them back to China, and forcing them to renounce their foreign citizenship so that Chinese authorities can prosecute them as Chinese nationals without foreign involvement.

Beijing is also increasingly using market access as a form of leverage to silence foreign companies and organizations.

Hollywood movie studios make sure their films don't offend China's censors so they can retain access to China's massive domestic movie market.

After Beijing complained, Marriott fired an employee who used a company social media account to like a post about Tibet.

Until now, this was informal coercion. Now it's the law.

An example: The tweet that Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted last year in the support of the Hong Kong protests got the NBA in a lot of trouble in China.
That tweet would likely be illegal under the new law.

What's at stake: The point of the law isn't necessarily to immediately launch a sweeping global dragnet, but rather "to put the fear of God into all China critics the world over," wrote Donald Clarke, a professor Chinese law at George Washington University, in an analysis of the law.

"It's the obsession with seizing the narrative-setting power," said Alvin Cheung, a legal scholar at New York University.

What to watch: Hong Kong authorities may begin to detain or arrest people of any nationality upon entry to Hong Kong for their actions or speech elsewhere — or even issue extradition requests for major targets.