Seriously. It's this fiction that makes me believe that, despite it's flaws, America (along with other democratic countries) is a beacon compared to the rest of the world. A country locking up a foreigner for breaking their laws is so different than a country locking up said foreigner out of retaliation, which is what I imagine China will end up doing.
The problem is this, you're always violating some law.
Even in the US, there are over 20,000 laws and regulations at the federal level alone. In China, there are even more. Any small foreign operator in China naive enough to assert with 100% confidence that they are not in violation of any of those codes is being dangerously foolish.
So here's the thing, I actually agree with you. What China will do, they will do out of retaliation. However, I can pretty much guarantee that whoever the patsy is, that person will be in violation of some obscure code that no one in their right mind would have been paying attention to. They will definitely be in violation of some law. And they will condemn him/her to whatever ungodly prison camp for however many years.
So China will also be simply arresting someone for violating their laws. That's the issue.
Now my point is that if you are American, and a small operator without the clout to prevent this sort of thing from happening to you, it's best to try to get out in front of the problem. I know that I really don't want to be one of the poor stooges sitting in a Chinese prison for a decade because these people are trying to make tit-for-tat points.
I'm not talking politics or philosophy. I'm just saying that China is not like the US, and I'm advising people to be careful if they are small and plan to operate in what appears to be a dangerous legal environment that will likely be getting more treacherous with time.
I'm curious why you mention "small operators" twice here.
Huawei is a huge player in an inherently global business, complicated by the fact that selling telecoms network equipment necessitates dealing with quasi-state actors in most countries. Anyone playing at the C-level in such a company is definitely well advised around things like FCPA (and its non-US equivalents) and sanctions regimes.
Small operators get the short end of the stick, sure, but Huawei's CFO is not a small operator (and the sad recipient of China's likely retaliation probably won't be, either).
>The problem is this, you're always violating some law.
"21 USC §§331, 333, 343 & 21 CFR §133.113(a)(3) make it a federal crime for a cheesemaker to sell cheddar cheese unless the curd was matted into a cohesive mass."
Look for laws to be enforced cops need to be aware of them.
Specialists exist both on the government side as say food safty inspectors etc, and the private side as compliance officers. So, rules like this are not obscure for people building factory’s to manufacture cheddar and your local cops are not going to know about this crap they are searching your house for something else.
This actually works really well, as we want food to be safe to eat even if most people are not aware of how long food can be kept at what temperatures. Likewise what safty systems need to be part of nuclear reactors, or the minimum safty factor for bridges.
It's just a bit odd that highly specific examples like this make it into written law. A pretty clear example of what happens when you have a Government that can be heavily influenced by corporate lobbying.
I don't think your average reasonable person is in opposition to requirements to label food correctly and not mislead consumers. These things are already written in law, in the case of food it's governed by the FDA. However, when we start including overly specific laws like this, of which this is but one of many (sheesh, check-out what was in the TPP), then every other company in every other industry wants the same treatment, and we end up with a convoluted mess that we have today. This is a problem because your average citizen can't possibly keep up with all this; but more importantly these overly specific laws are a nightmare when it comes time to introduce new legislation. So much time is wasted on garbage like this.
The TPP actually had plenty of reasonable components to it, but it was also filled to the brim with corporate garbage. It's hard enough to form trade agreements and pass legislation without corporations insisting their obscure needs must be met. Particularly when legislation and agreements are either signed and passed as entire unit, or not at all. It just wastes everyone's time when there's a few odd sticking points holding up the whole process.
I don't understand your argument. You seem to be opposed to specificity in the written prohibition. So what's the alternative? You'd prefer it if FDA regulations didn't have the force of law? Or would you prefer it if FDA regulations were secret, unwritten, unavailable for cheddar manufacturers and cheddar manufacturer compliance officers to examine? Neither of those seem like good solutions.
It's called industry standards, and it's common practice and already in place in written legislation.
Written laws give Government bodies power to maintain and enforce theses standards, independent of legislation that needs to be passed through long slow processes involving many politicians who have no knowledge of the relevant field.
Industry standards don't have the force of law unless they are given the force of law.
> Written laws give Government bodies power to maintain and enforce theses standards, independent of legislation that needs to be passed through long slow processes involving many politicians who have no knowledge of the relevant field.
"Written laws ... independent of legislation" doesn't make sense. What are you trying to say here?
It's not, and I never said that it was; quite the opposite actually.
I said that it's odd that these things are written in law seems as we already have laws that cover this more broadly. Attempting to maintain in written law explicit definitions of every food that humans can fathom, and how they are presently produced, is clearly untenable.
If you have a vauger law you get all sorts of arguments that "well, cheddar doesn't have to be cheddared" and "10% meat is enough in meat sauce" etc, etc.
My apologies, perhaps you need to elaborate on what you meant when you wrote:
> Seems pretty clearly tenable to me. It is, in fact, being tened. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
in response to:
> Attempting to maintain in written law explicit definitions of every food that humans can fathom, and how they are presently produced, is clearly untenable.
It's not about local cops picking you for some arcane law. It's about anyone in government having the ability to find something to fuck you with at any time they want to.
That's not actually true. The cited regulation permits cheddar cheese produced "by the procedure set forth in paragraph (a)(3) of this section, or by any other procedure which produces a finished cheese having the same physical and chemical properties." 21 C.F.R. § 133.113(a)(1) (emphasis added), available athttps://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/133.113.
I think the above poster's point is that there are so many laws on the books that effectively everyone is above said ceiling. Thus, selective enforcement is functionally identical to arbitrary arrest.
Which is what makes America, with elected and political DA's, so much less of a beacon compared to normal democratic countries where that would be considered insane.
Worth noting that the lines are a little bit blurred in America. I don't know if you grew up in the US/your nationality, but I've noticed a lot more things feel questionable to me about America since I've been an expat for a few years.
This is one of the most interesting cases I've seen:
USA will go to a foreign country and topple their government for violating US business interests (not laws). Being an American might be OK, but America isn't a beacon for citizens of other countries.
> but America isn't a beacon for citizens of other countries.
“Most of all, America passes the critical gate test. Open the gate and see where people go — in or out. This is still the country people flock to.”
— George Will, 1992
“We are the ally of the US not because they are powerful, but because we share their values. I am not surprised by anti-Americanism; but it is a foolish indulgence. For all their faults and all nations have them, the US are a force for good; they have liberal and democratic traditions of which any nation can be proud. I sometimes think it is a good rule of thumb to ask of a country: are people trying to get into it or out of it? It’s not a bad guide to what sort of country it is.”
— Tony Blair, 2003
When there are people camped outside of the Chinese, Polish, French or Serbian embassies waiting to apply for immigrant visas, then maybe I might agree that the US isn’t a beacon. However, reality is that more people want to emmigrate to the US compared to every single other country in the world. That seems like the very definition of beacon to me. Perhaps the British aren’t clamoring to move to the US, but citizens of many other countries are. The US does have faults, but if you dig deep enough into any country, there are faults. The US is just a popular target for hatred because nobody in the media really gets worked up over the policies of Denmark or Uruguay. Nobody could probably even name a single person extradited by Canada to a non-US country, but it happens every day, but since it’s the CFO of a major corporation, it’s big news and somehow the narrative is being proffered that the US is acting in some exceptional way here.
When the Roman Empire found Jesus and slowly devolved into the Roman Catholic Church over the next thousand years, its "war on paganism" spread throughout Europe and Asia, with a death toll that is hard to estimate, but easily in the millions if you add up all the crusades and inquisitions.
Unsurprisingly, many pagans chose to convert to Christianity, rather than be murdered on the spot.
So maybe we can stop using this word "beacon", and use something more appropriate. How about "fortress"?
I mean Syria, Libya, Iraq are some recent examples. There could also be a discussion about Ukraine and how much did US help to topple the government there but that is a more speculative example. The middle eastern examples are quite clear cut. I do agree US is doing this less than during the cold war.
Assad getting overthrown was related to the big geopolitical confrontation with Russia (cold war has never really ended fyi). It was a move against Putin, trying to cut off his ally, as well as secure new pipeline to Europe to damage Russia economically.
Currently Germany, the largest EU economy, is dependent on Russian natural gas. Once you cut that dependency, Russia will get weaker and more isolated, which is in national interest of US I assume. US is also trying to make Germany less dependent on Russia so they can put on more pressure on Russian economy without damaging Germany's economy.
Google is your friend, there were plans for the Iran–Iraq–Syria natural gas pipeline and Putin intervened to stop the project as it was against Russian national interest. Also don't forget about Russian military base in Syria, getting rid of that in the process would be an added bonus from US point of view.
I did not specify business interests exclusively btw. It could be business interests or national interests (or combination of both, often when a country pursues regime change as a part of national interest, there are private companies that make profit).
Governments do not get toppled only for economical benefit, often it's mainly because of geopolitics, see cold war, both US and Russia were toppling over governments and installing puppet regimes in various countries as part of their fight for dominance. Economic/business interests are secondary most of the time.
Reasons for overthrowing Gaddafi were iffy at best also (I'd would actually like to turn the table and let you explain it to me, because I haven't heard any valid reason why we randomly started bombing Syria).
I'm not familiar with any important economic interests there, although they produce some oil and export it mainly to Europe (but it's small potatoes). So I'd assume it was geopolitics again, maybe Gaddafi was friend of Putin also.
Syria now is a complete mess with different local strongmen and terrorist groups competing for power, there's basically a constant state of anarchy and violence so I don't see how you can argue it was a good idea.
US toppled democratically-elected govts in other countries, one of which indirectly created the Islamic Iran of today, its not a idealistic beacon of hope, its just the current world hegemon with 800 military bases all over the world, the British empire of its time:
I've see US soldiers in the Middle East while I was there, generically they're just people but in a way theres something strange about a US military base in another country. I was born an expat during the Gulf War period and US is really seen as a big advanced petrodollar bully in the region and has really only brought even more death and chaos to Iraq than Saddam did ironically. Kofi Annan, past UN Secretary General, himself has said that the Iraq war was unjust but then again I'm just reminiscing about something the US and US citizens no longer cares about. Iraq is now just another failed state, and the deaths there don't matter.
> It is absolutely crazy to think that US law should apply worldwide
Don't steal a Canadian company's technology [1], market products in America [2], issue dollar-denominated debt [3] and then violate sanctions in dollar-denominated transactions, and the U.S. and Canada will probably leave you alone.
If you want to do business with the US, there are certain conditions they'd like to enforce (e.g. don't resell their stuff to a list of countries). That's simple.
The other reality is that certain countries have cooperation agreements where they feel their laws are compatible enough that they agree to extradite individuals that break those laws. Seems pretty standard business to me.
If you know you're violating a high profile US law, dont travel to countries that are buddies with the US. Maybe she didn't know about the arrest request?
Pretty sure she would not travel to Canada knowing that an arrest warrant is outstanding. Why is it kept secret? Is it that important to nab her? Could be a huge headache for Canada.
While the US won’t prosecute you for stealing in, say, Argentina, there are laws on the books that prohibit all citizens from doing business with certain nations, period.
They’re calling them US sanctions but the UN has also imposed sanctions on Iran. That may explain why Canada arested him. One signatory picking up a person on behalf of a more motivated one.
If an USA or EU pays a bribe in Argentina, they may be prosecuted in their origin country. Also, the legislation about bribes abroad is very different in USA than in the EU, so when there is an important bidding process where there are companies from both sites, there are always problems and accusations afterwards. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens#2005_and_continuing:_w...
Maybe the most shocking example of bad UN sanctions pushed by the US:
Madeleine Albright says 500,000 dead Iraqi Children was "worth it" wins Medal of Freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnskeu-puE
Canada wants trade with the US more than trade with Iran and thus bows to the US.
The Belgium-based financial messaging service added: “This step, while regrettable, has been taken in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system.”
SWIFT’s decision further undermines EU efforts to maintain trade with Iran and save an international deal with Tehran to curtail its nuclear program, after President Donald Trump pulled the US out in May. Being cut off from SWIFT makes it difficult for Iran to get paid for exports and to pay for imports.
Earlier this week, European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova pledged to find an effective solution, saying that technical work on creating the mechanism to allow EU trade with Iran continued.
“We Europeans cannot accept that a foreign power, not even our closest friend and ally, takes decisions over our legitimate trade with another country,” she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, stressing that the bloc would not be cowed by probable US penalties.
But other countries might have similar rules too. For example, Russia has sanctions against Ukraine, and Western companies generally ignore them. Also, Russia has Internet control laws and companies like Google are disrespectfully not complying with them.
Also, under Russian laws companies like Google or Facebook must keep Russian users' data in Russia; they are not complying.
> It is absolutely crazy to think that US law should apply worldwide.
Sure, but, most crime denominated in dollars goes through New York too. The section called "Stationary bandits" in the following expands this theory a bit:
If the US doesn't like the way Huawei does business, they are free to ban them from selling products in their country. Bringing criminal charges is still ridiculous.
When you agree to a set of terms, and then violate that set of terms, you are on the hook.
Why should Huawei get extra warning shots? They knew they would have to comply with US law and sanctions if they wanted to do business in the US. They chose to try and ignore those sanctions. Ignorantia juris non excusat.
You are suggesting that we make let international companies import products under a pretense, and then we are supposed to politely remind them of their obligations every time they run off the rails?
Huawei is one step away from being a branch of the Chinese intelligence service. We did the right thing.
How the US claims to have criminal jurisdiction over a Chinese company selling to Iran is beyond me. I am suggesting the US ban them from doing business in the US (not "polite reminders") if they wish. i.e the consequence of breaking business sanctions should be prohibition from doing business.
The reports from US commitee's investigating Huawei have never demonstrated any real evidence of the alleged spying or Huawei being a "branch of the Chinese intelligence". Seems like overblown paranoia and fear as China begins to dominate the worlds economy. Not to mention the US routinely spies on other countries as much as possible, inspects all foreign telecom traffic (including phone calls like Huawei allegedly does) going through the US as the NSA leaks demonstrated, but they seem to dislike it when the tables are turned.
The only reason they get away with double-standards like that all over the place is because they have the biggest guns/economy. I call that bullying not justice. Its clearly a power-struggle not justice, you can't claim some moral high ground over not spying on others when you do the same thing.
I feel they are free to protect their national interests - say by banning Huawei if they suspect spying but if they have no proof, they have no authority to start extraditing and threatening and possibly prosecuting people.
The United States is currently operating an illegal drone war in other parts of the world.
Imagine how you would feel if Russia was flying drones above the US and targeted bombing a certain extremist group of people. Are you sure the next wedding you attend none of your friends friends is a target (or a mistaken target)?
Imagine how you life would be when death can come from the sky at any moment and there is nothing you can do about it.
China can always pass a necessary law so that Western citizen will become guilty in full accordance with the law. And US can do the same. There is no difference.
