And at a minimum they knew he is former military thanks to that huge OPM hack several years ago. As he would have shown up on the list along with having a security clearance.
Very likely. They needed a pawn for the economic war against the US and took the first opportunity; the arrest for carrying airsoft pellets seems the only pretext they could find.
A billion people is a lot. Does literally every action taken by anybody in China have to be part of a government plot? Do you honestly think that this tiny, random event is going to have any bearing on trade negotiations, or are you just looking to ascribe any sinister motive you can?
Yes it is calculated. Arbitrary arrests of foreign nationals in China usually ramp up in direct proportion to escalations in political disputes between China and their country of nationality.
Do you have actual statistics on that, or is this another one of those claims supported entirely by one-off cherry picked examples? Have you considered that it is instead the reporting of detentions, thousands of which occur worldwide daily, that is skewed to match current tensions?
Just to be clear, I'm not an US citizen, I've never been in the US nor plan to go there anytime soon and have no reasons to defend their government interests. So why do I think that arrest was part of a plot to gain a pawn to be used in exchange of something wrt the economic war between US and China? Because the weapon motivation is utter ridiculous! I can buy knives, steel balls, nunchakus, shurikens and swords any day from Chinese eShops, but apparently a bag of plastic balls (airsoft pellets are nothing more than small plastic balls) represents some national security issue for them.
Seriously folks, am I supposed to believe that the same people who identified, followed and arrested a former US military pilot are so dumb to think a bag of plastic balls represent a national security issue?
I'm not either defending the US nor bashing China here, just pointing the obvious as this happens everywhere: powers make the laws then bend them according to their needs. It's common people who is getting screwed, everywhere and everytime. That's just how power works: the Chinese govt will leverage that capture to gain something from Trump, Trump will lower the tariffs to get the poor ex pilot back home and that's it; corporations which outsourced to China will cheer Trump for helping their business and people will do the same for bringing back the hero home. Seen a million times.
Chinese retaliatory arrests are typically calculated, i.e. the two Canadians detained in response to Huawei were arrested by the Ministry of State Security and fit all the profile of being spies (ex government employee working for NGOs & North Korean connection). The Canadian drug smuggler expedited for death sentence after he repealed was convicted in Canada prior for smuggling as well and basically trolling Canadians who thought China was lax on drugs and rule of law. There's also a Canadian coup detained under espionage years prior. During Senkaku incident, a few Japanese employees at Fujita was serendipitously arrested for taking pictures of a military base which the company confessed to as an accident. Then you the drama behind exit VISAs which basically sums up to corruption, espionage, dissidents. The common thread behind these arrests is that the motivations are typically non trivial or ridiculous.
Shortly after the Huawei arrests, the hysterical Canadian media was blowing up routine / administrative arrests: a political dissident who got held up at the airport for a few hours during a flight transit and a Canadian teacher whose VISA expired. After it was noted that detainment levels has not elevated and in the teacher's case, govern officials had to go out of their way to clarify that the arrest had nothing to do with Huawei.
This pilot arrest is interesting though, the excuse is... extremely weak, yet there's political motivations because China is pissed at Fedex for diverting the Huawei package a while ago. Still it's very strange they went out of the way to arrest him in Hong Kong, if they have to nab a Fedex employee on flimsy grounds, why not just do it on the mainland. Also why do it so close to 70th anniversary - it's just very... not smart timing.
> So why do I think that arrest was part of a plot to gain a pawn to be used in exchange of something wrt the economic war between US and China? Because the weapon motivation is utter ridiculous!
You are a new hire at the US-Mexico border control. One day a suspicious looking guy passes through, and you find a ton of white powder in his suitcase. You look him up in a database and find he has previously been charged with drug possession. You have been warned by your higher-ups that many people have recently trying to get through precisely your station smuggling drugs. So you detain him out of caution, but it turns out, for some weird reason, he just wanted to ship a suitcase full of baking soda to the US!
So since baking soda is totally harmless, this obviously means that your action must have been part of a plot on the US's part to put pressure on Mexico to fund the wall, right? What other explanation could there possibly be?
I have, of course, just gone through the article paragraph by paragraph and changed the subject to America. (Also, I am a US citizen.) No doubt, events like this happen constantly, and nobody cares, because mistakes happen. Only when the subject is China is everything a grand conspiracy.
> That's just how power works: the Chinese govt will leverage that capture to gain something from Trump
It doesn't actually work like this. Detentions happen constantly on all sides. One detention does not do anything to affect policy. I would bet that after a week this guy will be back home, to absolutely no consequence in the trade war, and you'll never hear about it in the news because it doesn't cause enough fear.
Ascribing the most sinister possible motives to everything a foreigner does is something that feels sophisticated and intellectual. But it's not. It's the oldest cognitive bias that exists. It is from the stone age and it will take us back.
Imagine that random, unremarkable things involving people from Arkansas occasionally got blasted across every newspaper and forum in the US. And everywhere you went, you saw people saying that this must be a plot from Arkansas' governor to take over the US, and everybody from Arkansas is a government spy, that Arkansas' culture of deception meant that you could never trust anybody from it, and that true patriots spent every day fuming in hatred at Arkansas and its people.
If you were born in Arkansas, this would be all be clearly crazy, because you would know that your family in Arkansas are ordinary human beings, not heartless government spies. And it would be rather alarming, even if you had moved out of Arkansas, and hated its current government, because you would be next on the chopping block.
It would be even more disappointing if, when you tried to argue otherwise, you were dismissed without a thought by the same Arkansas paranoia. That's how witch hunts work.
Well, if I were to have moved out of Arkansas, and hated its current govt, I wouldn't be defending its govt when it detained people without any solid reasoning.
Well, I just told you why I wrote the comments I did. I mean, are you part of any groups that get constantly bashed in the popular press, or on the internet at large? Any groups that are the subject of paranoia, witch hunts, and general moral panic?
If you really aren't, you're extraordinarily lucky. If you are, you know where I'm coming from.
Moreover, I'm not defending any governments. I'm just pointing out in this thread that an act that is stupid in retrospect might have just been that -- one person's stupid mistake. There's no need to talk about it in such conspiratorial tones.
You don't need that. Just search names in Google and Facebook and spend 15mins for it. Works for 90% of military personals. People share what they do, eat, and where they go these days.
