[wisdomoftheages]

Meng was arrested for fraud, lying to U.S. banks and violating financial disclosure laws; no different than any garden variety money-launderer.

Most importantly, she's had a day in court, been granted bail in a hearing that was open to the media, and if extradited, will receive due process and a fair criminal trial where everyone will get to see the evidence against her.

These two men have been 'disappeared'. Good luck ever seeing any shred of due process for them. Not even the most shameless Xi mouthpiece can credibly claim that China has anything resembling an independent judicial system.

It's not surprising that all Chinese media and all commentators loyal to the Xi clique have cynically framed this in terms of Meng being 'abducted' or 'held hostage'. The worldview of authoritarian, personal dictatorship cannot even conceive of due process and the rule of law (which also accounts for some of the idiotic off-the-cuff remarks that Trump has made - fortunately, the U.S. still has a semi-functioning government with separation of powers and an independent judiciary, so he's not really in the saddle here)

[kw71]

None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved.

While the majority of US Federal prosecutions are honest, FBI agents and US attorneys do get involved in misapplication of the law and reckless prosecution for political or personal reasons.

And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior is a real tough sell. It would be easier to sell sand in the desert.

[shard972]

> None of this 'How China Works' is new to anyone. Canada should have considered it when deciding to get involved.

Maybe on HN, but is this really old news to all of our governments? I was watching CBC last night on all the issues the Canadian government is now running into with their 5g rollout since they were one of the few western countries who decided to deal with china.

Either they didn't know what china was, or they have better information on china then we do.

> And our president respecting rule of law or being better than Xi on any measure except successful criminal behavior is a real tough sell.

Is this a troll? Did we see trump pass a law unlocking the term limit for president? Because Xi did that, that's why hes even still in office.

[kw71]

Nobody sane ever expected China to be a 'rule of law' country in the Western sense though. I don't know enough about Chinese law to judge whether changing a law should have been allowed. But that law is changed, by whatever mechanism, and that is a bit different to acting in contravention of a law.

[gpm]

Canada absolutely should not have considered it when deciding to get involved.

Canada, like any civilized nation, should follow the rule of law. If that has consequences for our deals with and nationals living in totalitarian states, so be it. You shouldn't get to be above the law just because a big trading partner wants you to be.

Canada doesn't have a president, but the idea that our Prime Minister, or more importantly, our government respects the rule of law more than China isn't a hard sell at all. As bad as Trump is, the same is true about him (even if arguably only because the system forces it on him), and is certainly true of the American government as a whole.

[kw71]

My understanding is that these treaties are not so cut and dry. Treaty extraditions to the US have been refused on grounds of human rights, probable cause and documentation issues and I've never known of retaliation for failure to act. The US trend of "The World is My Jurisdiction" is sketchy and arguable enough for a country to refuse.

In his official actions Trump has shown that he does not know what the law even is so expecting him to respect it is like a pipe dream. And what has come out about some of his personal actions in the past doesn't give much hope either.

(I'm an American so when I speak about "our" I mean US)