[bilbo0s]

In all honesty it's even kind of going beyond that right now. You could end up being the poor innocent chinese patsy that they arrest for God knows what in some tit-for-tat power display. No one wants to be the dummy sitting in a foreign prison for 10 or 15 years while China and the US argue over their dick sizes.

As an American I'd think very carefully about working in China right now for the same reason. No matter where you are in the world, you're always breaking some law, and they can pick you up and throw the book at you to make a PR point whenever they please. Same as for a Chinese person in the US.

Feel bad, because the guys travelling to work or study really do just want to meet each other and have interesting idea exchanges, maybe make some friends, etc.

But then the political type people get involved, and it just gets a bit too complicated and you start weighing the potential risks differently.

[hostilerhetoric]

There is literally zero precedent for what you’re talking about. Immigrants jailed in the US because of import taxes? Because of a trade rework? Never. We interred Japanese after Japan commuted one of the largest terror attacks in US history, that’s it.

[dgudkov]

>There is literally zero precedent for what you’re talking about.

That's not exactly true. While China doesn't detain US citizens (yet!) it detains several Canadian citizens presumable because the Huawei's CFO has been arrested in Canada by a US request. See https://time.com/5626289/china-canada-arrest-yantai/

Which makes things even worse - you may become a hostage due to US/China conflicts even if you happened to be a citizen of a US ally.

[anw]

While I hesitate to feed the trolling comments...

> We interred Japanese after Japan commuted one of the largest terror attacks in US history, that’s it.

1.) "We" did not inter Japanese. Those who made the rules and followed them during that time did. If by "We" you mean "Americans" then that leads to the next point...

2.) Many of the "Japanese" you say were interred were Americans. They were put into camps not because of any actual reason than how they look and where their ancestry hailed from.

3.) Imprisoning people who have done nothing wrong and have lived their lives in this country should make painfully clear the quote, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

[throwaway5752]

I appreciate you replying to that poster. I don't think of it as feeding the trolls, but performing a public service. That kind of disinformative and malicious content is infectious, and it's been to everyone's detriment that it's been allow to fester in so any corners of the internet. It deserved to be called out for being morally and factually wrong.

[dang]

Would you please not create accounts to do political battle on HN? That's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We want thoughtful conversation here, not flamewars.

[nkrisc]

Conflating war and terrorism isn't a good look for the US either.