[jcytong]

One of the traps that the CCP like to employ is to compare their own policies to other countries.

The key difference is that most of the comparisons are towards democratic countries with judicial independence which makes the whole thing irrelevant. Following laws in New Zealand which could be changed if the people there find the laws unjust.

[simonh]

Nobody is arguing that the Chinese government’s behaviour is morally equivalent to that of the New Zealand government, or that their justifications first their actions are reasonable or fair. Nevertheless the fact is they are the government of China and anyone working, operating or doing business in China is subject to Chinese law.

This is a difficult issue. I’m sick of seeing big western companies abasing themselves to the Chinese government over activities occurring outside China, such as US sports leagues and media companies suppressing opinions about Hong Kong expressed by people in the US or Europe. That’s got to stop and we need to make it clear to these companies that China’s influence on discourse outside China cannot be allowed.

Nevertheless we can’t expect people working and doing business inside a China itself to four Chinese law. We can push for them to stop doing business in China in extreme cases, but expecting companies to criminalise their own employees to satisfy our consciences is not reasonable.