[nutjob2]

This is false equivalence.

Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail. That power can only be granted by a judge.

China arbitrarily traps people in China without any such thing or any due process whatsoever.

[BigTTYGothGF]

> Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail

This has historically not been the case, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haig_v._Agee and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson

[nsagent]

The first case makes sense: ex-CIA officer explicitly outing CIA officers. Naturally, the government is going to step in and it's a false equivalence to compare to restricting random citizens.

As for your second case, US schools teach about the perils of McCarthyism. You neglected to link to the subsequent Supreme Court ruling in 1958 overturning the confiscation of the passport over protected speech. Note how long ago that was and how it's taught as a black stain on US history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_v._Dulles

[vkou]

These aren't random citizens, these are people accused of violating export controls of sensitive, dual-use technology.

They seem to be the poster children for a flight risk.

[mothballed]

Anyone with a child support order that makes decent money is only one misrecorded or bounced payment away from being ineligible for a passport. The trigger is only 4 digits of USD.

[smcin]

In the US, the Passport Denial Program, since 1998 (other developed countries enacted similar legislation), following the 1992 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) [2]:

> The Child Support Enforcement Passport Denial Program was enacted as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. While authorized in 1996, the program was jointly implemented by the U.S. Department of State and the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement in June 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_support#Enforcement

[1]: "The [US] Child Support Enforcement Passport Denial Program" https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12660

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._ratification_of_the_Conve...

[giwook]

So were these founders found violating a child support order?I'm still unclear on what crime they actually committed and what they're being investigated for.

Is it possible that they are merely pawns in a political dispute between two rival countries?

It's one thing to block an acquisition because you don't want your rival to gain an advantage, an action which is not limited to the CCP.

It's another thing to detain an individual when no crime was committed.

[mothballed]

"Missing" (but quite often only due to a clerical misreporting) a payment isn't facially criminal and isn't even established as "violation" without a contempt hearing where you can argue why you didn't actually violate it. So the passport denial is even looser than that.

I'm just pointing out the bar isn't much different except dressed up in a think of the children meme. I'm not justifying either one.

[giwook]

Understood. I'd note that the difference is that with a missed payment, you can simply make that payment (which can be a relatively small one as you noted) and you're free and clear.

With these Chinese founders, I'm not sure it's quite so simple.

[Avicebron]

You didn't have to bring out the big gun usernames, we get it, you run a bot farm.

[BigTTYGothGF]

Did you respond to the wrong post?

[andersonpico]

> China arbitrarily traps people in China without any such thing or any due process whatsoever.

What makes you think there's no legal process for blocking nationals from leaving China?It's a very common instrument and in a bunch of countries it's an administrative measure with even less scrutinity than a judicial mandate. Do you consider France or the UK to be a countries without rule of law or due process?

But to the point in the US, for example, the government can just issue a warrant for you as a material witness or flag your passport and then you can't leave; these are hardly due processes and more like legal workarounds to do exactly the same thing; the US has disappeared plenty of people in much more sinister ways than that, however, so I agree that there's no equivalence here: the US is worse.

[giwook]

America is not exactly a shining moral example for the world, particularly these days, but these Chinese apologist takes can be a bit baffling to read at times.

[nutjob2]

It mostly doesn't make any sense and seems to be motivated by some kind of animus or bigotry. But maybe understandable given the current administration's behavior.