I don't know what to say after reading that. It's so depressing. Imagine being scared of being arrested for accessing The Internet? People can never be given too free access to information. The fact people in China have to resort to bypassing the Great Firewall using various hacks is so sad and depressing, and I can feel nothing but anger because of it.
“Yang’s arrest serves the purpose of granting additional leverage to the Chinese government in international negotiations for the protection and promotion of Huawei around the world.”
That isn’t how Americans react. Chinese companies, malicious or otherwise, are going to face very significant hurdles expanding in the West. Of course, that could actually be the Chinese central government’s goal.
Western companies, yes. Western governments... we'll see. The Trump administration is not going easy on the Chinese government, for one. We'll have to wait and see about the rest, or about how serious the Trump administration is about tending to Chinese issues (it appears to be mainly interested in trade imbalance).
Why did he fly to China when he must have known that he will get arrested (as mentioned in the article, he was arrested previously and only got out via international pressure, under non disclosed arrangements)?
I agree that this is extremely odd. Dr. Hengjun is probably one of the more educated people in the world about China's authoritarian nature. I suspect that there's something else going on - perhaps they have some hidden leverage on him?
I hope the Internet and its corresponding freedom of information destroys these evil regimes. Forcing ideas and practices on people from the outside cannot be sustainable.
> I hope the Internet and its corresponding freedom of information destroys these evil regimes. Forcing ideas and practices on people from the outside cannot be sustainable.
That would be nice, but I don't think that's enough. I'm starting to think that, if we eventually want real improvements in human rights in those places, we're going to need new legislation like the Jackson Amendment.
What freedom of information? China chose "restrict access to information" as the method of control, the US chose "deluge people with so much misinformation they can just choose whatever truth suits them". Don't make the mistake of thinking one is better, or more free.
The US government doesn't restrict freedom of speech to such a degree that it allows for non-government actors (including political parties, partisans and those monetarily interested in obfuscation) to decrease the signal to noise ratio of truth (signal) to misinformation and the like (noise).
That is a lot different than the government itself getting into the misinformation business itself.
That can be summed up that don't have regulations on limiting speech when it isn't truthful, except when it incites violence and other limited times like libel, and even then the legal bar is very high to have the legal basis to successfully bring a case.
There is no restriction on reporting the truth. Classified information gets leaked in the press on a fairly frequent basis without any ramifications to the journalists publishing it. It seems fairly often those who leak it aren't charged. Those cases where they are charged are when they don't just verbally say to a reporter off the record, but when they leak documents.
>That is a lot different than the government itself getting into the misinformation business itself.
At most, it means someone quits working for a government agency and joins a private party to do their misinformation campaign, see "White House Plumbers," though often it is just the government involved.
One is better and more free though. Atleast in the US you have the possibility of getting closer to the truth if you're committed enough to wade through all the info. In China, that's simply not that case.
