Protesters backing Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou during her US extradition hearings were 'duped paid actors' Protesters rallying outside court in Vancouver, Canada, this week in support of embattled Huawei finance chief Meng Wanzhou turned out to be paid actors – who said they thought they were extras for a film or music video. Each person in the group held a white or red-colored poster that carried messages such as “Free Ms Meng …
And you really think a guy who claimed he had been paid $100 for what he thought was a music video isn't too dumb to be a credible witness ? Think of it, you're being paid for a music video and have to gather outside court holding a red-colored poster. On this occasions I'd bring my brain with me. And turn it on.
so the next claims about 'foreign staged protests' emanating from China or other not-so-open countries will point out that staged protests happen everywhere and all the time -- example being this story in Canada.
It's a great way to muddy the waters: Do the thing you claim the other side is doing and use that as evidence that everybody is doing it.
Cool down! It's only a matter of choosing your overlords. What would you prefer, a strong-handed government or a government overwhelmed by mega-corporations ?
As a person who has spent the first half of his life under a communist regime I can tell you it's not an easy choice. It is all about the size and the form of the boot that kicks you in the teeth.
It's a wormhole. Best not to travel down it, any nation that's ever been able to exert significant power has shat on its rivals and weaker neighbours whenever it could.
Oh, the other characteristic they all share is that they claim that *their* people are uniquely blessed and that, if the rest of the world had any sense, they'd all live like the people of <England, The US, The USSR, Sweden, Holland, France, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, The Ottoman Empire, The Roman Empire, ...>
True. But they performed some of the worst crimes against humanity, and still do - without ever admitting it, and thereby without any will to change.
Feel free to study some History, The Western world did crimes too - but admitted it, processed itself, and tries to avoid new ones.
I can't see "reeducation" camps in any Western country, or those criticizing the system suddenly disappear. Trump is a dangerous idiot? Sure, but it will go away. Mr. Xi nominated himself dictator for life without anybody objecting. The Head Killer in North Korea is there for life too.
Try to spend some time in ex-communist countries - and talk to the people - nobody want it back but those who were the ones in charge so they could exploit the others at their will. And strangely, a lot of them would like to migrate to that dirty, nasty, dangerous Western World, and leave their "paradises"
But you all are free to move to China, Venezuela or North Korea and enjoy the "communist paradise" - but I'm sure that just alike your fathers of grandfathers you prefer to say how nice communism while keeping on comfortably in the Western world...
How do you tell the difference between:
(a) A staged demo whose participants were paid, coerced, or whatever?
(b) A genuine demo infiltrated by agents whose purpose is to let slip to the press that they were paid, coerced, or whatever?
Or indeed other nuances on the theme.
Possibly when there are sufficiently few protesters that the journos can question all of them, or enough to be certain that they were all engaged in the same ways.
The fact that the banners all look the same may also be an indication (although legitimate protesters do provide material for lots of banners as well sometimes)
Indeed, Occam says we can probably take the story at face value.
But I did suggest other nuances. For example, a demo staged with paid actors could be either of:
(a) A demo staged by friends of its purported cause.
(b) A demo staged by enemies of its purported cause, intended to preempt a real demo and/or discredit that purported cause.
Perhaps analogous to the Labour party's election of an unelectable leader? His surge of voters combined his actual supporters (Momentum) with Tory supporters whose motive was to kill off the opposition. But we're unlikely ever to know the precise balance or roles of those forces.
I expect that Donald Trump is rich enough to have paid a few impoverished Canadians to act the role of protesters paid by the Chinese. It's so confusing!
My own assumption would have been that since the lady is in a third country and is subject to court doings, sincere public protest on her behalf in particular would be neither forthcoming nor effective. The court would merely follow the law. But maybe that isn't how Huawei sees it. Or maybe the protest was done to be shown on TV in China.
My own assumption would have been that since the lady is in a third country and is subject to court doings, sincere public protest on her behalf in particular would be neither forthcoming nor effective.
Talking of people subject to third-country court proceedings for extradition, I take it you'd say the same of the people who have demonstrated for Assange[1] in London?
[1] I was one of those commentards saying if Sweden had asked we should have sent him (subject to due process), but if we send him to the US he becomes a classic political prisoner.
What I mean is that IDEALLY courts, judges, and juries aren't swayed by public protests. Democratic politicians may be, although the notion isn't entirely wrong that some people just enjoy protesting and are not even representing strong views of their own. And politicians do have an invisible hand in public prosecutions. But it should be possible to expect or to hope that courts do what courts do and do it justly and fairly, protests or not. If I was a judge then I think protestors for mercy would provoke me to lean the other way, but surely t¬ y are specially trained to not do that.
And then in locales where judges ARE politicians, what hope is there for any justice?
Earlier during the HK protests a grandfather in Richmond (Vancouver suburb heavily Chinese) passed around a loyalty to the regime paper for the younger family members to sign. The community has always been divided. Years ago the Chinese Benevolent Association was known to be allied with the Chiang Kai-shek Nationalist faction.
The older Vancouver Chinese community was primarily Cantonese from Quandong province.
There are a ton of protests I see reported that I have to question. Rallies that are supposed to be grassroots yet many people are waving well designed and professionally printed placards. Even the "homemade" signs seen up close bear the marks of being manufactured to look homemade. A big give away is when the protest is supposed to have been spontaneous or organized in one day. I don't buy that in all of these cases some individual is so passionate that they immediately use their skills in graphic arts to design some signs and then run to the quick print shop where they spend their own money to have a bunch of them made and then stay up late to attach sticks so they are ready first thing in the morning to be seen on the AM news shows.
Comment has been made that many of the pro-China protesters on University campuses are acting to demonstrate loyalty to the communist party. The hope is that when they return home attendance will boost their chances of employment and/or promotion.
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