The U.S. has secret travel bans with "ideological exclusion provisions" as well.
Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan's had his H1-B visa to be a professor at Notre Dame revoked due to the Patriot Act's "ideological exclusion provision" in 2004. He was also formally denied a B visa to come and speak at universities. He's now teaching at Oxford.
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a former British member of parliament. The 56-year old grandmother Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was banned from entering the U.S. in 2003 because she was deemed a "serious threat to national security".
Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam, was banned from entering the U.S. 2004. That's the singer of "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken", "Wild World" etc.
And so on. Of course, someone can make the case that the U.S. should not let these people in, but the same case could be made that China shouldn't let their analogous contemporaries in.
You have to wonder why when the U.S. is doing this, people complain about a foreign country, which they have no control over, doing this. In April 2001 the U.S. rammed a Lockheed EP-3 into a Chinese plane just outside the PRC border, killing the Chinese pilot, then landed on PRC territory without permission. Now we have people complaining China won't allow American commissars wishing to undermine it's power in, while of course America does the same exact thing.
This article is not about the US. firstOrder's comment is a example of a "whataboutism" response[1]. While "what about the US" is a valid concern, it's offtopic in this thread and should be placed on its own thread.
While I agree that an argument of the form: "Well X does Y too, so Y is not that big a deal." is fallacious and poisonous, I do think it is important to talk about issues like this in their larger context and I feel firstOrder's comment mostly kept on the right side of that line. (I guess I think the context of the first paragraphs is important but the latter paragraphs verge on something that's less about adding context and more about excusing things.)
In this discussion, it is important to have the context that many governments engage in this behavior. Not so that it can be excused, but so that when we discuss how to deal with it, we can do it in a way that's informed and tackles the actual issues including the nuances of escalating bilateral cycles.
While I think it is perfectly reasonable to make a moral and ethical judgement based on a unilateral context, but it is a mistake to examine the foreign policy without discussing the bilateral or multilateral interactions that help create and sustain it.
The latter paragraphs don't "verge on" anything, they just go straight into anti-American and pro-Chinese apologetics without even trying to pretend otherwise.
I mean, this says it all, right here:
"In April 2001 the U.S. rammed a Lockheed EP-3 into a Chinese plane just outside the PRC border, killing the Chinese pilot, then landed on PRC territory without permission."
The only way you can possibly think that a four-engined turboprop can "ram" a fighter jet is if you have a bias so large that its gravitational field affects the orbits of nearby planets.
More information is on Wikipedia [1]. After reading that article, it definitely sounds like the quoted statement was created from within some kind of reality distortion field.
To add to your original comment: the US pilot insisted that the plane was on autopilot (and thus he was hit by the Chinese pilot, not vice versa), the Chinese pilot had a history of flying way too close to US planes, and the US plane "landed without permission" because it was so damaged after the event that the crew was on the verge of bailing out.
It's funny, it didn't occur to me that there'd be anyone who didn't already know all about it. Not meant to be a comment on you, just me not thinking about it enough.
Your elaboration is exactly right on all counts. And to add a bit more, even if none of that were true, it still makes no sense for a lumbering reconnaissance plane to "ram" a maneuverable fighter jet that intercepted it. It would be like a container ship "ramming" a jet-ski. Even if it wanted to, it simply can't maneuver to make it happen.
> Not meant to be a comment on you, just me not thinking about it enough.
No slight taken. I was still in middle school when the Hainan Island incident happened, and I figured there's a sizable young population on HN that's in the same boat. Young kids tend not to pay as much attention to the machinations of foreign policy.
I figured it was probably due to age. I was in college at the time and it was big news for quite a while, although very much in a "if you're paying attention to the news" kind of way, not something that made people stand up and pay attention like the events that overshadowed it later that year.
Not only that, but why the hell would someone want to risk their life "ramming" a fighter jet. I'm terrified enough of scratching the paint on my car bumping into something, I couldn't imagine the mindset you'd have to have to deem it worthwhile to "ram" a fighter jet midair.
I quite agree that its important to place issues within the larger context. But the original comment did not attempt to. It simply was a list of whatabouts. If the original comment had been a nuanced response aware of the different responses and policies relating to visiting countries with drastically different ideologies and policie, then I don't think anyone would have been put out except the tl;dr crowd.
Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam, was banned from entering the U.S. 2004. That's the singer of "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken", "Wild World" etc.
He's also the man who endorsed the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie, said he thought Rushdie should be killed, and openly discussed the circumstances in which he himself would be willing to carry out the sentence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-wjxwpvqps
Since Rushdie lives in US (NYC), I can understand and respect the US not wanting to allow "Yusuf" to enter the country.
PRC sure does seem to be compensating for something with this whole "power" thing and it's paranoia with people undermining it. The entire world just needs to calm down with this whole "power" thing, because frankly, it's pointless. Fighting for control and influence over a portion of a thin crusty liveable layer of a tiny molten marble flying through a deadly vacuum around an average star on the outer edge of a spiral arm of an average galaxy. Think about that and then about what the fuck are people fighting over. That's why the science and technology side of Hacker News is so much more interesting. Scientists have known of our insignificance for ages. Politicians still haven't realized, and perhaps never will. It's like what Edgar Mitchell said, you'd just like to take them by the scruff of the neck to the moon and show them the Earth and say "Look at that you son of a bitch".
Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan's had his H1-B visa to be a professor at Notre Dame revoked due to the Patriot Act's "ideological exclusion provision" in 2004. He was also formally denied a B visa to come and speak at universities. He's now teaching at Oxford.
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a former British member of parliament. The 56-year old grandmother Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was banned from entering the U.S. in 2003 because she was deemed a "serious threat to national security".
Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam, was banned from entering the U.S. 2004. That's the singer of "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken", "Wild World" etc.
And so on. Of course, someone can make the case that the U.S. should not let these people in, but the same case could be made that China shouldn't let their analogous contemporaries in.
You have to wonder why when the U.S. is doing this, people complain about a foreign country, which they have no control over, doing this. In April 2001 the U.S. rammed a Lockheed EP-3 into a Chinese plane just outside the PRC border, killing the Chinese pilot, then landed on PRC territory without permission. Now we have people complaining China won't allow American commissars wishing to undermine it's power in, while of course America does the same exact thing.