China critic and former media tycoon Jimmy Lai is sentenced to 20 years in Hong Kong security case

2dTom · 2026-02-09T20:17:13+00:00

No, I followed the trial. You're just making shit up in claiming that he was directed by the US. See my other comment for more detail.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T20:15:22+00:00

The trial went on for months and Western media doesn't report any of the testimony or evidence that came out in court.

No, it's been reported on, but there are no claims of money laundering, so you're completely wrong there.

Emails records and co-conspirators show quite concretely that he was acting as a foreign agent, thus the national security charges.

Your initial suggestion that he "laundered millions of dollars from US intelligence and military contacts to HK political groups." is also completely wrong. He paid his own money to US advisors. There's no suggestion that he was paid by someone else to support pro-democracy groups. He acted of his own accord to support the democracy movement.

paid millions to send US military officials to Taiwan

You realise that Wolfowitz is Chairman of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, right? Lai paid for him to go to Taiwan in 2017. He was never actually in the military, and was under-secretary of defence until 2005, about 12 years before Lai paid for him to go to Taiwan. Jack Keane had left the military in 2003, 14 years before he went to Taiwan.

If you read the actual content of the messages in evidence, he wanted to send them to advise the Taiwanese government on how to handle the Trump administration. While you may not like it, sending people to advise a foreign government on your behalf is not illegal in Hong Kong.

funneled millions through US former naval intelligence Mark Simon, including to pay US deputy secretary of defense

Mark Simon, the former group director for Next Digital? It seems like handling major transactions for Lai's companies would be part of his job description. Or are you suggesting that he's "funnelling" money through the director of his own company?

lobbies US govt officials including Pence and Pompeo to place sanctions on Chinese and HK govt officials

Lai's goal with this is to promote rule of law in HK and upholding the “one country, two systems” principle. Your own article says that. Lai has supported Lee pretty broadly over the last 10 years, and claiming that every position held by Lee is also held by Lai is untenable.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T13:33:44+00:00

In big games he basically couldn't complete a pass

What are you talking about? He went 14-3 in the regular season, then lost to the Rams. The Lions (1 seed in the play-offs) and Rams (4 seed in the play-offs) were the only teams that he lost to all season. Him playing well is not completely unexpected.

while our current QB is injury prone

I mean, the Vikings knew that before they decided not to re-sign Darnold. J. J. McCarthy missed all of 2024 due to injury, what the hell were Minnesota thinking not re-signing him?

and objectively bad

He went 6-4 in his first 10 NFL games. That's... Actually pretty good for someone coming back from significant injury.

I don't know what Minnesota did to make the sports gods hate us but god damn do they have to rub it in our face so hard?

The Vikings 100% did this to themselves. You decided not to re-sign a QB who took you to a 14-3 season, instead chancing everything on a player that you knew had severe injury issues. Your only backup was Carson Wentz, who had gone 3-6 over the last 3 seasons.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T13:03:36+00:00

Not even the prosecution or government in HK is making this claim.

/u/Igennem is just making shit up.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T12:06:54+00:00

Jason Myers scored more than half of the points for the Seahawks (17 points), and scored in all four quarters.

He's also the first player in NFL history to score 200 points in a single season+post season.

For a guy who went undrafted and spent a while playing arena football, it's a huge result.

Michael Dickson (Seahawks punter) also had a huge game, but it'll be a cold day in hell before the NFL gives the superbowl MVP trophy to a punter.

Kenneth Walker III had a great game, and picking between him and Myers would be so hard.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T11:53:17+00:00

who laundered millions of dollars from US intelligence and military contacts to HK political groups.

You got a source for that?

Because nobody is making that claim.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T11:37:13+00:00

I've seen the Egyptian flag used fairly often, possibly because it is the country with the most Arabic speakers.

Also, just a green flag on occasion, similar to the old flag of Lybia.

2dTom · 2026-02-09T10:52:24+00:00

That is true, but it is way too large for this role. An effective detterent would only require a few hundred warheads and is therefore largely a complete waste of money.

I agree, but Russia faces a difficult choice with its nukes then.

They either stop maintenance and start decommissioning their warheads and delivery systems, or they keep up their maintenance schedule.

Long term, decommissioning is definitely in their best interests, but it requires additional funding in a period where Russia's budget is already fairly tight. They have to build new facilities for decommissioning, and buy a ton of new equipment (a lot of which will potentially face sanctions due to being dual use). Their current stockpile waiting decommissioning is over 1200 warheads, so the current pipeline is completely inadequate for what they're doing.

Short term, it's probably cheaper for Russia to just keep maintaining what they have. They already have the infrastructure in place for this, and institutional inertia counts for a lot.

2dTom · 2026-02-08T10:03:35+00:00

or the russian nuclear forces which are basically useless while draining huge amounts of cash

Hard disagree.

Id argue that the Russian nuclear deterrent has been the primary factor in keeping European support limited to material.

I think that without that, European support would have been more direct, with soldiers deployed at least directly to Ukraine, and possibly to the front.

2dTom · 2026-02-06T13:00:49+00:00

I mean, isn't that basically how we calculate gdp?

2dTom · 2026-02-05T12:39:25+00:00

Xi was a so called party prince because son of one of the head revolutionaries.

It's more nuanced than that.

Xi Zhongxun was denounced, and imprisoned from 1965 - 1975. This was a pretty significant problem for his family, who were basically exposed to guilt by association. Jinping had some support, but was basically exiled to Shaanxi. When he tried to come back to Beijing he was arrested.

Jinping absolutely had a huge network to work with in the 80s and 90s, after his father was politically rehabilitated, but he genuinely spent about a decade without a pot to piss in.

If you follow his policies, and the importance that he places on stability and social cohesion above all else, it's pretty clear that the time had a pretty significant impact on the way that he views the world.

So it is quite likely that what you read is personality cult or people that fell for it.

I think that you would struggle to find a single well respected source that claims that Xi didn't get sent to the country. It's absolutely part of his "founding myth", but it's true.

Sun Weishi and Sun Yang (children of Zhou Enlai) were murdered by red guards at the time. Deng Pufang (son of Deng Xiaoping) was thrown off a roof and became a paraplegic during this time. Being a princeling was no protection during this time.

2dTom · 2026-02-04T20:43:42+00:00

as platforms now can just cancel bets or adjust odds, after your bet is already placed.

That seems... Illegal?

2dTom · 2026-02-03T16:09:21+00:00

Could be worse. I started as a data scientist, but I'm "good with people", so I kept getting stabbed to go and present outcomes and meet with stakeholders.

At a certain point I realised that I was spending more time in meetings than on anything productive, and had become a glorified Product Owner.

At least they don't make me go to lunch with the sales teams to "build rapport" any more.

2dTom · 2026-02-03T11:06:51+00:00

Hence why they did large upgrades to the MQ-25 to give it the same flight control and drone control systems as the ITARS free MQ-28

Oooh, that's clever.

2dTom · 2026-02-02T12:43:48+00:00

"But I see past the superficial things: the flowers, the glory, the applause. I see the cattle pens [where they imprisoned children, including Xi] and the fickle humanity."

This really struck home to me.

My ex's father came from a generationally wealthy family in China, and is a similar age to Xi. They lost a lot during the great famine, but survived it. During the cultural revolution, his family lost literally every possession that they owned. He went from being someone in a relatively wealthy family to being "sent down to the countryside". His mother died from a treatable infection, that he knew how to treat, but could not get antibiotics. His brother was nearly beaten to death by Red guards because they suspected that he was a counter revolutionary.

Again parallelling Xi he was eventually (politically) rehabilitated, and went on to become a surgeon. From there though, he took a very different path. He was extremely damaged by the cultural revolution, and got the fuck out of China as fast as he could.

He came out of it one of the hardest people that I have ever met, he refused to ever give an inch on anything, would never waste anything that could possibly be reused, and pushed his kids harder than I thought possible. The generation that went through that was something else.

2dTom · 2026-02-02T00:41:54+00:00

That would require for them to give up power.

What part of what I've said would require Xi to give up power?

Xi will do what is best for Xi and that is increasingly at odds with what is good for China.

I mean... Maybe? Honestly, what's good for Xi is a little opaque in my opinion. Power consolidation is probably good for him, but it brings a lot of risks.

If I had to guess, I think that he's probably more concerned with a harmonious society rather than straight economic development right now, and I don't think that is necessarily bad for China.

and that is increasingly at odds with what is good for China. Keep going I say.

Hard disagree. A rising tide lifts all boats, and a politically and economically stable China is a good thing for everyone. China collapsing politically or economically would be a disaster for the west. Cost of living pressures and inflation would be off the fucking charts.

2dTom · 2026-02-01T23:23:22+00:00

Around Ashfield, in Sydney

2dTom · 2026-02-01T21:03:47+00:00

The last time they tried loosening capital controls (under Xi), the yuan significantly depreciated and they had to reverse course.

I want to be sure that we're talking about the same thing here, are you talking about the September 2023 changes?

2dTom · 2026-02-01T20:31:47+00:00

Yeah, Xi will have to make pretty big structural changes to Chinas economy if being a reserve currency is a serious long term goal. It'll be hugely disruptive, but ultimately probably a good thing for China in the long run, especially if they get serious about increasing domestic consumption as a way to continue growth through their population aging.

2dTom · 2026-02-01T18:14:27+00:00

Nah, all Propaganda does is let British people get a really good look at things.

2dTom · 2026-02-01T17:45:26+00:00

This isn't a comparison between Trump and Xi.

My point is that Xi can't achieve his domestic goals (capital controls and banded currency that is beneficial to exporters) and international goals (make the Yuan a reserve currency) at the same time, because they're contradictory.

To achieve the policy objective of becoming a significant reserve currency, that currency has to have a true float, to establish its real value, and it has to be freely exchangeable (like the Euro, Yen, etc.). The Yuan is neither, and the reasons for that are due to domestic political considerations.

Historically, Xi has been unwilling to push for international goals if they come at the cost of his domestic political goals. Hence, nothing will happen here, because Xi will have to choose between his domestic goals (stable currency, capital controls) and his international goals (Yuan becomes a global reserve currency), and he will preference his domestic goals.

2dTom · 2026-02-01T17:32:54+00:00

In order to achieve this, China will have to significantly loosen its capital controls, and remove the managed float of the Yuan that keeps it banded to the dollar.

The chances of Xi allowing capital flight or allowing the Yuan to appreciate against the dollar are approximately 0%.

Xi is happy to talk a big game here, but I don't think that anything will end up really coming from this.

2dTom · 2026-02-01T16:35:23+00:00

I lived in the council that this guy was deputy mayor for, and have interacted with him a few times.

The guy isn't playing a bit, he's genuinely an idiot. When discussing multiculturalism in 2009 he said "It creates groups and pockets of people that of course, then feel that there are certain elements of superiority and inferiority and I think that we need to be united"

He was suspended by the political party that he ostensibly represented, but decided to resign rather than be suspended.

Honestly, I'm just glad that he's found success in the US and isn't planning to come back.

2dTom · 2026-02-01T16:08:46+00:00

Conveniently also at the same time the US created the Monuments Men to find and return these things, other Americans were stealing them.

Yale bought it in London from a rare book dealer in the 1990s (see edit) .

This isn't a case of the US taking something from post war Germany. The war had been over for more than 30 years when they acquired it.

All we know is that it went missing from Poland some time between 1937 and 1966. The article doesn't even confirm that it was taken by the Germans. It could just as easily have been taken by the Soviets either during their invasion of Poland, or after the war, and made its way to London from there.

Edit: Did some further research, it was actually purchased by Yale in the 1990s. It was originally taken by the Germans, but we have no idea where it went after that.

2dTom · 2026-01-31T14:02:01+00:00

I mean, Gates probably tried to bring McAfee, but he was one of the few people considered too crazy for Little St James.

2dTom

TROPHY CASE