> So why do I think that arrest was part of a plot to gain a pawn to be used in exchange of something wrt the economic war between US and China? Because the weapon motivation is utter ridiculous!
You are a new hire at the US-Mexico border control. One day a suspicious looking guy passes through, and you find a ton of white powder in his suitcase. You look him up in a database and find he has previously been charged with drug possession. You have been warned by your higher-ups that many people have recently trying to get through precisely your station smuggling drugs. So you detain him out of caution, but it turns out, for some weird reason, he just wanted to ship a suitcase full of baking soda to the US!
So since baking soda is totally harmless, this obviously means that your action must have been part of a plot on the US's part to put pressure on Mexico to fund the wall, right? What other explanation could there possibly be?
I have, of course, just gone through the article paragraph by paragraph and changed the subject to America. (Also, I am a US citizen.) No doubt, events like this happen constantly, and nobody cares, because mistakes happen. Only when the subject is China is everything a grand conspiracy.
> That's just how power works: the Chinese govt will leverage that capture to gain something from Trump
It doesn't actually work like this. Detentions happen constantly on all sides. One detention does not do anything to affect policy. I would bet that after a week this guy will be back home, to absolutely no consequence in the trade war, and you'll never hear about it in the news because it doesn't cause enough fear.
Ascribing the most sinister possible motives to everything a foreigner does is something that feels sophisticated and intellectual. But it's not. It's the oldest cognitive bias that exists. It is from the stone age and it will take us back.
You are a new hire at the US-Mexico border control. One day a suspicious looking guy passes through, and you find a ton of white powder in his suitcase. You look him up in a database and find he has previously been charged with drug possession. You have been warned by your higher-ups that many people have recently trying to get through precisely your station smuggling drugs. So you detain him out of caution, but it turns out, for some weird reason, he just wanted to ship a suitcase full of baking soda to the US!
So since baking soda is totally harmless, this obviously means that your action must have been part of a plot on the US's part to put pressure on Mexico to fund the wall, right? What other explanation could there possibly be?
I have, of course, just gone through the article paragraph by paragraph and changed the subject to America. (Also, I am a US citizen.) No doubt, events like this happen constantly, and nobody cares, because mistakes happen. Only when the subject is China is everything a grand conspiracy.
> That's just how power works: the Chinese govt will leverage that capture to gain something from Trump
It doesn't actually work like this. Detentions happen constantly on all sides. One detention does not do anything to affect policy. I would bet that after a week this guy will be back home, to absolutely no consequence in the trade war, and you'll never hear about it in the news because it doesn't cause enough fear.
Ascribing the most sinister possible motives to everything a foreigner does is something that feels sophisticated and intellectual. But it's not. It's the oldest cognitive bias that exists. It is from the stone age and it will take us back.