Paper Americans discover that not everyone is inclined to pretend that paper is thicker than blood:
Two young Americans, Victor and Cynthia Liu, are “trapped” in China, increasingly desperate and despondent because Chinese authorities have blocked them from leaving for more than a year.
“They are trapped. They are alone. They are desperate to come home,” David Pressman, the siblings’ New York-based attorney, told USA TODAY. “They are literally breaking down.”
The Lius are subject to a so-called “exit ban,” and they’re not they only ones.
Another American citizen, Huang Wan, says Chinese officials are using a “fake” legal case to prevent her from returning to the United States. An Australian resident, Yuan Xiaoliang, has been barred from leaving China for more than eight months, and her husband, an Australian citizen, has been arrested on suspicion of spying, according to Australia’s foreign minister.
The State Department has warned Americans about China’s growing use of exit bans – stating in a Jan. 3 travel advisory that Chinese authorities have sometimes used exit bans to keep Americans in China for years…. Thomas Kellogg, executive director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University Law Center, said China has long used exit bans to stop its own citizens from leaving the country, particularly human-rights activists or other dissidents. But authorities are increasingly using the tactic to harass Americans and other foreign nationals, particularly those of Chinese descent, he said.
What defines a man? Is it is his paperwork? Or is it his DNA? It’s extremely informative to see who is on the side of science and the truth and who is not. The obvious and relevant logic dictates that one cannot simply declare a Chinese man to be an “American” due to his beliefs any more than one can declare a man to be a “woman” or a “fish” on that basis.