LOL Sherpa.
@Sherpa LOL. But, do you think if your kids were in the same position, having used their underdeveloped brains to shoplift in a foreign country, they would be garnering Presidential intervention and front page news?
My guess is the fencing team is not a big revenue generator.
@dietz199 - Of course they wouldn’t. Thankfully, such activity would be completely outside either of their historical behavior patterns but if they did commit crimes abroad they would understand they’d face the consequences with no special help from our government. Which is how it should be, for athletes and tourists alike.
^Do you think you would hold that view irregardless of where they were in the world?
Well, shouldn’t it be? Do we ‘rescue’ shoplifters in China but not in Canada because Canadian jails are nicer?
I don’t think Trump had that big of an influence. He happened to be there, he mentioned it, and it was taken care of. However, China likes the NCAA basketball games held in China. This was not the first year for UCLA or other teams. China likes having celebs tour, likes basketball and other Olympic sports stars. I think the outcome would have been the same, maybe not as quickly, with or without Trump.
If the team was in Russia, the punishment would be different that if the shoplifting took place in China. The punishment might be different in Iowa than in Texas too.
Worst, everything in politics is transactional and reciprocal. President Xi says sure I’ll let them go (*not very hidden subtext - you owe me one).
The question was in regard to “crimes committed abroad” not just shoplifting. Would you hold that view irregardless of where in the world and what “crime” was involved?
Yes. I think those who travel abroad need to accept the consequences of their actions, whatever they may be. I’ve been to China twice and pretty much got the drift of the place when I saw soldiers with AK-47s at the airport when I landed. Behave! They aren’t fooling around.
Canada has some laws I don’t really agree with but if I go there, I have to follow them. It doesn’t matter if I think they are fair or if their prisons are clean or if they’ll rehabilitate me. Once I leave the US, I leave most of the protections too.
^Well, even within the U.S. you can be subjected to bizarrely harsh punishments that would baffle most foreigners.
" I’ve been to China twice and pretty much got the drift of the place when I saw soldiers with AK-47s at the airport when I landed. Behave! They aren’t fooling around."
A whole bunch of countries have soldiers with AK-47s at the airport. Just got back from western Europe and saw them there. 
Irony is that the USA has a much higher incarceration rate than most countries in the world.
It’s a good thing for them that they didn’t shoplift in the Middle East, where the penalty may include the cutting off of one hand (or more). Kinda tough to continue a basketball career one-handed.
http://www.newsweek.com/worlds-most-barbaric-punishments-74537
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.631994
"Right hands have been cut off at the wrist as punishment for theft in Sharia-controlled areas of Nigeria and in Saudi Arabia. Repeat offenders in the latter country can lose both hands, and legs are sometimes taken for other offenses. An executioner, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, told the Saudi newspaper Arab News in 2003 that “I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that.”
In Iran, in early 2008, five robbers had their right hands and left feet cut off in one week—a practice known as cross amputation. According to The New York Times “doctors watched to limit bleeding and infection during the procedure.” Hands and feet are also reportedly cut off as punishment in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia."
And did you think they take law and order seriously in those countries?
A conversation between the two most powerful men in the world over a shoplifting case is extraordinary, far outside any reasonable or rational scope of a government’s duty to its citizens abroad. That’s true even if you assume China probably would have released them without US prodding.
"A whole bunch of countries have soldiers with AK-47s at the airport. Just got back from western Europe and saw them there…
And did you think they take law and order seriously in those countries?"
Is your implication that the USA doesn’t because we don’t have soldiers marching around our airports with assault rifles?
A person carrying 18 oz of cannabis will receive death penalty in Singapore.
Carrying 18 oz of cannabis is not illegal in many states in the US.
Amanda Knox was almost locked up for life in prison in Italy.
My implication is that anyone, age 18 with an underdeveloped basketball brain or age 50, knows when they land and see the military/police armed at airports that the country isn’t fooling around with laws. My kids who were 10 at the time knew it and knew not to shoplift (not that they would in the US either) while we were in China. None of us wanted to find out how serious the Chinese government took its laws. We didn’t know every law but we stayed way inside the law - no littering, no jay-walking, no spitting. Stealing is against the law everywhere so I don’t think it is too much for any 18 year old to know that.
My kids have traveled internationally without me since they were 14 and they knew they would be subject to the laws of the countries they were in.
But I believe that anyone, age 10 or age 40, has to accept the laws of the country they are in and that the having a US passport is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card. It gives you some help at the consulate/embassy, but that’s it. I hope that if some stupid college kids come to the US and are caught stealing that they will be prosecuted the same as any citizen caught. They may not get bail because they have no ties to the community. They might get a felony sentence if the items have a high value. Yes, they might have to go to jail and miss the academic semester, and then they’d be booted and not allowed in the US again. I don’t think the French embassy should set in, or that someone from Canada just gets to go home because they just made a mistake.
It really bothers me that these players were stupid enough to do it. In this day and age, there are cameras everywhere! I’m afraid to adjust my tights in the stairwell at work because I know we have cameras! How could they think they could get away with this?
An underdeveloped brain seems to be related to underdeveloped parenting skills.
However, even if the talents of ones’ parents are lacking, I’m sure somewhere along the line these young men ran across something on this thing called The Internet that would have let them know stealing is a crime.
And it can have consequences which are less than pleasant.
Smug, much? If you have ever been around emotional growth programs, you wouldn’t be saying things like that. Parents can raise two or more children the exact same way, and one of the kids will shoplift in China. There is nothing that bugs me more than people who know nothing about a family and blame every transgression on poor parenting. I, personally, made a LOT of parenting mistakes, so I bow down to those of you who mastered the whole thing and raised perfect young-uns. I raised one who is a priest and one who made some bad decisions but managed to right the ship. I hope these UCLA players can get back on the right path.
Oh I have made a lot of parenting mistakes…and am still making them even though the kids are adults.
To be this blatant and brazen is indicative of having engaged in this type of behavior well before the China expedition.
And one of these gentleman’s parents gets on TV and says…hey no big deal what y’all so danged upset about? Then it is IS a parenting failure.