Lionel Messi, captain of the Argentina national football team and the world’s second highest paid athlete earning $130 million last year, flew into Beijing on a private jet. And was taken into custody.
He didn’t have a visa to enter China. He wouldn’t have needed one for Taiwan. And he reportedly asked border officials “Is Taiwan not China?”
Messi unintentionally trolled the CCP when stopped by border guards in Beijing. Travelling on his Spanish passport, he thought Spanish visa-free entry to Taiwan extended to China. Messi reportedly asked ''Is Taiwan not China?'' when stopped by guards. LOL pic.twitter.com/0rVGHHONdB
— Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou) June 13, 2023
Well, according to Chinese officials Taiwan is a part of China! But the logic still doesn’t hold. Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions of China, but there’s border procedures between both of those and between both and the mainland. His Spanish passport allows visa-free entry into Taiwan (his Argentinian one does not.)
Not only did he show up without proper permission documents, though, he at least metaphorically needled the regime over its lack of control over the democratic Taiwan at a time when mainland China – emboldened by the ease with which they’ve taken full control of Hong Kong and obliterated democracy there – wants to take back Taiwan as well. It’s the island to which Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek fled as Mao’s communist revolution secured victory on the mainland.
Had Messi been flying commercial, without a visa, no airline would have allowed him to board – since the airline would have been fined. There’s actually a benefit to not flying private. While sometimes airline staff make mistakes and refuse boarding to people who should be allowed to travel, misunderstanding the visa rules of the destination a passenger is heading to, they also help keep you from being arrested on arrival.
He was ultimately issued an expedited visa.
West Taiwan will be fuming right now!
A person of his worldwide prestige and fame should be more responsible in the diplomatic intracacies of foreign countries.
If he’s trying to make a political statement, then KUDOS!!!
If it’s an oversight, then all I have to say… what a dumb jock!
How could China “obliterate democracy” in a place that was a Colony ruled from London by unelected English Bureaucrats which didn’t let anybody vote for anything until the Chinese handover became inevitable, and even then far from meaningful one-man one vote democracy? Yet the people of Hong Kong were then, and still are today, freer from government interference in their lives in almost every important way than in any country in Europe or the Americas..
Incidentally, this story sounds like boloney. I doubt Messi makes any of these plans himself. Somebody screwed up, but he’s almost certainly not the person who decided that he didn’t need a visa for China. I’ll guess – just a guess – that this was a “transit visa” gone wrong, without an onward commercial ticket to show Chinese Immigration.
Biased news. He brought the wrong passport (Spain) which doesn’t have visa on arrival privilege as his Argentina passport. The border agents accelerated a visa for him within two hours.
I travel often and have other people make plans. If it happens to be private, and I know the place is somewhere I might get arrested and not simply sent home, I will ask to see my Visa and verify myself, or have a double check in place. The buck stops with him…. when you run the show, you’re the one responsible. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
I don’t really care about Messi or Communist Red China. Both are full of themselves.
@Mak – first of all, Hong Kong had mostly democratic elections for decades. second, democracy isn’t just voting, mainland China obliterated freedoms like speech
@Mak
Your HK description is not the way my 10 year resident daughter is experiencing it. The clamps of personal freedoms are slowing being squeezed.
This is my favorite story of the day. Messi clearly knew he was doing and there was no way that China was going to detain him any longer than necessary. Superbly played!
Yet another reminder that I need to visit Taiwan again before Xi tries to ‘annex’ it.
@Gary Leff
I’m not sure what you imagine that Hong Kong people voted for, but there was never universal suffrage in Hong Kong from the founding of the Colony, until the turnover to China, and of course still not today.
For most of its history, Hong Kong’s “elections” while a Colony of Britain were for mere advisory bodies with no real power whatsoever – as Britain did with most of its Colonies, none of which were democratic in any real sense. Many would be surprised to learn that the first remotely real elections in Hong Kong took place only as a result of China’s insistence in the Joint Declaration they agreed with Margaret Thatcher to set the details of the handover and to set up a “Legislative Council” of “functional constituency” groups. It wasn’t until 1991 – after Tiananmen – that Britain allowed a mere 18 members of the LegCo to be directly elected by some voters. But allowing people to merely cast a vote isn’t the same as democratic government or meaningful, free, and fair elections, and Hong Kong’s government never qualified under any definition of that term, either before or after the turnover to PRC.
Freedom of political speech is somewhat curtailed in HK – as it is in a great many places – but freedom of speech hasn’t been obliterated and Hong Kong, Hong Kongers can read and watch what they want, and it remains one of the freest countries in the world where you can largely do what you want, where you want, with far less regulation or government oversight than in almost any place on earth, and the government will only steal between 2%-17% of your earnings in tax, as compared to nearly 50% in most of Europe or N. America.
Of course some people might prefer the perceived political freedom within the 2 party state of the USA (where you might get sentenced to 18 years in the Federal Penitentiary if the government deems your protest an insurrection) to the economic and social freedoms in Hong Kong, and they’re entitled. For myself I would far prefer to keep what I earn than have a meaningless vote in a winner take all election where my view doesn’t count anyway.
Reasonable people can have their own preferences, and Hong Kong is certainly not above legitimate criticism – as is the USA – but to call Hong Kong an “unfree” society where freedoms have been “obliterated” by China, particularly where they never existed in the first place, is absurd.
A better question might be why is there so much money in sports? I suppose if enough people will pay to see somebody kick a ball and run then good for him in taking the cash. But it’s ridiculous.
@ Mak
Disagree with your comments !!!
@Mak
Everybody is wondering where you come from
@Gary
Democracy 100% means speech can be voted away. Speech is criminalized in most European countries and now Canada. Democracy is the antithesis of freedom. If we had freedom, things like speech couldn’t be voted away. While it’s elected representatives or elected or appointed judges and bureaucrats who decide unless you live in a country like Switzerland that puts things to a direct vote by the people, that’s democracy. If liberals had brains and if conservatives could get past their dignified failure mentality like Pence espouses but also Trump through inaction and telling everyone to do nothing, obey the (leftist) police/Feds, and stand down, they would recognize majority rule democracy is slavery decided by 51%.
I’ve obtained a 72 hour transit stamp to enter Beijing during a long layover. Spanish passports can also do this. I spent my time in a hotel resting and having a meal while the trips to the hotel and back were used in looking at the buildings, roads, etc.
@Mak, I must congratulate you. For someone born in Beijing your English is excellent.
Come to think of it, it’s kind of a giveaway. No product of the U.S. public school system could have written that.
@Mak. There are a few million people in Hong Kong who would like to have a word with you. What’s your Beijing office number?
@Mak: Most every colony (UK/US/Portugal) gained independence or full democracy by around 1970. Except two. As has been not-so-recently declassified, the PRC threatened, since shortly after 1949, UK from giving democracy for HK (and presumably Portugal/Macau) or they would invade. Self-determination was off limit (and was removed when PRC joined UN). Most every UK/US territory developed their democratic institution between 1950 and 1970. You can’t blame UK for “150” years of less-than-universal suffrage.
By calling an insurrection a peaceful protest is clear that @mak is a Maga Republican lol they like strong men like Xi Jim Ping and Putin.
I thought he was a proud Saudi citizen
@HkCaGu
You at least have my compliments for recognizing that Hong Kong was never a democracy for China to “obliterate.” But the rest of your argument that China – and not the UK – are responsible for this plain fact are provably wrong with simple reference to the fact that Taiwan – which unlike Hong Kong the PRC actually claimed sovereignty over and was on a perpetual war footing with – managed during this same time to move from a repressive military dictatorship under Chiang Kai-shek to one of the world’s most freewheeling and vibrant democracies under his son and his sucessors. It’s also provably wrong with reference to the repression the British colonial authorities used to put down democracy demonstrations inside Hong Kong which would have made Deng blush compared to his handling of Tiananmen Square. But it’s also provably wrong with reference to the cruel way that Britain governs its colonies even today where it is free to do so, and just as an example that should be better known to the whole world it administers its colonial possession in the Chagos Islands as a tropical hell which denies indigenous people of every possible civil right and are little more than prisoners.
Of course, the fact that HK was not a democracy before – or after – handover to China does nothing to take away from the fact that Hong Kong was one of the freest places the world has ever known, and it remains so today despite the fact that people who live there are not permitted to argue for the overthrow of Hong Kong’s political system (which you can’t do where I live either without subjecting yourself to anything from harassment by the IRS to long terms in prison as Mr. Rhodes recently found out to his disadvantage). Hong Kong has something much better than democracy in that most people’s lives are governed by market processes, rather than being allowed to choose a new authoritarian every couple of years.
In any case, Hong Kong was never a democracy because it didn’t serve British colonial interests – not because of anything China did or might have done – and the idea that China “obliterated” democratic institutions that never existed in the first place is empirically wrong. That Hong Kong remains one of the best places in the world to live – indeed its biggest negative point is that so many people want to live there that the cost of life is punishingly expensive – even if people in the US think they’re better off because they can choose between Biden or Trump.
@Mak “somewhat” curtailed? It’s not free speech at all when you only have the freedom to express the government’s point of view. There is a slight difference between holding a candle in Victoria Park and storming the Capitol with weapons to disrupt certification on an election; only one of these is an actual insurrection.
PS I have a 6-figure income and only pay about 25% of it in tax. Let’s not exaggerate.
Nailed it! that’s exactly my point.. As a Venezuelan I traveled a lot to Hong Kong (no Visa needed), I just loved it there and love the Hongkonese ppl.
As the Chinese regime is a super close ally to the destruction of my homecountry (same as Russia) I would never request a Visa to go there. Never been in China.
I think I’m liking soccer a whole lot more. Messi, my man!
Another story not worth reading, much less posting.
This time I avoided the comments and only write to urge you, Gary, to omit stories that are more appropriate to People or similar magazines.
Who give a wooden nickel about a smart aleck footballer who doesn’t observe the rules for visiting mainland China.
Waiting for GU Wonder to defend the evil, corrupt Chinese Communist Party regime in 3,2,1…
This is rubbish FAKE news.
Messi is there to play soccer. The whole team with their entourage would have been “officially invited” to China for the match. All necessary documents would have been filed and authorized way before any of them arrives in China.
@BKK
What are you smoking? Fan boy of Juan Guaidó? Where is he now with all the embezzled funds?
The relationship of Venezuela with Russia or PRC is nothing but genial to say the least. Maduro just visited China 2 weeks or so ago. Oh you probably don’t like your legitimate president.
@Buggerbear
If you could only read!
Juan Guaidó is a tool, same as 99% of the Political ‘opposition’ of Venezuela, that’s why they make all of the alliances with the Dems (as we say in spanish ‘alligators from the same well’) at the same time giving more power and legitimacy to the regime of Cuba (which is the neural center of control for everything that happened in Venezuela). But that will require even more reading comprehension.
Please read what you posted. Nothing to do with Dems or Reps. You ARE confused.
It is regarding China you were taking about. Quote “As the Chinese regime is a super close ally to the destruction of my homecountry (same as Russia) I would never request a Visa to go there. Never been in China.”Unquote.Keep smoking.