Comment by lmm

> Why doesn't this happen every time someone is blackmailed?

It does, quite often. Which is why blackmail is done mainly by those who law enforcement would think twice about going after, and/or those who have nothing to lose.

> if Russia shot down a passenger jet? Or Beijing hacked the OPM?

Plausible deniability, and who is there to rally around?

> India tried assasinating an American citizen on U.S. soil?

I don't know what incident you're talking about, but the fact you say specifically "American citizen" suggests to me you're talking about someone who had strong connections to India and would be generally perceived as Indian.

> What about "opening and operating an illegal overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, New York, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)"

That sounds like a propaganda framing. In what sense was this a "police station", much less an illegal one? All they apparently did was "help locate a Chinese dissident living in the US". So the ground facts are more like "the MPS had a private eye working in New York". Which, well, sure; so what?