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> China is playing this game just like the United States is. Is it? I don't recall the US erecting a massive firewall which keeps foreign competitors from comp

> China is playing this game just like the United States is. Is it? I don't recall the US erecting a massive firewall which keeps foreign competitors from competing here. Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba are all free to try to woo American consumers. So far they haven't seen much success.

beachstartup 10y ago
that's because people in america generally do not trust chinese companies. however, through a series of investments they still reach a large audience. one example off the top of my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games their giant shiny new office is right here in west LA, but they're owned by tencent in china.
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  True. Tencent probably doesn't invest in Riot if LoL wasn't popular in China.
- morgante 10y ago
  I feel like that almost proves my point: the Chinese government is very reluctant to allow foreign companies to own a majority of any dominant technology in China, while the inverse is simply never even discussed.
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    i'm not disagreeing with you.
  - khuey 10y ago
    Australia recently blocked a proposal to sell the largest power grid in the country to a Chinese bidder. Describing the Chinese reaction as hypocritcal would be charitable. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/china-calls-australia-protectionist-for-blocking-ausgrid-bid-irynga37 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/china-call...
    - ting_bu_dung 10y ago
      So I can't own or invest in a small internet company in China, yet Australia is protectionist when it wont sell critical infrastructure...
    - walrus01 10y ago
      The Canadian feds blocked the sale of AllStream (formerly AT&T Canada), a dark fiber, WDM transport and IP network ISP to an Egyptian company on national security grounds. Likely because AllStream has a shitload of contracts for backbone links into federal government facilities. So instead they sold it to Zayo, the US telecom giant. At least from an ISP industry insider perspective Zayo is trustworthy and has the precedent of providing some 'critical' circuits for different US federal agencies. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/allstream-sale-to-accelero-rejected-over-national-security-1.1929191 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/allstream-sale-to-acc...
evook 10y ago
You're right. The US has chosen state backed economical espionage as their method of choice.
bduerst 10y ago
The Chinese firewall is more a reflection on their culture of censorship than an international anti-competitive tool.
- throwaway1974 10y ago
  Except somehow it endsup doing just that (strangling competition from outside of China)
  - bduerst 10y ago
    China is strangling competition from outside of China, not the firewall. The firewall isn't what was preventing Uber from competing in China, for example.
    - usaar333 10y ago
      Isn't the general consensus is that Uber lost generally fairly? On the other hand, the firewall outright blocks websites like Facebook and Google from competing in China.
      - bduerst 10y ago
        Right, that's the point. Facebook and Google refused to cooperate with the Chinese government on censorship, and now the firewall blocks them.
      - jasonjei 10y ago
        That's hardly true that Uber was treated fairly. Uber drivers faced hurdles from local government (being unable to issue a tax receipt), while Didi could do so. Uber drivers and headquarters faced frequent harassment from Hong Kong authorities, while Didi was relatively immune.
    - exhilaration 10y ago
      The firewall isn't what was preventing Uber from competing in China... But it is one of the things that prevented Google from competing in China. Here's an excerpt from an article previously posted on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218607 The hurdles could be unpredictable, with an element of deniability. Sometimes Google found itself at the mercy of China’s ability to manipulate the digital infrastructure. The site would work slowly, or there would be outages. In one instance, Google found not only that users were blocked from its site, but also that when they typed in the address, they would be redirected to it competitor Baidu. This played into the narrative spun by Baidu that Google was overmatched in serving China, and that the local option was more reliable.
chrischen 10y ago
They erected a firewall because of centuries of Western imperialism and foreign bullying. As foreigner you might be fine with "free-trade" that allows you to freely sell opium, or take over cities on sovererign land, or to have foreign social networking companies plaster agenda driven poitical propoganda to people in your country (I'm talking about the facebook India snafu) because you have no investment or ties to the Chinese country, but they do have to think about national interest, and not foreign interest. It's also not exactly a fair playground if foreign multinationals with decades of established dominance, experience, R&D, and human capital from the developed world compete against Chinese companies which most would be upstarts or recent companies, and with human capital from less developed sources. When none of the country has drinkable tap water, their people have a lot of things on their plate. They don't need foreign competition. It'd be like sending a fully armed US marine squad to duke it out with squad of high schoolers and blaming China for being unfair for erecting a wall around the high schoolers while they grow and train. Protectionism is a valid strategy to help boost domestic economic development and it's fairly arrogant and imperialistic to assert that we as fully developed foreigners have any right to exploit markets in less developed areas. Any time there is a tariff, it's essentially being practiced.
- placeybordeaux 10y ago
  Do you feel like the firewall is more about control of information and censorship or protectionism on the Internet?
  - westiseast 10y ago
    Number 1: control. Number 2 and happy side benefit: protectionism.
- usaar333 10y ago
  Are you referring to general trade barriers (in which I can agree help nascent industries and even the country in the long term) or the firewall that blocks many foreign sites? On the latter point, I'd be surprised if it is ROI positive for the country. One would expect it would cut off significant communication with the outside world, resulting in duplicate work needing to be done (can't find that open source package on github as github is blocked? that sucks). The censorship regime additionally introduces self-policing costs to Chinese firms.
nullnilvoid 10y ago
Go take a look at Huawei. Their products are just as good as Cisco's at a much lower price. Yet they are completely shut out of the US market. Otherwise, Cisco would be decimated (they are already more or less).
- zghst 10y ago
  Also filled with tons of gov't spyware just like Cisco.
  - nullnilvoid 10y ago
    For spyware, go ask Edward Snowden and NSA's PRISM program. NSA basically demanded direct accesses to Google, Apple etc.'s servers storing user data. NSA also tapped into the backbone of internet and built data centers to store and decrypt data.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    There isn't any evidence to substantiate that. The risk discussed in Congress was that the Chinese government would likely coerce Huawei into inserting "phone-home" capability into telecommunications hardware on U.S. critical infrastructure. There has been no documented instance of this happening. Edit: by Huawei.
- linkregister 10y ago
  Huawei is by no means shut out from the U.S. market. Mid-tier telecoms (e.g. Cricket Wireless) use Huawei routers, cellular equipment, and intermediary equipment. L3 Communications is suggested to have bought from them as well. [1] Huawei mobile phones are doing well in the U.S. The Nexus 6P is one example of a popular Huawei product. Huawei televisions also sell well in the U.S. [1] http://fortune.com/2011/07/28/what-makes-china-telecom-huawei-so-scary/ http://fortune.com/2011/07/28/what-makes-china-telecom-huawe...
  - nullnilvoid 10y ago
    When did Cricket Wireless become mid-tier telecoms? It is hte first time I have heard of the company. Check this out. U.S. Congress Flags China's Huawei, ZTE As Security Threats:http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2012/10/08/u-s-congress-flags-chinas-huawei-zte-as-security-threats/#244572906b19 http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2012/10/08/u-s-con... Cisco paid the lobbyists in DC very well.
pravda 10y ago
Aliexpress[1] is the consumer-focused site. They are doing well with me. I wish Taobao would come to USA and crush eBay! [1] http://www.aliexpress.com http://www.aliexpress.com

beachstartup 10y ago

that's because people in america generally do not trust chinese companies. however, through a series of investments they still reach a large audience. one example off the top of my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games their giant shiny new office is right here in west LA, but they're owned by tencent in china.

chrisabrams 10y ago
True. Tencent probably doesn't invest in Riot if LoL wasn't popular in China.
morgante 10y ago
I feel like that almost proves my point: the Chinese government is very reluctant to allow foreign companies to own a majority of any dominant technology in China, while the inverse is simply never even discussed.
- beachstartup 10y ago
  i'm not disagreeing with you.
- khuey 10y ago
  Australia recently blocked a proposal to sell the largest power grid in the country to a Chinese bidder. Describing the Chinese reaction as hypocritcal would be charitable. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/china-calls-australia-protectionist-for-blocking-ausgrid-bid-irynga37 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/china-call...
  - ting_bu_dung 10y ago
    So I can't own or invest in a small internet company in China, yet Australia is protectionist when it wont sell critical infrastructure...
  - walrus01 10y ago
    The Canadian feds blocked the sale of AllStream (formerly AT&T Canada), a dark fiber, WDM transport and IP network ISP to an Egyptian company on national security grounds. Likely because AllStream has a shitload of contracts for backbone links into federal government facilities. So instead they sold it to Zayo, the US telecom giant. At least from an ISP industry insider perspective Zayo is trustworthy and has the precedent of providing some 'critical' circuits for different US federal agencies. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/allstream-sale-to-accelero-rejected-over-national-security-1.1929191 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/allstream-sale-to-acc...

evook 10y ago

You're right. The US has chosen state backed economical espionage as their method of choice.

bduerst 10y ago

The Chinese firewall is more a reflection on their culture of censorship than an international anti-competitive tool.

throwaway1974 10y ago
Except somehow it endsup doing just that (strangling competition from outside of China)
- bduerst 10y ago
  China is strangling competition from outside of China, not the firewall. The firewall isn't what was preventing Uber from competing in China, for example.
  - usaar333 10y ago
    Isn't the general consensus is that Uber lost generally fairly? On the other hand, the firewall outright blocks websites like Facebook and Google from competing in China.
    - bduerst 10y ago
      Right, that's the point. Facebook and Google refused to cooperate with the Chinese government on censorship, and now the firewall blocks them.
    - jasonjei 10y ago
      That's hardly true that Uber was treated fairly. Uber drivers faced hurdles from local government (being unable to issue a tax receipt), while Didi could do so. Uber drivers and headquarters faced frequent harassment from Hong Kong authorities, while Didi was relatively immune.
  - exhilaration 10y ago
    The firewall isn't what was preventing Uber from competing in China... But it is one of the things that prevented Google from competing in China. Here's an excerpt from an article previously posted on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218607 The hurdles could be unpredictable, with an element of deniability. Sometimes Google found itself at the mercy of China’s ability to manipulate the digital infrastructure. The site would work slowly, or there would be outages. In one instance, Google found not only that users were blocked from its site, but also that when they typed in the address, they would be redirected to it competitor Baidu. This played into the narrative spun by Baidu that Google was overmatched in serving China, and that the local option was more reliable.

chrischen 10y ago

They erected a firewall because of centuries of Western imperialism and foreign bullying. As foreigner you might be fine with "free-trade" that allows you to freely sell opium, or take over cities on sovererign land, or to have foreign social networking companies plaster agenda driven poitical propoganda to people in your country (I'm talking about the facebook India snafu) because you have no investment or ties to the Chinese country, but they do have to think about national interest, and not foreign interest. It's also not exactly a fair playground if foreign multinationals with decades of established dominance, experience, R&D, and human capital from the developed world compete against Chinese companies which most would be upstarts or recent companies, and with human capital from less developed sources. When none of the country has drinkable tap water, their people have a lot of things on their plate. They don't need foreign competition. It'd be like sending a fully armed US marine squad to duke it out with squad of high schoolers and blaming China for being unfair for erecting a wall around the high schoolers while they grow and train. Protectionism is a valid strategy to help boost domestic economic development and it's fairly arrogant and imperialistic to assert that we as fully developed foreigners have any right to exploit markets in less developed areas. Any time there is a tariff, it's essentially being practiced.

placeybordeaux 10y ago
Do you feel like the firewall is more about control of information and censorship or protectionism on the Internet?
- westiseast 10y ago
  Number 1: control. Number 2 and happy side benefit: protectionism.
usaar333 10y ago
Are you referring to general trade barriers (in which I can agree help nascent industries and even the country in the long term) or the firewall that blocks many foreign sites? On the latter point, I'd be surprised if it is ROI positive for the country. One would expect it would cut off significant communication with the outside world, resulting in duplicate work needing to be done (can't find that open source package on github as github is blocked? that sucks). The censorship regime additionally introduces self-policing costs to Chinese firms.

nullnilvoid 10y ago

Go take a look at Huawei. Their products are just as good as Cisco's at a much lower price. Yet they are completely shut out of the US market. Otherwise, Cisco would be decimated (they are already more or less).

zghst 10y ago
Also filled with tons of gov't spyware just like Cisco.
- nullnilvoid 10y ago
  For spyware, go ask Edward Snowden and NSA's PRISM program. NSA basically demanded direct accesses to Google, Apple etc.'s servers storing user data. NSA also tapped into the backbone of internet and built data centers to store and decrypt data.
- linkregister 10y ago
  There isn't any evidence to substantiate that. The risk discussed in Congress was that the Chinese government would likely coerce Huawei into inserting "phone-home" capability into telecommunications hardware on U.S. critical infrastructure. There has been no documented instance of this happening. Edit: by Huawei.
linkregister 10y ago
Huawei is by no means shut out from the U.S. market. Mid-tier telecoms (e.g. Cricket Wireless) use Huawei routers, cellular equipment, and intermediary equipment. L3 Communications is suggested to have bought from them as well. [1] Huawei mobile phones are doing well in the U.S. The Nexus 6P is one example of a popular Huawei product. Huawei televisions also sell well in the U.S. [1] http://fortune.com/2011/07/28/what-makes-china-telecom-huawei-so-scary/ http://fortune.com/2011/07/28/what-makes-china-telecom-huawe...
- nullnilvoid 10y ago
  When did Cricket Wireless become mid-tier telecoms? It is hte first time I have heard of the company. Check this out. U.S. Congress Flags China's Huawei, ZTE As Security Threats:http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2012/10/08/u-s-congress-flags-chinas-huawei-zte-as-security-threats/#244572906b19 http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmontlake/2012/10/08/u-s-con... Cisco paid the lobbyists in DC very well.

pravda 10y ago

Aliexpress[1] is the consumer-focused site. They are doing well with me. I wish Taobao would come to USA and crush eBay! [1] http://www.aliexpress.com http://www.aliexpress.com