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You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Period. Either you do it or you leave. I work for a big company (you would all know) and we ha

You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Period. Either you do it or you leave. I work for a big company (you would all know) and we have a large business unit in China, they own 52% of it. They decide what goes in and how customers can use it. We don't get to decide anything without government approval. It's so easy to claim the West shouldn't do what the leadership of China wants in China, but in reality the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to. The market is too large to leave. If you don't agree to their rules you don't play in their sandbox.

bilbo0s 9y ago
I suppose there are the questions of law and fiduciary duties. If it's the law, it's the law. In China, it's the law to remove VPN apps. I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access. It's just the law, it's not really Facebook and Google trying to screw me. All that said, I think what most posters are advocating is maybe for Apple to just leave China. And, of course, that's where the other shoe drops... with the question of fiduciary duties. So yeah... I see your point... because of the legal issues involved, privacy and access can be tough problems. Not just in China or the US, but elsewhere in the world as well. *EDITS for grammar
- virtuabhi 9y ago
  "I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access." No, in US the directive comes from court and even then the companies can deny the information if it is encrypted (e.g. like Apple did in San Bernardino). I also do not understand the nonsensical argument everyday that if US does small x then it allows other countries to do big X along with big Y. What kind of logic is this?
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    A company cannot legally defy the court in the US. They can only argue against a specific request it and appeal a ruling or an order. As for the San Bernadino case it's not correct. Apple has complied with the court order, they gave the FBI access to the iCloud Account. What they didn't do is to decrypt the phone but they were also not ordered too by the court. If the court would have ordered them to develop a way to decrypt the device and they've lost all appeals they would've complied with that too.
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  >I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access. It is very different. Censorship with the main objective of keeping an unelected regime in power by suppressing free speech is not the same as any problematic side-effects of fighting crime and terrorism. Granted, there are some grey areas such as oppression of sexual minorities, but the distinction between political oppression and crime fighting should not be lost completely. The least Apple could do is allow sideloading of apps.
  - smichel17 9y ago
    Basically this. Apple's walled garden puts them in a position of power where their only choices are comply or leave. By contrast, Google could ship an Android phone in China with vpn features removed, ban vpn apps from the play store, and I would still be able to install a 3rd party vpn app.
- atmosx 9y ago
  For you the fact that something is law might tramp morality. Law vs morality is an ancient struggle[1]. [1] http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/classics/antigone-moral-law-v-s-political-law.html http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/classics/anti...
- jMyles 9y ago
  > It's just the law, it's not really Facebook and Google trying to screw me. There are bad laws, and then there are bad actors refusing to disobey bad laws, which is a quintessential civic obligation in the western tradition.
chongli 9y ago
Even if you do play by all the rules it seems likely that your business will be cloned by a local startup and then you'll get kicked out anyway. The CPC is engaged in a very shortsighted strategy. They're doing everything they can to hang on to untenable growth numbers. When the chickens come home to roost there is going to be real trouble the likes of which we have not seen in living memory. The wealthy in China have seen the writing on the wall for a long time and are doing everything they can to exit before it's too late.
xienze 9y ago
> You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Of course, I get that. But it's always companies like Apple that make so much noise about social justice who don't stick to their guns when China's involved.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  I don't get your complaint at all. What would you rather have them do? What would "sticking to their guns" involve? Or would you rather have them not "make so much noise" about social justice?
  - tziki 9y ago
    They could always do what Google did and abandon China.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Google was aspirational in China when it left: they weren't making much money there...they hoped to in the future. Apple is not aspirational in China today: they are already making a lot of money there. Leaving China would cause an immediate shock to its stock price as well as a huge cut in actual profits.
      - smichel17 9y ago
        ...the profit motive makes it okay! /s
        rayuela 9y ago
        The profit means Cook keeps his job
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        It means that either Cook is CEO of Apple, or he isn't. Either way, Apple will still be in China.
deathanatos 9y ago
> It's so easy to claim the West shouldn't do what the leadership of China wants in China, but in reality the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to. That line of "reasoning" makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy, then. (It additionally feels ethically unsound to me; the "if I don't do it, someone else will, therefore it's okay" — no, it's still not okay. And that's what people are upset about.)
- afarrell 9y ago
  But it is still game-theoretically correct.
- intopieces 9y ago
  Is there no chance whatsoever that large American companies could influence the Chinese government by establishing a market presence and then threatening to leave / alter it? This is what they do in the the US. I know that China is usually happy to just start their own Google/Facebook/Amazon/Netflix, so perhaps I'm being naive. As much as I cringe at American companies kowtowing to oppressive governments, it seems like exiting entirely is no strategy at all -- merely contrition in another form.
  - wooter 9y ago
    freedom of speech helps. where are grievances to this shitty policy aired to the govt by the public?
  - ameen 9y ago
    We've seen Chinese aspirational companies try and fail, eg: LeEco (Faraday Future, etc). But Apple made it a company focus to court Chinese market. So they can't back down now. For some reason I've never really liked the Chinese government. They always come across as a benevolent dictator, they'll let you do business as long as you toe the line. Any inkling of freespeech or such ideas and you're out.
dis-sys 9y ago
Of course you can leave China/choose not to enter China/be blocked from entering China and still be very successful, check what Google did 7-8 years ago. The same can be said for a long list of highly successfully American high tech and not that high tech companies, e.g. Facebook, SpaceX, Berkshire Hathaway etc. The mentioned 52% or 51% ownership is nothing but protectionism. It is nothing different from Trump asking certain US products to be made in the US.
flyGuyOnTheSly 9y ago
>They decide what goes in and how customers can use it. We don't get to decide anything without government approval. Then how can anyone really say that they are doing business in china? When it's the government calling all the shots and taking the lion's share of profits? What is a foreign business in china, besides a brand-on-loan-to-the-government (that they pay you for using)?
samstave 9y ago
>We don't get to decide anything without government approval ELI5: * How does the "decide" process and "approval" process work? * Who is the decider? (What are their qualifications/bkgrd? (Are they ex workers of the tech sector in .CN that have xp in building all the things? * What are the implications to cost/design/[whatever-i-dont-know-to-ask]? * ELI5 'submission for approval' and 'time to approval' * do .cn gov employees work/are-embedded-at any given company? * is it as totalitarian as it sounds or is it efficient? * what cut does the government take? * Who is reputable in the US to ensure a product can get built in china?
- monkeypizza 9y ago
  Generally, doing business of any kind requires a license. At small scale, the rules aren't enforced very much, but when you get big or someone doesn't like you, they are. Since everything you do can be interpreted as illegal in some way, there's no defense, and there's no recourse, since the courts aren't independent. About embedding of workers: local employees who are party members will organize a party branch inside the company. The more powerful internal party members you have, the easier it will be to be given permission to do things, get licenses, etc, so they'll gain committee seats and power. So you end up with an internal organization with power in your company whose allegiances are to an outside agency.
louithethrid 9y ago
You can do buisness in china - and reinvest part of the profit via strawmans and donations into open source endavours to circumvent censorship, like meshnet endavours and TOR. But of course, you could also just be a silent dictatorship supporter (seems like a natural view for a CEO) and hope that blind loyal fans & employees find good apologys for betrayal of core-western values. And you dont get to pin this on cultural differences. Europe had 2000 years of kings, monarchs and other vermin- and after 2 WorldWars everybody basically had given up on democracy rooting anywhere there (maybe in britain). Its just european culture, to crawl under stomping boots. They need that! Today, we got 60 years of peace and prosperity, with democracy and alot of freedom. So no- the partyline of ineveitability of itself, does not convince. Though im absolutly against violent unrest or violent transitions. I rather have china another 100 years under party rule, then supporting a violent uprising.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> If you don't agree to their rules you don't play in their sandbox. And if you make choices they have consequences. Those consequences include that people in the west will lose respect for your company, complain about it, patronize competitors, propose laws to punish it, etc. If that puts the company in a bind, good. They're a multi-billion dollar international corporation. They have to choose between morals and profits a thousand times a day. It should be as hard as possible for them to make the immoral choice. And if they make it anyway, it should cost them something.
- dilap 9y ago
  You really think the mature thing to do is to cut off an entire country because you disagree with their political system? That seems very extreme to me.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    You're proposing a false dichotomy. If the choice is to do evil or leave then they should leave, but is it? How sure are you that a company with thousands of employees and billions of dollars could not find a third way if sufficient pressure was applied on them to do so, instead of us excusing their defection as reasonable?
    - dilap 9y ago
      Nah, I don't think it is a false dichotomy in this case. It seems unlikely to me in the extreme that China is going to change its policies in response to pressure from some foreign company, even one as large as Apple. More generally, I don't think describing countries & cultures that don't share your particular values as evil is reasonable or useful.
      - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
        > Nah, I don't think it is a false dichotomy in this case. It seems unlikely to me in the extreme that China is going to change its policies in response to pressure from some foreign company, even one as large as Apple. That is still a false dichotomy. They don't necessarily have to change the policy in order to render it ineffective. Apple is full of smart people. They could think of something if they had to. Others in the comments have already suggested that they could allow side-loading of apps, which would remove their ability to prevent people from installing VPN apps. So the choice isn't actually "do evil or leave", it's at best "do evil or open the walled garden", which makes the choice they made far less sympathetic. > More generally, I don't think describing countries & cultures that don't share your particular values as evil is reasonable or useful. Prohibiting VPNs is part of a wider crackdown on free speech and privacy. If "evil" means doing wrong, that is doing wrong. "The banality of evil" and all of that.
1_2__4 9y ago
> You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Then > in reality the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to So the only alternative to doing business there - which requires doing as you're told - is leaving China to only businesses that will do what their told. I'm assuming you didn't mean to say that so can you explain?
trophycase 9y ago
I'm so tired of the "if we don't do it someone else will" mentality. It's just flat out untrue. Not to mention you're basically supporting this type of government by doing business there.
- novaleaf 9y ago
  for large markets, it is true. the roles of google and amazon are being filled locally, in all their respective verticals. for some niche market, maybe not.
- stingrae 9y ago
  I don't think apple leaving the market would have any impact on the Chinese government's decision process behind policies. There are plenty of Chinese brands that would love the decreased competition. The only effect it would have would be on Apple's sales numbers.
dreamlayers 9y ago
The market is not "too large to leave". The company is making a choice to stay there because to them profit is more important than ethical considerations. At the same time, the fact that the West generally doesn't care about ethics shows that the West is not necessarily a good model to follow. Maybe China has a better alternative.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  I'd hardly claim China cares about ethics, either.
  - droidist2 9y ago
    Yeah, that was really strange logic. A does unethical things, B doesn't prevent it therefore B is unethical... but hey maybe A is ethical?
- Bakary 9y ago
  Yuval Noah Harari wrote about this rather interesting theory that human rights only picked up steam all of a sudden because the industrial revolution created an economic need for a large class of educated and well-fed workers. We only value our current brand of ethics because it coincides with significant economic advantages. However, it's also important to look at the big picture behind your accusation. If the West truly did not value ethics, you would have been unlikely to have voiced your concerns in this way, since you would not have grown in a framework where these criticisms would be commonplace or even considered a worthy problem to investigate. The mere fact that you are making these observations means it's not so bad from an ethical standpoint. It shows there is already an ethical standard in place that is understood as a commendable ideal by most people, to the point where you can refer to it and expect people to know what you're talking about.
- _yosefk 9y ago
  A company leaving a large market will be outcompeted by a company which doesn't; for companies, ignoring profits kills them. If it's anyone's job to respond to China's government, it's other governments', as they can take losses more easily but still not easily enough to get by without coordinated action (easier for governments than companies since there are fewer governments and new states don't form as quickly as new companies.)
laydn 9y ago
If they somehow decided to stop doing business in China, would that be grounds for Apple investors to sue Apple?
- analog31 9y ago
  What would the investors sue Apple for? Now, a majority of investors could always re-direct Apple by voting at a shareholder meeting.
analog31 9y ago
In my view something to consider is that the same large companies that are doing the Chinese government's bidding in China, are also free to do the Chinese government's bidding in the US. For instance they can buy political influence, manipulate markets, and so forth. If they can't serve the interests of two societies at once, they will serve the society that exerts more oversight and control.
Old_Thrashbarg 9y ago
> the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to Sounds like the "well, if I don't do it, someone else will" justification. Not the first time that has been used to justify an unethical action.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"The market is too large to leave." Or stated another way "there's too much money involved to worry about ethics." Yet Google left it and they seem to be doing OK. Apple could well afford to leave it too: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-record-256-8-billion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-...
- Harken 9y ago
  Google has to deal with some manufacturing issues related to their phones and tablets, but does not entirely depend on China for manufacturing. Apple is overly-dependent upon Chinese manufacturing to have hardware at all. Leaves them beholden to Chinese rules, whereas, if they had manufactured elsewhere, China would have to deal with demand for a needed foreign product. Now, however, if Apple pulled out, they would leave all that manufacturing expertise behind, and would face a lack of skilled labor elsewhere that they largely caused in the first place. So, yes, ethics and money clash yet again, as money was designed to make happen. If they didn't pay people, a lot of dirty work wouldn't happen, and a lot of goods would be unavailable as a result. If you tweet about ethics on a computer, chances are, that computer's hardware makes you complicit. Yes, me too...
  - mandeepj 9y ago
    > Google has to deal with some manufacturing issues related to their phones and tablets, No. It was way before phone manufacturing. China wanted to censor google searches but Google did not approve this so at the end they pulled out their servers from China and hosted it in Singapore.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    I didn't understand your Google hardware comment. Google search in China predates any hardware by years. Google search(Google China) is 2005 and the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 isn't until 2008. Apple isn't dependent on the Chinese for manufacturing they are dependent on Foxconn, a Taiwanese company. And China wants Foxconn there. They greatly incentivized Foxconn to set up shop there.[1] There's no reason Apple with its' hundreds of billions in cash reserves couldn't finance an "iPhone City" like China did in Zhengzhou and put it elsewhere. And seeing how Foxconn is looking towards automation which isn't dependent on human labor, they could set it up an automated iPhone City anywhere, including the US.[2] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-china-foxconn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-c... [2] http://fortune.com/2016/12/31/foxconn-iphone-automation-goal/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/31/foxconn-iphone-automation-goal...
pmarreck 9y ago
"I am objecting to this on the basis of forcing me to violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps this greased handshake will help."

bilbo0s 9y ago

I suppose there are the questions of law and fiduciary duties. If it's the law, it's the law. In China, it's the law to remove VPN apps. I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access. It's just the law, it's not really Facebook and Google trying to screw me. All that said, I think what most posters are advocating is maybe for Apple to just leave China. And, of course, that's where the other shoe drops... with the question of fiduciary duties. So yeah... I see your point... because of the legal issues involved, privacy and access can be tough problems. Not just in China or the US, but elsewhere in the world as well. *EDITS for grammar

virtuabhi 9y ago
"I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access." No, in US the directive comes from court and even then the companies can deny the information if it is encrypted (e.g. like Apple did in San Bernardino). I also do not understand the nonsensical argument everyday that if US does small x then it allows other countries to do big X along with big Y. What kind of logic is this?
- dogma1138 9y ago
  A company cannot legally defy the court in the US. They can only argue against a specific request it and appeal a ruling or an order. As for the San Bernadino case it's not correct. Apple has complied with the court order, they gave the FBI access to the iCloud Account. What they didn't do is to decrypt the phone but they were also not ordered too by the court. If the court would have ordered them to develop a way to decrypt the device and they've lost all appeals they would've complied with that too.
fauigerzigerk 9y ago
>I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access. It is very different. Censorship with the main objective of keeping an unelected regime in power by suppressing free speech is not the same as any problematic side-effects of fighting crime and terrorism. Granted, there are some grey areas such as oppression of sexual minorities, but the distinction between political oppression and crime fighting should not be lost completely. The least Apple could do is allow sideloading of apps.
- smichel17 9y ago
  Basically this. Apple's walled garden puts them in a position of power where their only choices are comply or leave. By contrast, Google could ship an Android phone in China with vpn features removed, ban vpn apps from the play store, and I would still be able to install a 3rd party vpn app.
atmosx 9y ago
For you the fact that something is law might tramp morality. Law vs morality is an ancient struggle[1]. [1] http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/classics/antigone-moral-law-v-s-political-law.html http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/classics/anti...
jMyles 9y ago
> It's just the law, it's not really Facebook and Google trying to screw me. There are bad laws, and then there are bad actors refusing to disobey bad laws, which is a quintessential civic obligation in the western tradition.

chongli 9y ago

Even if you do play by all the rules it seems likely that your business will be cloned by a local startup and then you'll get kicked out anyway. The CPC is engaged in a very shortsighted strategy. They're doing everything they can to hang on to untenable growth numbers. When the chickens come home to roost there is going to be real trouble the likes of which we have not seen in living memory. The wealthy in China have seen the writing on the wall for a long time and are doing everything they can to exit before it's too late.

xienze 9y ago

> You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Of course, I get that. But it's always companies like Apple that make so much noise about social justice who don't stick to their guns when China's involved.

enraged_camel 9y ago
I don't get your complaint at all. What would you rather have them do? What would "sticking to their guns" involve? Or would you rather have them not "make so much noise" about social justice?
- tziki 9y ago
  They could always do what Google did and abandon China.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Google was aspirational in China when it left: they weren't making much money there...they hoped to in the future. Apple is not aspirational in China today: they are already making a lot of money there. Leaving China would cause an immediate shock to its stock price as well as a huge cut in actual profits.
    - smichel17 9y ago
      ...the profit motive makes it okay! /s
      - rayuela 9y ago
        The profit means Cook keeps his job
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        It means that either Cook is CEO of Apple, or he isn't. Either way, Apple will still be in China.

deathanatos 9y ago

> It's so easy to claim the West shouldn't do what the leadership of China wants in China, but in reality the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to. That line of "reasoning" makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy, then. (It additionally feels ethically unsound to me; the "if I don't do it, someone else will, therefore it's okay" — no, it's still not okay. And that's what people are upset about.)

afarrell 9y ago
But it is still game-theoretically correct.
intopieces 9y ago
Is there no chance whatsoever that large American companies could influence the Chinese government by establishing a market presence and then threatening to leave / alter it? This is what they do in the the US. I know that China is usually happy to just start their own Google/Facebook/Amazon/Netflix, so perhaps I'm being naive. As much as I cringe at American companies kowtowing to oppressive governments, it seems like exiting entirely is no strategy at all -- merely contrition in another form.
- wooter 9y ago
  freedom of speech helps. where are grievances to this shitty policy aired to the govt by the public?
- ameen 9y ago
  We've seen Chinese aspirational companies try and fail, eg: LeEco (Faraday Future, etc). But Apple made it a company focus to court Chinese market. So they can't back down now. For some reason I've never really liked the Chinese government. They always come across as a benevolent dictator, they'll let you do business as long as you toe the line. Any inkling of freespeech or such ideas and you're out.

dis-sys 9y ago

Of course you can leave China/choose not to enter China/be blocked from entering China and still be very successful, check what Google did 7-8 years ago. The same can be said for a long list of highly successfully American high tech and not that high tech companies, e.g. Facebook, SpaceX, Berkshire Hathaway etc. The mentioned 52% or 51% ownership is nothing but protectionism. It is nothing different from Trump asking certain US products to be made in the US.

flyGuyOnTheSly 9y ago

>They decide what goes in and how customers can use it. We don't get to decide anything without government approval. Then how can anyone really say that they are doing business in china? When it's the government calling all the shots and taking the lion's share of profits? What is a foreign business in china, besides a brand-on-loan-to-the-government (that they pay you for using)?

samstave 9y ago

>We don't get to decide anything without government approval ELI5: * How does the "decide" process and "approval" process work? * Who is the decider? (What are their qualifications/bkgrd? (Are they ex workers of the tech sector in .CN that have xp in building all the things? * What are the implications to cost/design/[whatever-i-dont-know-to-ask]? * ELI5 'submission for approval' and 'time to approval' * do .cn gov employees work/are-embedded-at any given company? * is it as totalitarian as it sounds or is it efficient? * what cut does the government take? * Who is reputable in the US to ensure a product can get built in china?

monkeypizza 9y ago
Generally, doing business of any kind requires a license. At small scale, the rules aren't enforced very much, but when you get big or someone doesn't like you, they are. Since everything you do can be interpreted as illegal in some way, there's no defense, and there's no recourse, since the courts aren't independent. About embedding of workers: local employees who are party members will organize a party branch inside the company. The more powerful internal party members you have, the easier it will be to be given permission to do things, get licenses, etc, so they'll gain committee seats and power. So you end up with an internal organization with power in your company whose allegiances are to an outside agency.

louithethrid 9y ago

You can do buisness in china - and reinvest part of the profit via strawmans and donations into open source endavours to circumvent censorship, like meshnet endavours and TOR. But of course, you could also just be a silent dictatorship supporter (seems like a natural view for a CEO) and hope that blind loyal fans & employees find good apologys for betrayal of core-western values. And you dont get to pin this on cultural differences. Europe had 2000 years of kings, monarchs and other vermin- and after 2 WorldWars everybody basically had given up on democracy rooting anywhere there (maybe in britain). Its just european culture, to crawl under stomping boots. They need that! Today, we got 60 years of peace and prosperity, with democracy and alot of freedom. So no- the partyline of ineveitability of itself, does not convince. Though im absolutly against violent unrest or violent transitions. I rather have china another 100 years under party rule, then supporting a violent uprising.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> If you don't agree to their rules you don't play in their sandbox. And if you make choices they have consequences. Those consequences include that people in the west will lose respect for your company, complain about it, patronize competitors, propose laws to punish it, etc. If that puts the company in a bind, good. They're a multi-billion dollar international corporation. They have to choose between morals and profits a thousand times a day. It should be as hard as possible for them to make the immoral choice. And if they make it anyway, it should cost them something.

dilap 9y ago
You really think the mature thing to do is to cut off an entire country because you disagree with their political system? That seems very extreme to me.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  You're proposing a false dichotomy. If the choice is to do evil or leave then they should leave, but is it? How sure are you that a company with thousands of employees and billions of dollars could not find a third way if sufficient pressure was applied on them to do so, instead of us excusing their defection as reasonable?
  - dilap 9y ago
    Nah, I don't think it is a false dichotomy in this case. It seems unlikely to me in the extreme that China is going to change its policies in response to pressure from some foreign company, even one as large as Apple. More generally, I don't think describing countries & cultures that don't share your particular values as evil is reasonable or useful.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > Nah, I don't think it is a false dichotomy in this case. It seems unlikely to me in the extreme that China is going to change its policies in response to pressure from some foreign company, even one as large as Apple. That is still a false dichotomy. They don't necessarily have to change the policy in order to render it ineffective. Apple is full of smart people. They could think of something if they had to. Others in the comments have already suggested that they could allow side-loading of apps, which would remove their ability to prevent people from installing VPN apps. So the choice isn't actually "do evil or leave", it's at best "do evil or open the walled garden", which makes the choice they made far less sympathetic. > More generally, I don't think describing countries & cultures that don't share your particular values as evil is reasonable or useful. Prohibiting VPNs is part of a wider crackdown on free speech and privacy. If "evil" means doing wrong, that is doing wrong. "The banality of evil" and all of that.

1_2__4 9y ago

> You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Then > in reality the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to So the only alternative to doing business there - which requires doing as you're told - is leaving China to only businesses that will do what their told. I'm assuming you didn't mean to say that so can you explain?

trophycase 9y ago

I'm so tired of the "if we don't do it someone else will" mentality. It's just flat out untrue. Not to mention you're basically supporting this type of government by doing business there.

novaleaf 9y ago
for large markets, it is true. the roles of google and amazon are being filled locally, in all their respective verticals. for some niche market, maybe not.
stingrae 9y ago
I don't think apple leaving the market would have any impact on the Chinese government's decision process behind policies. There are plenty of Chinese brands that would love the decreased competition. The only effect it would have would be on Apple's sales numbers.

dreamlayers 9y ago

The market is not "too large to leave". The company is making a choice to stay there because to them profit is more important than ethical considerations. At the same time, the fact that the West generally doesn't care about ethics shows that the West is not necessarily a good model to follow. Maybe China has a better alternative.

yellowapple 9y ago
I'd hardly claim China cares about ethics, either.
- droidist2 9y ago
  Yeah, that was really strange logic. A does unethical things, B doesn't prevent it therefore B is unethical... but hey maybe A is ethical?
Bakary 9y ago
Yuval Noah Harari wrote about this rather interesting theory that human rights only picked up steam all of a sudden because the industrial revolution created an economic need for a large class of educated and well-fed workers. We only value our current brand of ethics because it coincides with significant economic advantages. However, it's also important to look at the big picture behind your accusation. If the West truly did not value ethics, you would have been unlikely to have voiced your concerns in this way, since you would not have grown in a framework where these criticisms would be commonplace or even considered a worthy problem to investigate. The mere fact that you are making these observations means it's not so bad from an ethical standpoint. It shows there is already an ethical standard in place that is understood as a commendable ideal by most people, to the point where you can refer to it and expect people to know what you're talking about.
_yosefk 9y ago
A company leaving a large market will be outcompeted by a company which doesn't; for companies, ignoring profits kills them. If it's anyone's job to respond to China's government, it's other governments', as they can take losses more easily but still not easily enough to get by without coordinated action (easier for governments than companies since there are fewer governments and new states don't form as quickly as new companies.)

laydn 9y ago

If they somehow decided to stop doing business in China, would that be grounds for Apple investors to sue Apple?

analog31 9y ago
What would the investors sue Apple for? Now, a majority of investors could always re-direct Apple by voting at a shareholder meeting.

analog31 9y ago

In my view something to consider is that the same large companies that are doing the Chinese government's bidding in China, are also free to do the Chinese government's bidding in the US. For instance they can buy political influence, manipulate markets, and so forth. If they can't serve the interests of two societies at once, they will serve the society that exerts more oversight and control.

Old_Thrashbarg 9y ago

> the only alternative is to abandon China to those who will do what they are ordered to Sounds like the "well, if I don't do it, someone else will" justification. Not the first time that has been used to justify an unethical action.

bogomipz 9y ago

>"The market is too large to leave." Or stated another way "there's too much money involved to worry about ethics." Yet Google left it and they seem to be doing OK. Apple could well afford to leave it too: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-record-256-8-billion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-...

Harken 9y ago
Google has to deal with some manufacturing issues related to their phones and tablets, but does not entirely depend on China for manufacturing. Apple is overly-dependent upon Chinese manufacturing to have hardware at all. Leaves them beholden to Chinese rules, whereas, if they had manufactured elsewhere, China would have to deal with demand for a needed foreign product. Now, however, if Apple pulled out, they would leave all that manufacturing expertise behind, and would face a lack of skilled labor elsewhere that they largely caused in the first place. So, yes, ethics and money clash yet again, as money was designed to make happen. If they didn't pay people, a lot of dirty work wouldn't happen, and a lot of goods would be unavailable as a result. If you tweet about ethics on a computer, chances are, that computer's hardware makes you complicit. Yes, me too...
- mandeepj 9y ago
  > Google has to deal with some manufacturing issues related to their phones and tablets, No. It was way before phone manufacturing. China wanted to censor google searches but Google did not approve this so at the end they pulled out their servers from China and hosted it in Singapore.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  I didn't understand your Google hardware comment. Google search in China predates any hardware by years. Google search(Google China) is 2005 and the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 isn't until 2008. Apple isn't dependent on the Chinese for manufacturing they are dependent on Foxconn, a Taiwanese company. And China wants Foxconn there. They greatly incentivized Foxconn to set up shop there.[1] There's no reason Apple with its' hundreds of billions in cash reserves couldn't finance an "iPhone City" like China did in Zhengzhou and put it elsewhere. And seeing how Foxconn is looking towards automation which isn't dependent on human labor, they could set it up an automated iPhone City anywhere, including the US.[2] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-china-foxconn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-c... [2] http://fortune.com/2016/12/31/foxconn-iphone-automation-goal/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/31/foxconn-iphone-automation-goal...

pmarreck 9y ago

"I am objecting to this on the basis of forcing me to violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps this greased handshake will help."