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Yes, playing ball with a despotic authoritarian regime is precisely what people are faulting these companies for. A lot of companies left the market in South A
by veidr 9y ago
Yes, playing ball with a despotic authoritarian regime is precisely what people are faulting these companies for.
A lot of companies left the market in South Africa market in the 1980s, to which the parallels are obvious.
But they didn't do it because they suddenly woke up and felt like doing the right thing; they did it because people's outrage over human rights in South Africa began to threaten the profits gained from playing ball there[1].
That's why articles like this one are important.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/11/17/threat-to-profits-spurs-us-exodus-from-south-africa/1e164198-971f-41e7-995e-f379c00be522/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/11/17/t...
- mistermann 9y agoSouth Africa is tiny, China is an 800 pound gorilla upon which the majority of the world's manufacturing depends. The decision of whether to "play ball" with China needs to be made at the government level, and 10+ years ago. It's too late now, the horse is out of the barn. China, and only China, will decide how they act on the world stage.
- sangnoir 9y agoWhy are you acting like Apple is the first company to face this dilemma? Google faced a decade ago and chose not to play ball with China with no assistance from any government.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago… and subsequently capitulated anyway. That's kind of key here.
- mistermann 9y agoHow am I acting like that? How do you recommend Apple goes about terminating its relationship with China? Do you think it would have comparable costs and disruption to their business that Google's did?