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Alibaba’s Jack Ma Tells U.S. Companies to Stop Whining About China
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoI've done a good deal of business internationally. A common experience in repressive regimes is the characterization of democratic discussion as whining.
- zephyrus1985 9y agoBan this user ! edit: JK but agreeing with you
- greywolf 9y agousa is extremely stupid to let their higher education institutions be hijacked for the benefit of chinese development. don't start whinnying after 10, 20 yrs when our country is in shambles
- andrestan 9y agoWhat a strikingly irrelevant and illogical comment. This seems to have nothing to do with the parent and there's no logical basis that (and this is what I assume you are referencing) educating Chinese students is somehow a "hijacking" of US higher education institutions.
- cisanti 9y agoNationalistic rants are not welcome on HN, dang please can this account.
- ksk 9y agoI suppose China is also "stupid" to let all those Asian doctoral & post-doctoral students do research for the "enemy"? You need to chill out, and re-consider your tribal affiliations.
- mikestew 9y agoA common experience in repressive regimes is the characterization of democratic discussion as whining. I see what you did there. On a more serious note, yeah, all about following “the rules” now are we, Jack? But I don’t know why it’s being reported. “Yeah...well, you’re a whiny poopy butt!” doesn’t strike me as all that newsworthy.
- hackermailman 9y agoChina's public policy on dissidents is they are whiners/complainers, and they believe if they exile them then they will complain about the host country instead of China.
- patz 9y agoActually now the Beijing gov does the opposite: put them into a secret jail and ask them to die there.
- analog31 9y agoThat's a debate tactic for authoritarians in the US as well.
- matthewmacleod 9y agoThis is doubtless true in many countries (see the current clusterfuck in the UK as a prime example). But it's still a valid point.
- awalton 9y ago>That's a debate tactic for authoritarians in the US as well. E.g. see the current Net Neutrality headlines and articles.
- DelightOne 9y agoAttempt to redefine perception.
- baxtr 9y agoCould anyone summarize this article? I can’t access it. Thanks
- stuffedBelly 9y agoThe title pretty much summarized it.
- jensv 9y agoIt's behind a Paywall for me.
- bllguo 9y agohttps://outline.com/EUWDG8 https://outline.com/EUWDG8 - bypasses paywall
- obscurantist 9y agoIt's profound what utter doublethink (not cognitive dissonance, because these people can literally say two egregiously hypocritical and contradictory statements in the same breath and not consciously recognize the inconsistency) people in China often have about what standards they should hold their own country to, versus standards for other countries.
- j_jochem 9y agoThe same can probably be said about US citizens’ relationship to their own country.
- tremendo 9y ago…and this is called "whataboutism" (I am not american)
- aaavl2821 9y agothere is, and generally has been, a very healthy level of self-criticism within the USA. based on polling numbers most people dont approve of the current administration, and the primary messages of both the democratic and republican parties are essentially "the leadership of our country is screwed up and we are a morally deteriorating society" not to say that people in the USA aren't ignorant or arrogant, but there certainly is a lot of expressed disdain for the government / politicians
- ksk 9y agoCan you give some examples that you've seen?
- rrggrr 9y agoDisagree. Most Chinese I know are unhappy with Chinese domestic policy. They are largely unaware of Chinese foreign policy. Its not doublethink... there is a real imbalance of available information.
- tyingq 9y agoMeh. I'll continue whining about things like UPU subsidies. http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese-shipping/ http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese...
- mtgx 9y agoMore whining please. It seems to be working, if they're becoming defensive about it.
- bilbo0s 9y agoOnly they aren't getting defensive. In Chinese cultural terms, this is Jack Ma's equivalent of a "victory lap". I'm not entirely certain why our congress would have even given him a platform to do that?
- rrggrr 9y agoThis. Its with great interest I read about 30,000 Chinese troops entering Syria to aid the Assad regime. 30,000 troops projected 6,900km is power projection on par with anything the US or Russia can accomplish.
- 3pt14159 9y agoYou mean the China that hacked the shit out of Nortel when I was a teenager to get global dominance of telecom? The China that's building artificial islands to get access to the South China Sea / East Sea? The China that tries to have trade both ways by forcing Hollywood to portray China positively just to get 50% of what they should at the Chinese box office? The China that quietly supported the DPRK, destabilizing global peace, to get an edge on their interests? The China that walls off their own internet completely then whines when politicians start to question their involvement in our (Canada's) newspapers and other media? The China that disallows foreigners to purchase their currency while stockpiling greenbacks and buying western tech companies? I don't think we should disengage from China, I think they're liberalizing (over the long haul anyway; rich, educated people figure out a way to get access to the truth) but don't for one second think that we should stop "whining" about China. If anything we should be more vocal in our responses.
- radarsat1 9y ago> The China that tries to have trade both ways by forcing Hollywood to portray China positively just to get 50% of what they should at the Chinese box office? What's this one about?
- stuffedBelly 9y agothat probably refers to the large amount of capital from China instilled into Hollywood over recent years.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ajkjk 9y agoThis kind of thing: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/08/did-you-catch-the-ways-hollywood-pandered-to-china-this-year https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/08/did-you-catch-t...
- guiltygatorade 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- stuffedBelly 9y agoI don't think Jack Ma is at a place to tell other companies what to do given Alibaba itself benefits from the government's shield that keeps foreign competitors away. In the long run, an Alibaba monopoly formed of protective policy will be detrimental to the Chinese consumers. P.S. I am Chinese and hold a neutral stance on US/Chinese political systems, but economics common sense tells me Jack Ma spat out quite some hypocritical BS there.
- guiltygatorade 9y agoThere's no doubt that Jack Ma is smart and hard working. But he and his success is also a product of his environment. I don't have any direct evidence but no companies in China achieves the kind of success Tencent or Alibaba does without some sort of government officials silently nodding their heads behind them. That means they're likely complicit in any information gathering the government wants to perform on its citizens as a precondition to their continued operations. The Chinese government is probably all too happy to see these "monopolies" that are effectively playing ball with the government, since the more users that adopt their platform, the more data they have on their citizens. And this is not even touching on how they can exert themselves on these Chinese internet companies to shape the conversations that are happening online. Of course you probably already know all this :P
- kawera 9y agoExactly. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-tech-giants-have-a-second-job-helping-the-government-see-everything-1512056284 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-tech-giants-have-a-secon...
- stuffedBelly 9y agoThe younger generation (born in 80s/90s) in China is usually aware of the amount of censorship imposed and take the government policies and billionaires' success stories with a grain of salt. There are smart ways to get their voices out through music, art projects and onion articles, and escaping the censorship has become a fun game to play (hidden political memes are everywhere right under the big brother's eyes).
- rrggrr 9y agoThe complaints are a dead end. - The global supply chain is inexorably tied to Chinese raw materials (eg. rare earths) and manufacturing. - US and European employers are dependent on Chinese inputs for all manner of domestic jobs. - Financial markets are dependent on Chinese overseas investment and repatriation flows. Its simply too late. Any disorderly rebalancing of China's economic model is likely catastrophic on a global scale. If Ma's point is that we made our own bed and have to sleep in it - he's right. And none of this is to detract from @3pt14159 point because China has not demonstrated any interest in becoming a responsible global power/steward.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoChina is the biggest importer of raw materials; they have some, but so does Australia and South Africa. Also, rare earths aren’t really that rare, just messy to process leading to higher costs (in the west) or severe environmental damage (in china). Environment protection will have to change regardless, or china simply won’t exist as a viable place to live anymore. Sure, we will need to pay more for rare earths as more responsible production comes online, and china loses its environmental 差不多 advantage so that capacity doesn’t have to be there. Chinese investments are pretty focused in speculative asset bubbles (like real estate). When that bubble pops, there will be similar pain to Japan, but the world will recover fairly quickly.
- qiqing 9y agoA few excerpts re: what Jack Ma actually said (although "whining" is in the title of the article, it's not even one of the words he actually said): “I gave advice to Jeff Bezos 10 years ago,” Mr. Ma said, referring to Amazon.com Inc.’s chief executive. “I said: ‘Please send people with entrepreneurial spirit, not professional management. Because wherever you go, doing business in another country is very difficult.’” ... Mr. Ma spoke out against the perception that U.S. companies can’t succeed in China, citing Microsoft Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. as businesses that have thrived here. “Give me five examples of Chinese companies that succeed in America,” he said. “Or Asian companies that succeed in America. Because it’s not easy to do business across nations, it takes time.”