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Honestly I just don't understand the short-term thinking by the West in general and companies in particular when it comes to China. It is 100% abundantly clear

by cletus 8y ago

Honestly I just don't understand the short-term thinking by the West in general and companies in particular when it comes to China. It is 100% abundantly clear that the Chinese government has no interest in "surrendering" industries to foreign competitors. If any foreign company gets reasonably successful I guarantee you the Chinese government will do something to hobble it in favour of a local competitor. So by doing business in China Google is undermining its own values and alienating a not-insignificant number of employees who feel pretty strongly about censorship and human rights to chase a buck that they will never get because the Chinese government will make sure that they don't. The lure of a market of a billion people is an illusion. The game is very much rigged. I don't necessarily blame China for this either. But perhaps its well past due that the West restrict access to its markets to Chinese companies in some sort of reciprocal fashion. If the Chinese government wants you to store data in China to do business there then require Chinese companies to store their data in the US to do business there. And so on. This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great Leap Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square), the last only ~30 years ago. How quickly we forget. And now Xi Jinping (aka "Winnie the Pooh") has abolished term limits and seems set to install himself as dictator for life in the model of Vladimir Putin. I can't hope for much more than enough people take such a stance to wake up the leadership of these companies but I'm not holding my breath.

Dig1t 8y ago
I could not agree more, very well said. Also interesting that you mentioned the Great Leap Forward; I've found that very few people today actually know that this happened or just how incredibly high the death toll was. It was one of the greatest human tragedies of the 20th century and nobody even knows it happened!
- jedmeyers 8y ago
  It seems that government schools are not that eager to teach about how governments killed 150+ million of their own citizens in 20th century. Maybe it’s to promote the idea that the fear of the tyrannical government is somehow irrational mere 18 years later.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    My extremely run of the mill US suburban high school taught us about the Great Leap Forward in its regular world history curriculum.
    - anothergoogler 8y ago
      Parent said "of their own citizens", referring to Chinese schools.
    - ataturk 8y ago
      I work with quite a few Millenials. I quiz them on history often. Few to none can tell me anything about China's human rights record or Russia's under Stalin. They have never heard of Pol Pot. Not a single clue.
- kilroy123 8y ago
  Really is that not common knowledge? (I'm from the US)
  - utopcell 8y ago
    I think it is.
- echevil 8y ago
  The Great Leap Forward is known by almost every Chinese, many of whom having family members actually experienced that. That said, having millions of people starved to death has been quite common throughout the history of China. They could be caused by war, by natural disaster, by human, or a combination of multiple factors. Even in 20th century, starving has been commonplace until the economy started to improve after the economic reform in 1978 (a huge accomplishment that is often ignored by western people) It's hard for younger generations of Chinese to even imagine the darker ages.
  - tivert 8y ago
    > Even in 20th century, starving has been commonplace until the economy started to improve after the economic reform in 1978 (a huge accomplishment that is often ignored by western people) It's hard for younger generations of Chinese to even imagine the darker ages. What was the huge accomplishment of the 1978 reforms that Western people should recognize? From my vantage point, they were basically the abandonment of a lot of Maoist ideas in favor of something that was more in line with Western economic thought.
    - jpatokal 8y ago
      Not the reforms themselves, but what followed. China's growth since then has led to the largest poverty reduction the world has ever seen, and that didn't happen because a bureaucrat flicked his pen, but because hundreds of millions of Chinese toiled for generations to make it happen.
      - tivert 8y ago
        > Not the reforms themselves, but what followed. China's growth since then has led to the largest poverty reduction the world has ever seen, So the content of the reforms themselves weren't really an accomplishment, but rather activity of the people that the previous policies had restrained? > and that didn't happen because a bureaucrat flicked his pen, but because hundreds of millions of Chinese toiled for generations to make it happen. To make what happen? Deng's reforms? Poverty reduction? The path was so circuitous and so driven by the ideology and policy of leaders that I'm not sure if much can really be said about the political intent of that toil by such a large group over such a long span of time.
yourbandsucks 8y ago
It's also the country that lifted 3-500 million people out of poverty in the last 30 years. And haven't invaded anybody in the last 60-70. Just to provide a little balance. I'm worried about Xi's direction too, but overall we could do a lot worse as far as major powers to share the globe with. You're 100% right about the market protectionism stuff, though. (sidenote, the implication that Great Leap Forward was intentional is a little disrespectful, IMO -- that's not how it happened).
- ilamont 8y ago
  And haven't invaded anybody in the last 60-70 Except Tibet (https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/chinese-invade-tibet https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/chinese-invad...), Vietnam (https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-1979-china-vietnam-war/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-197...), India (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/india-china-war-of-1962-839077-2016-11-21 https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs...), islands in the South China Sea claimed by other countries (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/27/neighbors-square-off-with-beijing-in-south-china-sea/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/27/neighbor...), and unsuccessful attempts to seize islands controlled by Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis).
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    I forgot about the Vietnam thing. My bad, 40. Still a very peaceful record compared to ourselves over the time period. Why's everybody so invested up and loaded for bear with factoids about how China is so bad? Have we terminally entered the Thucydides trap?
    - Analemma_ 8y ago
      There are ways to avoid the Thucydides trap, but they don't involve clapping your hands over your ears and pretending everything is fine when it is not. No matter what they like to claim, China is an aggressive expansionist power, and simply ignoring that reality is not going to accomplish anything.
ilamont 8y ago
Adding to the list of reasons not to do business in China: protectionism, cronyism, poor IP enforcement, restrictions on foreign media and communication companies, forced technology transfer from foreign firms as a condition of doing business in China, threats to forcibly annex a peaceful neighboring democracy, seizure of territory in the South China Sea and refusal to abide by the findings of an international legal tribunal, mass imprisonment of Uighur men, imprisonment of citizens advocating for human rights and political freedoms, creation of "Black Mirror"-like social monitoring systems .... However, I do not think creating reciprocal restrictions on Chinese firms doing business in the West is helpful. Chinese companies with operations or staff in other countries will, over time, bring back values and practices that in the future may support the growth of rights in China while eroding the power of the Xi dictatorship.
- sebleon 8y ago
  Ha, likely there's a similarly sinister list of reasons not to do business with the United States. A quick glance at US foreign policy should suffice, or even just the actions resulting from Kissinger's direction.
- brisance 8y ago
  Sadly, the US does similar things. The current administration is particularly evil, yet why didn't Google employees resign en masse when Snowden came forward with the revelations?
icelancer 8y ago
Also detaining tens to hundreds of thousands of Muslims in "re-education" camps, too. Can't forget that.
coldtea 8y ago
>This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great Leap Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square), the last only ~30 years ago. Well, glass houses and stones and all that. There's a country that eliminated millions of its native citizens and restricted the little left to reservations, abducted and kept in slavery millions of black citizens for nearly four centuries, stole several huge areas from its southern neighbor, has the largest prison population in the world (25% of the world's prisoners for merely 4% the people in the world), had segregation for blacks until the late 60s, dropped two nuclear bombs (on civilians), has gone at war and/or occupied several countries all around the world that have no borders with it and had done nothing to it, has toppled foreign governments, has widespread surveillance that covers the whole world, meddles with worldwide politics, secret no-due-process prisons, regularly murders people in sovereign countries, they still have the death penalty, while the rest of the western world has abandoned, and their cops routinely kill thousands of people every year (especially black). Heck, they also bombed/invaded 4 different countries just in the last 20 years. And they're pretending to have the moral high ground, and even point fingers to other countries! And if you point those things out, they go "but whataboutism", to restrict the conversation to some other party, which they present as uniquely bad.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  What happens when the nationalist right and preachy left unite to demonize the #2 power while it's overtaking us as #1? Hopefully everybody calms down soon.
- on_and_off 8y ago
  Thanks for this comment. It feels surreal to see Americans pretend they have any moral high ground.
  - Bendingo 8y ago
    Agreed. And as usual, I look for the greyed-out comments (like yours) to find a balance and objectivity, missing in the bulk of the (mostly hypocritical) thread.
carapace 8y ago
You left out organ theft of political/cultural prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
liftbigweights 8y ago
> The lure of a market of a billion people is an illusion. It's not an illusion. Go ask the hollywood studios. Go ask Apple. Go ask GM. Do you really believe those well paid business folks in hollywood, apple, GM, etc are banking on illusions? > So by doing business in China Google is undermining its own values Google never had any values. The only people who believe that are the naive who fell for their marketing campaign. Google is a company out to make money for its shareholders. They are fundamentally no different from exxon or disney. > This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great Leap Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square), the last only ~30 years ago. How quickly we forget. And now Xi Jinping (aka "Winnie the Pooh") has abolished term limits and seems set to install himself as dictator for life in the model of Vladimir Putin. What does this have to do with business? Why is it that whenever china is mentioned, the top comments invariably have political agenda behind it? Why don't you mention that china lifted 800 million people out of poverty? Does that not fit your agenda? Regardless, the one thing I agree with you is china is not going to "surrender their industries to foreign competitors." Just like we wouldn't surrender our industry to china. That is common sense. What is happening is that china is giving portions of their market to foreign companies in exchange for what they want. An example of this obviously tech transfer. Or china setting aside X number of hollywood movies to show in their huge movie market. Of course hollywood is going to give something for a portion of china's movie market share. The idea that china's market is an illusion is verifiably false. Listen in on tim cook's quarterly conference call sometime. Or take a look at box office numbers. US companies are making serious money in china. https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2140381/china-will-soon-be-worlds-top-film-market-having-overtaken-us-canada https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2140381/china-w... >I can't hope for much more than enough people take such a stance to wake up the leadership of these companies but I'm not holding my breath. Wake up? Do you really think you know anything that the CEOs of apple, google, etc doesn't know? What hubris.
- sushid 8y ago
  You're really trying to drive your point with Hollywood taking its profits in China. Do you know what kind of hoops they have to jump through to access that market? Take Gravity for instance. The reckless nation that shoots down the satellite causing all the damage is Russia when it was China in real life. China then saved our heroine when its the Russians we've worked and continued to work with. Why? It's because they're chasing the Yuan while giving away soft power to China.
hatergonnahate 8y ago
> "This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens " This is also the country who managed to feed most of her billions citizens and lift tens of millions out of poverty. Most rural areas and cities at all level have been drastically changed in a good direction during the last 30 years. Given the scale of China and the fact it was teared into pieces during WWII, don't assume that's an easy feat. I hate to defense for CCP (which honestly has been totally practicing utilitarianism after 1987, I feel hard to call it `communist` anymore), but some people just can't get their eye out of the few most ugly corner and that is disgusting.
maxander 8y ago
I suppose the reason is related to the cliche "companies just do whatever they can to maximize shareholder value"; it is instead that they don't actually act to maximize shareholder value, they act to maximize future expected shareholder value. I'd imagine that the guys leading the Google push into China are well aware of how things will go, and they've likely even reported it to the top brass. But shareholders probably aren't as well-informed, so they'll happily bid up the price on GOOG on the back of stories about an imminent takeover of the Chinese search market... which has roughly the same financial impact of actually achieving something, at least temporarily.
- skybrian 8y ago
  I would spin this a little differently. There certainly are a lot of ambitious people at Google. Googlers have a lot of stock options and/or RSU's and care when it goes up. There was also Eric Schmidt's slogan, something about more revenue solving nearly all problems. But, the company was founded by idealists and is immune from takeover. It attracts idealists (or at least, it used to). Everything is justified in terms of helping users somehow. Justifying things in terms of getting a short-term stock boost generally isn't done, at least not where ordinary employees can hear about it.
DSingularity 8y ago
If I told you pay x$ and you get a chance to flip a 1,000,000 sided coin which pays out 10,000,000,000,000*x you would probably think about buying that chance.
- floren 8y ago
  Sounds like you're describing a lottery
- rpearl 8y ago
  That's a super, super weird formulation here. First from the abstract standpoint, the math here is not right. Discussion: https://pastebin.com/qqQ3KGS5 https://pastebin.com/qqQ3KGS5 because I don't want to divert from the more important point. More importantly, you've failed to account for the externalities, entirely. It's not just a bet ("pay for a chance"). Trying the bet--in this case, allowing government censorship to control search results--has complicated to quantify, but significantly negative human rights cost. So to summarize: I wouldn't think twice about taking your bet--I absolutely would, because the chances are absurdly in my favor (see the pastebin). But I--and generally, the people protesting this--would decline a bet that actually has the right stakes, even if there is a payout.
  - DSingularity 8y ago
    I doubt the externalities or the low likelihood of getting a fair shot at selling to Chinese consumers is lost on these companies. The point I’m trying to make is that from a business perspective it’s worth a shot. If successful PR can take care of the blowback. It’s a moonshot. Despite that, in the eyes of people who are just trying their best to boost profits wherever and however they can it’s stupid not to attempt it. Also for my game, you got one shot at playing. My formulation was not meant to be so rigorous— just trying to highlight the angle that the decision makers are taking here.
rokyno 8y ago
> Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) Do you know what Tibet has been like before? It's a bloody brutal slavery society that majority of the population lived in a unbelievably inhumane condition. Also, Tibet has been a part of Chinese territory for centuries.
- sova 8y ago
  Have you visited? Could you tell me more about how you know this?
  - rokyno 8y ago
    There're plenty of documentation about this. You just need to get out the media bubble. Tibet right now is just a fine place to visit.
    - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
      He asked you for some citations or sources and you reply telling him to get out of his media bubble? Real helpful, thanks.
  - hatergonnahate 8y ago
    See "Untouchables" "Household servants" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_Tibet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_Tibet. It's Caste system pretty much like India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India). Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy I don't really know why Caste system is not deemed a terrible human rights issue. It's a huge human rights abuse to me.
rokyno 8y ago
> killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square) I watched hours of documentations about the entire event, but seriously, the government is not the only side to blame. If it happened in the US, the policy probably would have started sending protesters to jail much earlier.
cd_et_toss 8y ago
Thanks for writing this so well. Without taking a stance on your post, let me also add: It is quite hard to have a fair discussion about this topic, because there is a significant amount of misinformation around. China Daily (state-sponsored) pushes in the US a lot of pro-China-regime sentiment. (Right now on their web page there's a hagiography of Xi). Epoch Times (Falun-Gong sponsored) appears to have gone all in for one party in the US, pushing daily misinformation and echoing lines from other countries attacking the West. My best guess at why Epoch Times has so much disinformation is because of feeling close to one group in the US due to christian identity, but I'm not fully sure. A good article on state-sponsored influence operations, with an emphasis on China, is here: https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/contrasting-chinas-russias-influence-operations/ https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/contrasting-chinas-russias...
throw2016 8y ago
This is just ahistorical politics and jingoism under pretense of some greater cause. When China was making its great leap forward entire groups of minorities were segregated in the US and were fighting for their basic rights and continue to face discrimination. If you have a problem with surveillance you should have an even bigger problem with 'democracies' neck deep in surveillance and arbitrary 'secret courts', 'secret orders' and 'secret processes'. Yet there is near zero mainstream dissent and protest and Assange and Snowden continue to be stranded, surely if people care so much about human rights there would be much more robust activism and genuine efforts to get these individuals back, roll back surveillance and hold people accountable? If you want to talk about human rights you better have an explanation for the devastation of entire countries and millions of lives in the middle east starting from Iraq to Libya to Syria on entirely made up premises. And the incessant meddling in South America and other regions of the world. China has nothing compared to the scale of destruction and human misery caused in just these two regions. No country has its hands clean. What is the problem with China developing under their own system? Democracy did not magically form here and in Europe, it took hundreds of years of struggle and its naive to think China and others will make this transition in decades. They are not threatening anyone, at this very moment the US is threatening Iran and meddling with coup plotters in Venezuela, actions that could potentially led to the loss of millions of lives, destabilize these countries and devastate entire regions. This kind of brazen hypocrisy cannot stand in informed discussion.
- mhneu 8y ago
  No. I too once thought that NSA and other Western intelligence agencies were doing things we should avoid. But then I learned the difference between democratic and autocratic regimes' use of data collection. In a word: rule of law. There are teams of judges that review surveillance applications. There are strong rules and laws to prevent misuse of data - NSA employees have been disciplined for violating the rules and reading data they are not supposed to. And in the West we vote for the leadership that supervises this effort - and the leadership changes. (we've had some election problems, yes - in part due to autocrats intervening in the West lately, but democracies are working to improve) It's not about people, it's about laws. Autocratic countries don't have the same controls. Also, in the influence campaigns autocracies have been running in the West, there's a ton of effort put into whataboutism - 'democracies do it too'. Be careful.
meiraleal 8y ago
> So by doing business in China Google is undermining its own values and alienating a not-insignificant number of employees who feel pretty strongly about censorship and human rights to chase a buck that they will never get because the Chinese government will make sure that they don't. By this point, your argument makes no sense as Google violates every internet user privacy world-wide (a lot less in China).
- maratd 8y ago
  Violating someones privacy and actual censorship, while both terrible, are in completely different categories. Censorship is far worse and is almost always a precursor to violence against those being censored.
  - meiraleal 8y ago
    Nope, it is not. Violating my privacy, they show to me "only the content they think I'm gonna like". And then, they show to me the content they/their sponsor like, allowing the biggest censorship machine of all history to work.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
codeonfire 8y ago
I would take issue with your classification of companies as "the west" Companies like Google have a huge foreign national presence. There are thousands of Chinese employees, managers, and executives at Google.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Well stated. I think it is worthwhile to ask the question, "What does it mean when Google is willing to risk so much for additional ad clicks?" A standard dramatic plot device is a character in situation who is acting out of character to the other members of the cast and confusing them; the audience though is let in on the secret that the character has some extenuating circumstance, a relative held hostage or a threat to lives or something, which is very important. So important in fact that our character is willing to put their values on hold until that problem is resolved. It is relatable because it happens in a variety of ways, some minor and some major in "real life" to people. Thus the writer can tap into that experience and pull out some of the emotions of fear and anger at being trapped. This was the analysis I shared on another list about Google going into China: I see Google as a company that has terminal cancer but is putting on a good face while it searches for a cure. The cancer is that search advertising, the only thing that makes any money inside of Google at the margins they need to maintain their lavish environment, is dying. The symptoms that are out there for all to see; their CPC numbers (the cost per click is the money they get from advertisers for a click) has been going down for nearly a decade now, their search 'quality' (the reason that people would pick their search results over a competitor like Bing) has remained stagnant while Bing's have improved, and the amount of money they pay out per quarter for search traffic from other sources (phones, web browsers, etc) has skyrocketed. Advertising only works if you have eyeballs on your ads. Google has been adding more and more ads to their own sites, reducing the amount the pay out to partner sites, and paying more and more money to third parties to send their search traffic to Google rather than Bing. For me, I see these as signs of a dying ecosystem. If you can accept that my view of what is going on at Google is 'true', the Chinese search engine makes total sense. There are more eyeballs in a strong economy in China than anywhere else in the world. It is the one place where Google doesn't currently play, and even if their margins on Chinese searches were half that of the rest of the world, it would be additional air in the pipeline while they continue to fight for a new business that can supply the margins they need to avoid losing their staff. Do they know their employees would hate it? Of course they did and they tried to keep it secret. How desperate do they need to be to risk all of that? Very desperate. If on the other hand, you believe the party line (which is the view that folks I know who are still at Google will share with you) then Google has never been stronger, and is crushing it on all fronts. Everyone wants to be "Google" and all the cool kids are there. There is no cancer here, no existential risk to the company, and no reason to worry. The problem then is this, if you've convinced people that the company line is "true" then their argument that they are going into China with a search index that caters to the Chinese governments authoritarian whims is antithetical to everything you stand for. That puts Google management in something of a bind, either explanation is bad. Either the company is dying and in fear for its life so its compromising its principles to extend its runway, or the company is evil and at the height of its power it is selling services in an authoritarian regime and supporting the goals of that regime for filthy lucre. There might be a third explanation that fits all the facts but I haven't figured that one out yet.
qd6pwu4 8y ago
LOL, kill thousands of its own citizens in protests? The Chinese government never did that (even the famous tank man was unharmed and was not arrested), the truth is, many soldiers got killed because they were not allowed to fire at citizens. Even the Chinese government did kill its own citizen they learnt from the US (1932 Bonus Army, 1970 Kent state massacre, Jesus that was only 48 years ago, not mentioning almost every day someone is being shot by the police somewhere in the US. The funny thing is one shot won't even make it to the newspaper now.) In a word, you have been brainwashed by your media. I know it's hard to wake up someone who pretends to be asleep, but it's good for you.
- engi_nerd 8y ago
  It's fun to read HN and spot Chinese government involvement.
  - dang 8y ago
    You broke the site guidelines badly here, regardless of who's right about historical events. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.
    - engi_nerd 8y ago
      Can you please explain? Because I've reviewed those rules and I don't understand where I fell on the wrong side of them. Should I not call Chinese propagandists as I see them?
      - dang 8y ago
        Insinuating astroturfing or shillage without evidence is explicitly against the guidelines, so no you should definitely not do that. Please hold the snark, as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Labeling someone a "propagandist" just because they have an opposing view to yours is abusive—and one of the most poisonous tropes on the internet. Doing that because someone articulated a Chinese view in non-native English adds a nasty xenophobic twist. We're here to listen respectfully to each other, not attack others when they differ—even when you know they're obviously wrong, or believe you do. I've written a ton about this on HN—e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16928460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16928460, and lots more at https://hn.algolia.com/?amp;sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?amp;sort=byDate&dateRange=all&am....
int_19h 8y ago
"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them" - V.I. Lenin (Yes, I know the quote is apocryphal. But the reason why it's so popular, is because the sentiment is so close to the observed reality.)
pvaldes 8y ago
> (aka "Winnie the Pooh") The use of derogatory nicknames detracts from your arguments and is a sign of laziness in an orator.
apostacy 8y ago
When you present it that way, it sounds absolutely reasonable. But this is almost exactly what Trump says in his speeches. He doesn't hate China, he understands why they are doing what they're doing. But now it is time for us to stand up for ourselves economically, and look out for our own best interests. Think what you will about him, but on international trade he is not treated fairly. When Trump does to China 10% of what they do to us, he is portrayed as some sort of lunatic.
mankash666 8y ago
What a bunch of pure horse shit!! Many many US companies make billions, with a capital B serving in China. Apple, for instance, made $9+B in 2017 from China. If anything, ignoring the Chinese market is detrimental to the US economy, as one can argue exports to China create many many jobs in the US
- KennyCason 8y ago
  Completely agree. I understand the intent and sentiment of the OP, however in my mind abandoning and further isolating ourselves from China, will not be ineffective. I just don’t see the whole world lining up and agreeing to do this. This would also negatively affect the United States. Even if it did succeed in limiting China’s growth, it would be at the cost of billions of innocent Chinese people who just want to live better. The government would probably just control the story and China would become more isolated and I doubt a New Democratic government would just open up in its place. I think the only way this is going to work is to continue investing in China. Play their game, call them out on foul play and punish China on a case-by-case basis. As the Chinese population becomes even more united, rich, educated, we have to hope that China naturally evolves towards a more open form of government and economy. It’s already making massive progress compared to where it was before. In recap, this will be a long process of challenge and play. Any extreme action such as further or completely isolating China is not only extremely unlikely to even be possible, but also unproductive.
  - maratd 8y ago
    > This would also negatively affect the United States. How much money are our values worth? If we're willing to prostrate ourselves in front of dictators and tyrants who twist the rules of the game and compromise our values, let's at least put a number on it. If, on the other hands, we're willing to do business with every butcher and murderer out there, let's stop pretending otherwise and stop referring to "our values" in every corporate meeting. They clearly don't exist.
maratd 8y ago
> The lure of a market of a billion people is an illusion. The game is very much rigged. They know they won't be allowed first place, but they're willing to compromise themselves for a second place finish. We really need to start incentivizing executives to pursue more than just raw numbers.
mrnobody_67 8y ago
You forgot the prison camps -- https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/22/chinas-mass-internment-camps-have-no-clear-end-in-sight/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/22/chinas-mass-internment-... Around 1 million Uighurs have disappeared without trial. So much for "never again" after WWII... as long as our iPhone's are cheap, people seem happy to look the other way.

by cletus 8y ago

Dig1t 8y ago

I could not agree more, very well said. Also interesting that you mentioned the Great Leap Forward; I've found that very few people today actually know that this happened or just how incredibly high the death toll was. It was one of the greatest human tragedies of the 20th century and nobody even knows it happened!

jedmeyers 8y ago
It seems that government schools are not that eager to teach about how governments killed 150+ million of their own citizens in 20th century. Maybe it’s to promote the idea that the fear of the tyrannical government is somehow irrational mere 18 years later.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  My extremely run of the mill US suburban high school taught us about the Great Leap Forward in its regular world history curriculum.
  - anothergoogler 8y ago
    Parent said "of their own citizens", referring to Chinese schools.
  - ataturk 8y ago
    I work with quite a few Millenials. I quiz them on history often. Few to none can tell me anything about China's human rights record or Russia's under Stalin. They have never heard of Pol Pot. Not a single clue.
kilroy123 8y ago
Really is that not common knowledge? (I'm from the US)
- utopcell 8y ago
  I think it is.
echevil 8y ago
The Great Leap Forward is known by almost every Chinese, many of whom having family members actually experienced that. That said, having millions of people starved to death has been quite common throughout the history of China. They could be caused by war, by natural disaster, by human, or a combination of multiple factors. Even in 20th century, starving has been commonplace until the economy started to improve after the economic reform in 1978 (a huge accomplishment that is often ignored by western people) It's hard for younger generations of Chinese to even imagine the darker ages.
- tivert 8y ago
  > Even in 20th century, starving has been commonplace until the economy started to improve after the economic reform in 1978 (a huge accomplishment that is often ignored by western people) It's hard for younger generations of Chinese to even imagine the darker ages. What was the huge accomplishment of the 1978 reforms that Western people should recognize? From my vantage point, they were basically the abandonment of a lot of Maoist ideas in favor of something that was more in line with Western economic thought.
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    Not the reforms themselves, but what followed. China's growth since then has led to the largest poverty reduction the world has ever seen, and that didn't happen because a bureaucrat flicked his pen, but because hundreds of millions of Chinese toiled for generations to make it happen.
    - tivert 8y ago
      > Not the reforms themselves, but what followed. China's growth since then has led to the largest poverty reduction the world has ever seen, So the content of the reforms themselves weren't really an accomplishment, but rather activity of the people that the previous policies had restrained? > and that didn't happen because a bureaucrat flicked his pen, but because hundreds of millions of Chinese toiled for generations to make it happen. To make what happen? Deng's reforms? Poverty reduction? The path was so circuitous and so driven by the ideology and policy of leaders that I'm not sure if much can really be said about the political intent of that toil by such a large group over such a long span of time.

yourbandsucks 8y ago

It's also the country that lifted 3-500 million people out of poverty in the last 30 years. And haven't invaded anybody in the last 60-70. Just to provide a little balance. I'm worried about Xi's direction too, but overall we could do a lot worse as far as major powers to share the globe with. You're 100% right about the market protectionism stuff, though. (sidenote, the implication that Great Leap Forward was intentional is a little disrespectful, IMO -- that's not how it happened).

ilamont 8y ago
And haven't invaded anybody in the last 60-70 Except Tibet (https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/chinese-invade-tibet https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/chinese-invad...), Vietnam (https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-1979-china-vietnam-war/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-197...), India (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/india-china-war-of-1962-839077-2016-11-21 https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs...), islands in the South China Sea claimed by other countries (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/27/neighbors-square-off-with-beijing-in-south-china-sea/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/27/neighbor...), and unsuccessful attempts to seize islands controlled by Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis).
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  I forgot about the Vietnam thing. My bad, 40. Still a very peaceful record compared to ourselves over the time period. Why's everybody so invested up and loaded for bear with factoids about how China is so bad? Have we terminally entered the Thucydides trap?
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    There are ways to avoid the Thucydides trap, but they don't involve clapping your hands over your ears and pretending everything is fine when it is not. No matter what they like to claim, China is an aggressive expansionist power, and simply ignoring that reality is not going to accomplish anything.

ilamont 8y ago

Adding to the list of reasons not to do business in China: protectionism, cronyism, poor IP enforcement, restrictions on foreign media and communication companies, forced technology transfer from foreign firms as a condition of doing business in China, threats to forcibly annex a peaceful neighboring democracy, seizure of territory in the South China Sea and refusal to abide by the findings of an international legal tribunal, mass imprisonment of Uighur men, imprisonment of citizens advocating for human rights and political freedoms, creation of "Black Mirror"-like social monitoring systems .... However, I do not think creating reciprocal restrictions on Chinese firms doing business in the West is helpful. Chinese companies with operations or staff in other countries will, over time, bring back values and practices that in the future may support the growth of rights in China while eroding the power of the Xi dictatorship.

sebleon 8y ago
Ha, likely there's a similarly sinister list of reasons not to do business with the United States. A quick glance at US foreign policy should suffice, or even just the actions resulting from Kissinger's direction.
brisance 8y ago
Sadly, the US does similar things. The current administration is particularly evil, yet why didn't Google employees resign en masse when Snowden came forward with the revelations?

icelancer 8y ago

Also detaining tens to hundreds of thousands of Muslims in "re-education" camps, too. Can't forget that.

coldtea 8y ago

>This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great Leap Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square), the last only ~30 years ago. Well, glass houses and stones and all that. There's a country that eliminated millions of its native citizens and restricted the little left to reservations, abducted and kept in slavery millions of black citizens for nearly four centuries, stole several huge areas from its southern neighbor, has the largest prison population in the world (25% of the world's prisoners for merely 4% the people in the world), had segregation for blacks until the late 60s, dropped two nuclear bombs (on civilians), has gone at war and/or occupied several countries all around the world that have no borders with it and had done nothing to it, has toppled foreign governments, has widespread surveillance that covers the whole world, meddles with worldwide politics, secret no-due-process prisons, regularly murders people in sovereign countries, they still have the death penalty, while the rest of the western world has abandoned, and their cops routinely kill thousands of people every year (especially black). Heck, they also bombed/invaded 4 different countries just in the last 20 years. And they're pretending to have the moral high ground, and even point fingers to other countries! And if you point those things out, they go "but whataboutism", to restrict the conversation to some other party, which they present as uniquely bad.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
What happens when the nationalist right and preachy left unite to demonize the #2 power while it's overtaking us as #1? Hopefully everybody calms down soon.
on_and_off 8y ago
Thanks for this comment. It feels surreal to see Americans pretend they have any moral high ground.
- Bendingo 8y ago
  Agreed. And as usual, I look for the greyed-out comments (like yours) to find a balance and objectivity, missing in the bulk of the (mostly hypocritical) thread.

carapace 8y ago

You left out organ theft of political/cultural prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

liftbigweights 8y ago

> The lure of a market of a billion people is an illusion. It's not an illusion. Go ask the hollywood studios. Go ask Apple. Go ask GM. Do you really believe those well paid business folks in hollywood, apple, GM, etc are banking on illusions? > So by doing business in China Google is undermining its own values Google never had any values. The only people who believe that are the naive who fell for their marketing campaign. Google is a company out to make money for its shareholders. They are fundamentally no different from exxon or disney. > This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great Leap Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square), the last only ~30 years ago. How quickly we forget. And now Xi Jinping (aka "Winnie the Pooh") has abolished term limits and seems set to install himself as dictator for life in the model of Vladimir Putin. What does this have to do with business? Why is it that whenever china is mentioned, the top comments invariably have political agenda behind it? Why don't you mention that china lifted 800 million people out of poverty? Does that not fit your agenda? Regardless, the one thing I agree with you is china is not going to "surrender their industries to foreign competitors." Just like we wouldn't surrender our industry to china. That is common sense. What is happening is that china is giving portions of their market to foreign companies in exchange for what they want. An example of this obviously tech transfer. Or china setting aside X number of hollywood movies to show in their huge movie market. Of course hollywood is going to give something for a portion of china's movie market share. The idea that china's market is an illusion is verifiably false. Listen in on tim cook's quarterly conference call sometime. Or take a look at box office numbers. US companies are making serious money in china. https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2140381/china-will-soon-be-worlds-top-film-market-having-overtaken-us-canada https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2140381/china-w... >I can't hope for much more than enough people take such a stance to wake up the leadership of these companies but I'm not holding my breath. Wake up? Do you really think you know anything that the CEOs of apple, google, etc doesn't know? What hubris.

sushid 8y ago
You're really trying to drive your point with Hollywood taking its profits in China. Do you know what kind of hoops they have to jump through to access that market? Take Gravity for instance. The reckless nation that shoots down the satellite causing all the damage is Russia when it was China in real life. China then saved our heroine when its the Russians we've worked and continued to work with. Why? It's because they're chasing the Yuan while giving away soft power to China.

hatergonnahate 8y ago

> "This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens " This is also the country who managed to feed most of her billions citizens and lift tens of millions out of poverty. Most rural areas and cities at all level have been drastically changed in a good direction during the last 30 years. Given the scale of China and the fact it was teared into pieces during WWII, don't assume that's an easy feat. I hate to defense for CCP (which honestly has been totally practicing utilitarianism after 1987, I feel hard to call it `communist` anymore), but some people just can't get their eye out of the few most ugly corner and that is disgusting.

maxander 8y ago

I suppose the reason is related to the cliche "companies just do whatever they can to maximize shareholder value"; it is instead that they don't actually act to maximize shareholder value, they act to maximize future expected shareholder value. I'd imagine that the guys leading the Google push into China are well aware of how things will go, and they've likely even reported it to the top brass. But shareholders probably aren't as well-informed, so they'll happily bid up the price on GOOG on the back of stories about an imminent takeover of the Chinese search market... which has roughly the same financial impact of actually achieving something, at least temporarily.

skybrian 8y ago
I would spin this a little differently. There certainly are a lot of ambitious people at Google. Googlers have a lot of stock options and/or RSU's and care when it goes up. There was also Eric Schmidt's slogan, something about more revenue solving nearly all problems. But, the company was founded by idealists and is immune from takeover. It attracts idealists (or at least, it used to). Everything is justified in terms of helping users somehow. Justifying things in terms of getting a short-term stock boost generally isn't done, at least not where ordinary employees can hear about it.

DSingularity 8y ago

If I told you pay x$ and you get a chance to flip a 1,000,000 sided coin which pays out 10,000,000,000,000*x you would probably think about buying that chance.

floren 8y ago
Sounds like you're describing a lottery
rpearl 8y ago
That's a super, super weird formulation here. First from the abstract standpoint, the math here is not right. Discussion: https://pastebin.com/qqQ3KGS5 https://pastebin.com/qqQ3KGS5 because I don't want to divert from the more important point. More importantly, you've failed to account for the externalities, entirely. It's not just a bet ("pay for a chance"). Trying the bet--in this case, allowing government censorship to control search results--has complicated to quantify, but significantly negative human rights cost. So to summarize: I wouldn't think twice about taking your bet--I absolutely would, because the chances are absurdly in my favor (see the pastebin). But I--and generally, the people protesting this--would decline a bet that actually has the right stakes, even if there is a payout.
- DSingularity 8y ago
  I doubt the externalities or the low likelihood of getting a fair shot at selling to Chinese consumers is lost on these companies. The point I’m trying to make is that from a business perspective it’s worth a shot. If successful PR can take care of the blowback. It’s a moonshot. Despite that, in the eyes of people who are just trying their best to boost profits wherever and however they can it’s stupid not to attempt it. Also for my game, you got one shot at playing. My formulation was not meant to be so rigorous— just trying to highlight the angle that the decision makers are taking here.

rokyno 8y ago

> Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) Do you know what Tibet has been like before? It's a bloody brutal slavery society that majority of the population lived in a unbelievably inhumane condition. Also, Tibet has been a part of Chinese territory for centuries.

sova 8y ago
Have you visited? Could you tell me more about how you know this?
- rokyno 8y ago
  There're plenty of documentation about this. You just need to get out the media bubble. Tibet right now is just a fine place to visit.
  - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
    He asked you for some citations or sources and you reply telling him to get out of his media bubble? Real helpful, thanks.
- hatergonnahate 8y ago
  See "Untouchables" "Household servants" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_Tibet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_Tibet. It's Caste system pretty much like India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India). Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy I don't really know why Caste system is not deemed a terrible human rights issue. It's a huge human rights abuse to me.

rokyno 8y ago

> killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen Square) I watched hours of documentations about the entire event, but seriously, the government is not the only side to blame. If it happened in the US, the policy probably would have started sending protesters to jail much earlier.

cd_et_toss 8y ago

Thanks for writing this so well. Without taking a stance on your post, let me also add: It is quite hard to have a fair discussion about this topic, because there is a significant amount of misinformation around. China Daily (state-sponsored) pushes in the US a lot of pro-China-regime sentiment. (Right now on their web page there's a hagiography of Xi). Epoch Times (Falun-Gong sponsored) appears to have gone all in for one party in the US, pushing daily misinformation and echoing lines from other countries attacking the West. My best guess at why Epoch Times has so much disinformation is because of feeling close to one group in the US due to christian identity, but I'm not fully sure. A good article on state-sponsored influence operations, with an emphasis on China, is here: https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/contrasting-chinas-russias-influence-operations/ https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/contrasting-chinas-russias...

throw2016 8y ago

This is just ahistorical politics and jingoism under pretense of some greater cause. When China was making its great leap forward entire groups of minorities were segregated in the US and were fighting for their basic rights and continue to face discrimination. If you have a problem with surveillance you should have an even bigger problem with 'democracies' neck deep in surveillance and arbitrary 'secret courts', 'secret orders' and 'secret processes'. Yet there is near zero mainstream dissent and protest and Assange and Snowden continue to be stranded, surely if people care so much about human rights there would be much more robust activism and genuine efforts to get these individuals back, roll back surveillance and hold people accountable? If you want to talk about human rights you better have an explanation for the devastation of entire countries and millions of lives in the middle east starting from Iraq to Libya to Syria on entirely made up premises. And the incessant meddling in South America and other regions of the world. China has nothing compared to the scale of destruction and human misery caused in just these two regions. No country has its hands clean. What is the problem with China developing under their own system? Democracy did not magically form here and in Europe, it took hundreds of years of struggle and its naive to think China and others will make this transition in decades. They are not threatening anyone, at this very moment the US is threatening Iran and meddling with coup plotters in Venezuela, actions that could potentially led to the loss of millions of lives, destabilize these countries and devastate entire regions. This kind of brazen hypocrisy cannot stand in informed discussion.

mhneu 8y ago
No. I too once thought that NSA and other Western intelligence agencies were doing things we should avoid. But then I learned the difference between democratic and autocratic regimes' use of data collection. In a word: rule of law. There are teams of judges that review surveillance applications. There are strong rules and laws to prevent misuse of data - NSA employees have been disciplined for violating the rules and reading data they are not supposed to. And in the West we vote for the leadership that supervises this effort - and the leadership changes. (we've had some election problems, yes - in part due to autocrats intervening in the West lately, but democracies are working to improve) It's not about people, it's about laws. Autocratic countries don't have the same controls. Also, in the influence campaigns autocracies have been running in the West, there's a ton of effort put into whataboutism - 'democracies do it too'. Be careful.

meiraleal 8y ago

> So by doing business in China Google is undermining its own values and alienating a not-insignificant number of employees who feel pretty strongly about censorship and human rights to chase a buck that they will never get because the Chinese government will make sure that they don't. By this point, your argument makes no sense as Google violates every internet user privacy world-wide (a lot less in China).

maratd 8y ago
Violating someones privacy and actual censorship, while both terrible, are in completely different categories. Censorship is far worse and is almost always a precursor to violence against those being censored.
- meiraleal 8y ago
  Nope, it is not. Violating my privacy, they show to me "only the content they think I'm gonna like". And then, they show to me the content they/their sponsor like, allowing the biggest censorship machine of all history to work.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

codeonfire 8y ago

I would take issue with your classification of companies as "the west" Companies like Google have a huge foreign national presence. There are thousands of Chinese employees, managers, and executives at Google.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Well stated. I think it is worthwhile to ask the question, "What does it mean when Google is willing to risk so much for additional ad clicks?" A standard dramatic plot device is a character in situation who is acting out of character to the other members of the cast and confusing them; the audience though is let in on the secret that the character has some extenuating circumstance, a relative held hostage or a threat to lives or something, which is very important. So important in fact that our character is willing to put their values on hold until that problem is resolved. It is relatable because it happens in a variety of ways, some minor and some major in "real life" to people. Thus the writer can tap into that experience and pull out some of the emotions of fear and anger at being trapped. This was the analysis I shared on another list about Google going into China: I see Google as a company that has terminal cancer but is putting on a good face while it searches for a cure. The cancer is that search advertising, the only thing that makes any money inside of Google at the margins they need to maintain their lavish environment, is dying. The symptoms that are out there for all to see; their CPC numbers (the cost per click is the money they get from advertisers for a click) has been going down for nearly a decade now, their search 'quality' (the reason that people would pick their search results over a competitor like Bing) has remained stagnant while Bing's have improved, and the amount of money they pay out per quarter for search traffic from other sources (phones, web browsers, etc) has skyrocketed. Advertising only works if you have eyeballs on your ads. Google has been adding more and more ads to their own sites, reducing the amount the pay out to partner sites, and paying more and more money to third parties to send their search traffic to Google rather than Bing. For me, I see these as signs of a dying ecosystem. If you can accept that my view of what is going on at Google is 'true', the Chinese search engine makes total sense. There are more eyeballs in a strong economy in China than anywhere else in the world. It is the one place where Google doesn't currently play, and even if their margins on Chinese searches were half that of the rest of the world, it would be additional air in the pipeline while they continue to fight for a new business that can supply the margins they need to avoid losing their staff. Do they know their employees would hate it? Of course they did and they tried to keep it secret. How desperate do they need to be to risk all of that? Very desperate. If on the other hand, you believe the party line (which is the view that folks I know who are still at Google will share with you) then Google has never been stronger, and is crushing it on all fronts. Everyone wants to be "Google" and all the cool kids are there. There is no cancer here, no existential risk to the company, and no reason to worry. The problem then is this, if you've convinced people that the company line is "true" then their argument that they are going into China with a search index that caters to the Chinese governments authoritarian whims is antithetical to everything you stand for. That puts Google management in something of a bind, either explanation is bad. Either the company is dying and in fear for its life so its compromising its principles to extend its runway, or the company is evil and at the height of its power it is selling services in an authoritarian regime and supporting the goals of that regime for filthy lucre. There might be a third explanation that fits all the facts but I haven't figured that one out yet.

qd6pwu4 8y ago

LOL, kill thousands of its own citizens in protests? The Chinese government never did that (even the famous tank man was unharmed and was not arrested), the truth is, many soldiers got killed because they were not allowed to fire at citizens. Even the Chinese government did kill its own citizen they learnt from the US (1932 Bonus Army, 1970 Kent state massacre, Jesus that was only 48 years ago, not mentioning almost every day someone is being shot by the police somewhere in the US. The funny thing is one shot won't even make it to the newspaper now.) In a word, you have been brainwashed by your media. I know it's hard to wake up someone who pretends to be asleep, but it's good for you.

engi_nerd 8y ago
It's fun to read HN and spot Chinese government involvement.
- dang 8y ago
  You broke the site guidelines badly here, regardless of who's right about historical events. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.
  - engi_nerd 8y ago
    Can you please explain? Because I've reviewed those rules and I don't understand where I fell on the wrong side of them. Should I not call Chinese propagandists as I see them?
    - dang 8y ago
      Insinuating astroturfing or shillage without evidence is explicitly against the guidelines, so no you should definitely not do that. Please hold the snark, as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Labeling someone a "propagandist" just because they have an opposing view to yours is abusive—and one of the most poisonous tropes on the internet. Doing that because someone articulated a Chinese view in non-native English adds a nasty xenophobic twist. We're here to listen respectfully to each other, not attack others when they differ—even when you know they're obviously wrong, or believe you do. I've written a ton about this on HN—e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16928460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16928460, and lots more at https://hn.algolia.com/?amp;sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?amp;sort=byDate&dateRange=all&am....

int_19h 8y ago

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them" - V.I. Lenin (Yes, I know the quote is apocryphal. But the reason why it's so popular, is because the sentiment is so close to the observed reality.)

pvaldes 8y ago

> (aka "Winnie the Pooh") The use of derogatory nicknames detracts from your arguments and is a sign of laziness in an orator.

apostacy 8y ago

When you present it that way, it sounds absolutely reasonable. But this is almost exactly what Trump says in his speeches. He doesn't hate China, he understands why they are doing what they're doing. But now it is time for us to stand up for ourselves economically, and look out for our own best interests. Think what you will about him, but on international trade he is not treated fairly. When Trump does to China 10% of what they do to us, he is portrayed as some sort of lunatic.

mankash666 8y ago

What a bunch of pure horse shit!! Many many US companies make billions, with a capital B serving in China. Apple, for instance, made $9+B in 2017 from China. If anything, ignoring the Chinese market is detrimental to the US economy, as one can argue exports to China create many many jobs in the US

KennyCason 8y ago
Completely agree. I understand the intent and sentiment of the OP, however in my mind abandoning and further isolating ourselves from China, will not be ineffective. I just don’t see the whole world lining up and agreeing to do this. This would also negatively affect the United States. Even if it did succeed in limiting China’s growth, it would be at the cost of billions of innocent Chinese people who just want to live better. The government would probably just control the story and China would become more isolated and I doubt a New Democratic government would just open up in its place. I think the only way this is going to work is to continue investing in China. Play their game, call them out on foul play and punish China on a case-by-case basis. As the Chinese population becomes even more united, rich, educated, we have to hope that China naturally evolves towards a more open form of government and economy. It’s already making massive progress compared to where it was before. In recap, this will be a long process of challenge and play. Any extreme action such as further or completely isolating China is not only extremely unlikely to even be possible, but also unproductive.
- maratd 8y ago
  > This would also negatively affect the United States. How much money are our values worth? If we're willing to prostrate ourselves in front of dictators and tyrants who twist the rules of the game and compromise our values, let's at least put a number on it. If, on the other hands, we're willing to do business with every butcher and murderer out there, let's stop pretending otherwise and stop referring to "our values" in every corporate meeting. They clearly don't exist.

maratd 8y ago

> The lure of a market of a billion people is an illusion. The game is very much rigged. They know they won't be allowed first place, but they're willing to compromise themselves for a second place finish. We really need to start incentivizing executives to pursue more than just raw numbers.

mrnobody_67 8y ago

You forgot the prison camps -- https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/22/chinas-mass-internment-camps-have-no-clear-end-in-sight/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/22/chinas-mass-internment-... Around 1 million Uighurs have disappeared without trial. So much for "never again" after WWII... as long as our iPhone's are cheap, people seem happy to look the other way.