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Either China is doing this so they can have something to retreat on that seems gracious and careful (i.e., it's a complete ploy) or they're completely misreadin
by 3pt14159 8y ago
Either China is doing this so they can have something to retreat on that seems gracious and careful (i.e., it's a complete ploy) or they're completely misreading Canadian sentiment. Canadians tend to give and give and bend and bend, but it really comes to it they snap in a way that I don't think the Chinese understand.
We have way more leverage over China than they have over us. We sell them commodities. They sell us electronics. You know what's the one good thing about commodity sales? Fungibility. If we start banning Chinese phones we'll buy American ones come in instead. If they ban Canadian grain it will be less efficient, but the world will shift around and that grain will be sold to someone. If they ban our wood, it will be less efficient, but we can make our own furniture or sell wood to Europe to replace the wood China is buying from elsewhere.
And if push every really came to shove there is a lot of Chinese owned property in Canada. Foreign ownership taxes can go way, way up.
It's a complete misread of the situation by them. We have extradition treaties with the USA. Our society runs via a rule of law. They're going to turn the entire Canadian business and political community against them if they keep this up. Take it up with the Americans for fucks sake. Even Maxime Bernier has walked back his pledge for a Chinese-Canadian trade agreement.
- simonh 8y agoThis almost certainly has nothing to do with changing Canadian behavior, it's about domestic politics. Canada/USA kicked one of ours, so we're going to kick 20 of theirs. They need to be seen to be doing it. The fact that it won't work and is counterproductive doesn't matter.
- ardy42 8y ago> This almost certainly has nothing to do with changing Canadian behavior, it's about domestic politics. Canada/USA kicked one of ours, so we're going to kick 20 of theirs. They need to be seen to be doing it. The fact that it won't work and is counterproductive doesn't matter. Is CCTV or other state-run outlets making a big deal about this death sentence and the other Canadian arrests? Is it portraying them as retaliation?
- bilbo0s 8y agoIt doesn't have to. Did anyone need to tell anyone on HN that it was retaliation? I've been saying this since they first arrested the Huawei lady, everyone is an outlaw right now. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of laws on the books in most nations. (Especially China and the US.) There is just no way that a regular person with no resources can be certain that he or she is not in violation of one of them. (In fact, it's a virtual certainty that we all are in violation of some law.) So we can be legally arrested for the violation of laws we were likely unaware of at any time. (Not that the subject of the article was unaware of the criminal nature of his actions.) Point being, if you are not a bigshot with a lot of clout, I would strongly urge you to urgently consider business models that allow you to operate at a distance from Asia. You don't want to be the pathetic slob of a patsy sitting in an Asian prison for 15 years because China and the US want to have some stupid argument to see who has the biggest breasts. It's just not worth it. (BTW, the same goes for the average Chinese person by the way. I'd strongly urge you to do business at a distance from North America. There's no since in spending the rest of your youth learning street slang in an American prison.)
- foldr 8y ago>If we start banning Chinese phones we'll buy American ones come in instead. Which American phones are these? The iPhone isn't made in the US, it's made by Foxconn.
- Cypher 8y agoNokia duh...
- Markoff 8y agoR&D + production done by Foxconn HMD it's just sales department slapping Nokia sticker on Foxconn phones
- treis 8y agoFoxconn is Taiwanese not Chinese. Most of their manufacturing is in China so I'm not sure how much that distinction matters in this scenario but I thought it helpful to clarify.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zrobotics 8y agoNote that, as far as China is concerned, Taiwan is a part of China. So from their perspective that is even less of a useful distiction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy
- kingofpandora 8y agoIt's a very useful distinction because de facto Taiwan is not part of China.
- Setepenre 8y agotell that to a Taiwanese. They are not going to like you
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- magduf 8y ago>If we start banning Chinese phones we'll buy American ones come in instead. Huh? America doesn't make any phones, and worse, simply does not even have the technology to make phones if they wanted to. America does not have the technology needed to make the screens for them, most notably: the screen technology is all in Asia.
- gpm 8y agoIsn't a good portion of screen technology in Sourth Korea though, which is more of a US ally than a Chinese one?
- deelowe 8y agoYes. Samsung and LG are the top screen manufacturers.
- irrational 8y agoIt doesn't have the technology or the manufacturing capability?
- cphoover 8y agoApple owns the patents for it's phones. Right? They are just manufactured by foxconn (Taiwanese). Samsung is a Korean company.
- magduf 8y agoNeither. The technology is made in China or Korea, and owned by the Koreans. We couldn't build modern smartphone screens in the US without doing serious industrial espionage on our own ally, and even then setting up the manufacturing capability would cost billions, if we could get it working and not have a problem like the "capacitor plague" that happened when the Chinese tried stealing Japanese capacitor formulae back in the late 90s or early 2000s and didn't quite get it right.
- 3pt14159 8y agoI'm not unaware that iPhones are physically constructed in China. If we had tariffs on Chinese phones only a small portion of the tariff would fall on the overall cost of an iPhone.
- HeyZuess 8y ago> Take it up with the Americans for fucks sake. Look I am no big fan of the Chinese political engine, but maybe Canada overstepped. The arrest of the CFO can be seen as highly political motivated, and now China is showing Canada that it too can do the same thing and arrest citizens of other countries (maybe even on flimsy grounds) or in this case use it's legal system to pressure and manipulate international relationships. Canada got stuck in the middle (as many countries do when they do the bidding of the US) and have now got a slap on the wrist.
- 3pt14159 8y agoLet me try to make this as clear as I can: Canada operates on the rule of law. Rule of law. Rule of law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law When the fucking Queen of England had a minor medical issue and was bumped in priority in the hospital she was in it was fucking news with journalists asking how this list was overseen. Our own head of state made the news because she got bumped in our hospitals. When the Americans do a request like this it doesn't go through our political arm. It goes through our civil service and our courts. We don't have random people with the random power to bend the law. We set law and judges enforce it. Some laws we have are very flexible, like the ones we have for CSIS, etc. But we don't politick extradition.
- s8923 8y agoAre you sure you're not being too trusting to your country? Are you 100% sure nothing happens "behind the scenes"?