7 ms·

'Tibetans and Uyghurs not accepted': Apple supplier probes hiring discrimination

77 points by ilamont 8y ago

threatofrain 8y ago
This is unlikely because employers think factory labor is unsuitable for Tibetans or Uyghurs, but instead due to how the nation they're situated in thinks of them.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Even if the people doing the hiring, managing the people doing the hiring or even running the company being hired for don't personally care they still have a strong incentive to discriminate because they know that that's what the party wants and that it is best for them if they do that.
  - forkLding 8y ago
    That's not what the party wants, national laws is for no ethnic discrimination, if people don't have jobs, they create trouble, and economic improvement and providing jobs is basically what the CCP is building it's power base on.
    - deogeo 8y ago
      In fact, the party is even doing affirmative action, by providing work and education camps specifically for ethnic minorities, to help them integrate!
      - Cyph0n 8y ago
        Free education and guaranteed work? Sign me up!
      - watwat1 8y ago
        Oh so that’s what those re-education camps are...
      - forkLding 8y ago
        There is an actual affirmative action in China for ethnic minorities which provides beneficial university admissions and no-interest business loans etc.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_China The one you're talking about is religion, which is funny considering that communism is anti-religion, why are you surprised, my grandma goes to an underground Chinese church, religion was always bad in China. You will notice most of the guards and police in Xinjiang are Uyghur, they're just not Muslim. If you read NYT, you will see that they're pressuring them to "renounce Islam": https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/world/asia/uighurs-china-internment-camps.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/worl... Also do you not hear the hypocrisy, why would CCP want you to break their national laws? CCP can break their own laws, doesn't mean you can. How about you break the national law on censorship next? It will become a slippery slope.
        yorwba 8y ago
        > You will notice most of the guards and police in Xinjiang are Uyghur, they're just not Muslim. That's interesting. Wikipedia tells me that 45.84% of the population of Xinjiang are Uyghurs and they're predominantly Muslim, so how come they're overrepresented in the police force? I guess they could easily be lying about their religions or were not serious adherents in the first place, but still you'd expect to also see many Han Chinese working those jobs. Did you only mean those parts of Xinjiang that are > 70% Uyghur? > Also do you not hear the hypocrisy, why would CCP want you to break their national laws? CCP can break their own laws, doesn't mean you can. How about you break the national law on censorship next? It will become a slippery slope. That looks like you meant to reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19340226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19340226 instead.
        forkLding 8y ago
        They have to be "politically legitimate" and Atheist to be police in Xinjiang, massive recruitment drive in Xinjiang for police too. Where I'm citing, sources are all Chinese: http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/11/28/n10879799.htm http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/11/28/n10879799.htm http://www.gjgwy.org/201810/399611.html http://www.gjgwy.org/201810/399611.html
    - nucleardog 8y ago
      It's trivial to find many examples of the government itself violating this "law". I see no reason to believe that they'd take any steps to step in and protect Uyghurs' from discrimination in the job market while at the same time detaining them in concentration camps.
- org3432 8y ago
  Do you know why they think they're unsuitable?
  - ASalazarMX 8y ago
    He meant they're rejected by their ethnicity, regardless of their suitability.
    - org3432 8y ago
      Right, but what's the opinion of their ethnicity I wonder.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    It’s racism. https://unintendedconsequenc.es/uyghurs-xinjiang-onward-to-the-inevitable/ https://unintendedconsequenc.es/uyghurs-xinjiang-onward-to-t...
    - org3432 8y ago
      It's surprising with the Tibetans though, given China's stance on liberating Tibet and it being part of China.
      - yorwba 8y ago
        Tibet is considered part of China because it was conquered during the Qing dynasty's war against the Dzungar Khanate at the same time as Xinjiang and Mongolia. That doesn't mean that the native peoples of those areas are not stereotypically considered inferior to Han Chinese. It's comparable to the situation of Western colonies, whose peoples also weren't held in high regard, despite of the geopolitical importance of the regions they lived in.
        org3432 8y ago
        I guess it's similar to Japan's occupation of China as well, they didn't have much regard for the Han. Pretty bad.
hutzlibu 8y ago
And now they stop doing so openly, but very likely continue the same practice.
yorwba 8y ago
They claim that it was an "unauthorized recruitment agency", but searching for the text from the image turns up plenty of results from 2015, such as http://www.sohu.com/a/27959735_233585 http://www.sohu.com/a/27959735_233585 with exactly the same wording. So if it's unauthorized, then it's been going on for quite a while without anyone complaining. My best guess for why it's included with the job requirements (rather than quietly filtering out people with non-Han names) is that they want to signal to workers that they won't be working together with minority peoples.
- LorenPechtel 8y ago
  Agreed. I have a bunch of Han relatives over there and they worry about travel into non-Han areas of China.
  - rqs 8y ago
    I think that's because of some rumours saying that they are barbarous/unreasonable. And if you combine that with the rule of "Play safe", you get a bunch of externally-acquired stereotypers. The thing make it even worse is that, in China, you don't meet normal Tibetans and Uyghurs every day. Many Han people get their first impression of Tibetans/Uyghurs from the those fake ones who trying to sell scam medicine and food. The government did almost nothing to those fakers. What they could do? Confiscate them could result some distorted news and even more rumours. And if the administration got unlucky and confiscated the real deal, then that will be really really bad for them. BTW, the company can be sued for such discrimination. But it's FoxConn, the Sweatshop of IT industry, maybe it just simply too unworthy to do so.
dmitriid 8y ago
By “Apple supplier” they surely mean “Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and the rest of the world supplier”?
curiousjorge 8y ago
came here for chinese apologists....was not disappointed.

77 points by ilamont 8y ago

This is unlikely because employers think factory labor is unsuitable for Tibetans or Uyghurs, but instead due to how the nation they're situated in thinks of them.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Even if the people doing the hiring, managing the people doing the hiring or even running the company being hired for don't personally care they still have a strong incentive to discriminate because they know that that's what the party wants and that it is best for them if they do that.
- forkLding 8y ago
  That's not what the party wants, national laws is for no ethnic discrimination, if people don't have jobs, they create trouble, and economic improvement and providing jobs is basically what the CCP is building it's power base on.
  - deogeo 8y ago
    In fact, the party is even doing affirmative action, by providing work and education camps specifically for ethnic minorities, to help them integrate!
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      Free education and guaranteed work? Sign me up!
    - watwat1 8y ago
      Oh so that’s what those re-education camps are...
    - forkLding 8y ago
      There is an actual affirmative action in China for ethnic minorities which provides beneficial university admissions and no-interest business loans etc.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_China The one you're talking about is religion, which is funny considering that communism is anti-religion, why are you surprised, my grandma goes to an underground Chinese church, religion was always bad in China. You will notice most of the guards and police in Xinjiang are Uyghur, they're just not Muslim. If you read NYT, you will see that they're pressuring them to "renounce Islam": https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/world/asia/uighurs-china-internment-camps.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/worl... Also do you not hear the hypocrisy, why would CCP want you to break their national laws? CCP can break their own laws, doesn't mean you can. How about you break the national law on censorship next? It will become a slippery slope.
      - yorwba 8y ago
        > You will notice most of the guards and police in Xinjiang are Uyghur, they're just not Muslim. That's interesting. Wikipedia tells me that 45.84% of the population of Xinjiang are Uyghurs and they're predominantly Muslim, so how come they're overrepresented in the police force? I guess they could easily be lying about their religions or were not serious adherents in the first place, but still you'd expect to also see many Han Chinese working those jobs. Did you only mean those parts of Xinjiang that are > 70% Uyghur? > Also do you not hear the hypocrisy, why would CCP want you to break their national laws? CCP can break their own laws, doesn't mean you can. How about you break the national law on censorship next? It will become a slippery slope. That looks like you meant to reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19340226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19340226 instead.
        forkLding 8y ago
        They have to be "politically legitimate" and Atheist to be police in Xinjiang, massive recruitment drive in Xinjiang for police too. Where I'm citing, sources are all Chinese: http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/11/28/n10879799.htm http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/18/11/28/n10879799.htm http://www.gjgwy.org/201810/399611.html http://www.gjgwy.org/201810/399611.html
  - nucleardog 8y ago
    It's trivial to find many examples of the government itself violating this "law". I see no reason to believe that they'd take any steps to step in and protect Uyghurs' from discrimination in the job market while at the same time detaining them in concentration camps.
org3432 8y ago
Do you know why they think they're unsuitable?
- ASalazarMX 8y ago
  He meant they're rejected by their ethnicity, regardless of their suitability.
  - org3432 8y ago
    Right, but what's the opinion of their ethnicity I wonder.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  It’s racism. https://unintendedconsequenc.es/uyghurs-xinjiang-onward-to-the-inevitable/ https://unintendedconsequenc.es/uyghurs-xinjiang-onward-to-t...
  - org3432 8y ago
    It's surprising with the Tibetans though, given China's stance on liberating Tibet and it being part of China.
    - yorwba 8y ago
      Tibet is considered part of China because it was conquered during the Qing dynasty's war against the Dzungar Khanate at the same time as Xinjiang and Mongolia. That doesn't mean that the native peoples of those areas are not stereotypically considered inferior to Han Chinese. It's comparable to the situation of Western colonies, whose peoples also weren't held in high regard, despite of the geopolitical importance of the regions they lived in.
      - org3432 8y ago
        I guess it's similar to Japan's occupation of China as well, they didn't have much regard for the Han. Pretty bad.

hutzlibu 8y ago

And now they stop doing so openly, but very likely continue the same practice.

yorwba 8y ago

They claim that it was an "unauthorized recruitment agency", but searching for the text from the image turns up plenty of results from 2015, such as http://www.sohu.com/a/27959735_233585 http://www.sohu.com/a/27959735_233585 with exactly the same wording. So if it's unauthorized, then it's been going on for quite a while without anyone complaining. My best guess for why it's included with the job requirements (rather than quietly filtering out people with non-Han names) is that they want to signal to workers that they won't be working together with minority peoples.

LorenPechtel 8y ago
Agreed. I have a bunch of Han relatives over there and they worry about travel into non-Han areas of China.
- rqs 8y ago
  I think that's because of some rumours saying that they are barbarous/unreasonable. And if you combine that with the rule of "Play safe", you get a bunch of externally-acquired stereotypers. The thing make it even worse is that, in China, you don't meet normal Tibetans and Uyghurs every day. Many Han people get their first impression of Tibetans/Uyghurs from the those fake ones who trying to sell scam medicine and food. The government did almost nothing to those fakers. What they could do? Confiscate them could result some distorted news and even more rumours. And if the administration got unlucky and confiscated the real deal, then that will be really really bad for them. BTW, the company can be sued for such discrimination. But it's FoxConn, the Sweatshop of IT industry, maybe it just simply too unworthy to do so.

dmitriid 8y ago

By “Apple supplier” they surely mean “Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and the rest of the world supplier”?

curiousjorge 8y ago

came here for chinese apologists....was not disappointed.