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I think Apple should stand by their human rights mantra and move their production out of China. It should not be a question of where they are sold, the only que

I think Apple should stand by their human rights mantra and move their production out of China. It should not be a question of where they are sold, the only question a company with their supposed rights advocacy is where they are produced. China has shown they do not value world opinion.

dvduval 7y ago
About 850 million people have lifted themselves out of poverty in China since the eighties. It's extraordinary. Just want to be clear the US is not exactly perfect when it comes to human rights. Sure, China had a lot they need to do better, but the improvements are incredible. In the US, look at Indian reservations, border detentions, hate groups, number of people in jail... We are not the human rights poster child.
- threezero 7y ago
  I’m not sure I’d call China running over people with tanks and imprisoning millions of Muslims in concentration camps “improvements”.
  - dvduval 7y ago
    From the East India company and the opium wars and the unbalanced treaties, to the Chinese civil war and the invasion of Japan, it's not easy for an outsider to understand just how strongly China considers anything that would bring about the instability that they experienced in the past. Most Chinese people support preventing instability, as in the 80s they had the largest famine in human history. Sometimes they are heavy handed and I think they acknowledge this, and would even tell you that it's not right what they did, but I think the average Westerner does not really get the perspective of the reasoning behind it. Think about how many people we have imprisoned in our so-called drug war. As a percent of our population, it's a lot more than in China.
    - wp381640 7y ago
      There is nothing unique about China's own human rights abuses that rationalises it. Every dictatorship ever has had similar rationalisations.
      - dvduval 7y ago
        I don't feel your comment is rooted in a deep understanding of Chinese history, but I hear what you're saying. I personally believe that if the current leader started to exhibit behavior that was crazy, he would be removed. And you might go on to say that what happened in the Muslim territory in the Northwest is already crazy, but the economic track record and the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty is quite good for the current leader.
        izend 7y ago
        The big question is what happens when that economic track record hits a road bump or a giant pothole, how will the government react?
        dvduval 7y ago
        Currently in China: largest number of people freed from poverty in human history. Their neighbors in SE Asia are also coming out of poverty, maybe 20 years behind China. I think trade war could make it tough for all, hoping we can avoid it. A bump? Let's hope it's not like the great famine China experienced in the eighties. I doubt it.
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Scant consolation for the Uyghurs, Tibetans or even HKers.
        lern_too_spel 7y ago
        The Nazis also pulled Germany out of poverty. This does not excuse their actions towards the Jews any more than your point excuses China's actions towards the Uyghurs.
  - la_barba 7y ago
    Nobody said those were improvements, so what is your point?
  - ummonk 7y ago
    Source to running over people with tanks?
    - kortilla 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
    - mhh__ 7y ago
      Tiananmen, And there is photographic evidence
      - vinceguidry 7y ago
        There were no pictures that actually captured people being run over with tanks. The man in the famous photo was the only incident caught on film, he was not run over that day but his whereabouts are unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
        low_poly_shiba 7y ago
        An interesting fact I learned the other day is that the man in that picture is from after the protests, when the tanks were leaving the square, not when they were entering it. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40b11/5b1fde6e0e2e7204c77b9f4b/5b1fdf956d2a7373bd71f17a/1528815549894/004_LON16896.jpg?format=500w https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40...
        mhh__ 7y ago
        It may not have been a tank but I have a photo of someone who was clearly crushed by something that definitely wasn't a students bicycle let's say
      - Fjolsvith 7y ago
        Not available in China, though...
    - 7y ago
  - bitbrewer 7y ago
    The Chinese have tanks running over people. Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens with semi-automatic guns. The difference? The former happened ONCE, 30 years ago. The latter happens maybe ONCE A MONTH. Talk about Chinese people living in a horrible country...
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens >happens maybe ONCE A MONTH Not to be a dick but... Cite. A. Source. A shooting with 12+ people getting shot is the kind of event that makes the national news even if nobody of dies. That's not the kind of thing that happens about monthly. I am very skeptical you will be able to back up your assertion assuming any reasonable definition of "shoot" and "dozen". Edit: My skepticism has survived one citation and counting.
      - bitbrewer 7y ago
        https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
        dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        I'm in several pages now and don't see a single number of double digit injuries let alone a dozen or multiple dozens. Several of the ones I've clicked through to the source on seem to be counting people injured in things other than the shooting (e.g. brawl injures X, dude draws gun, shoots one person = 1 dead, X injuries). The fact that they call the page "Mass Shootings in 2019" when even they say in their about-us[0] that they attempt to catalog each and every shooting seems to indicate a bias (to put it mildly). Edit: actually I'm wrong, I was only looking at the "Mass shootings" portion of their data. Their definition of "mass" seems to be "4+ people injured and/or killed including people not injured/killed" which seems slimy considering how they seem to be counting injuries. That said, they seem to be a pretty damn good source for raw information and generally unbiased with their numbers. Edit: got through all the 2019 results (couldn't get CSV export to work with my browser) and found exactly two results for a dozen. One event[1] has 6 dead, 6 injured but the source doesn't mention any of the people injured other than the 5 victims and one gunman who died, maybe an error in the data? The other event is the Virginia Beach shooting. In any case I think it's safe to conclude that events where a dozen people get shot happen less than monthly. [0]https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about [1]https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-pratt-shooting-autopsy-st-0414-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct...
- javagram 7y ago
  “hate groups” exist in the USA because this is a free country. In places without our commitment to freedom and human rights those type of groups would have been suppressed by the government. Edit: just to be clear some of your other points are fair although I find the “Indian reservations” a bit dated - they are treated as local sovereigns (e.g. casinos, being allowed to violate state level hunting regulations) and are even now being allowed to expand their territory in some places .
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    The US "commitment to freedom and human rights" rings a bit hollow, IMHO. If you look at western Europe, free speech is restricted a little more, so "hate groups" are illegal. Yet in pretty much all other aspects, these countries are better at ensuring human rights for their citizens. I'm fairly sure that the US is lagging due to historical reasons. Without a war like Germany experienced, there is too much resistance towards a "clean cut" elimination of racism, so you get an exponentially slow decay instead.
    - justaman 7y ago
      Germany implemented laws that forbid holocaust denial for example. The US has no such laws pertaining to its groups.
    - greedo 7y ago
      So Germany, Japan (and other countries that experienced destructive wars) have eliminated racism?
      - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
        Well, eliminated is a bit strong, as you can never eliminate an ideology. The main point, however, is that Europe has shown over a span of several decades that restricting hate speech a) does not lead to any slippery slope where other forms of speech are restricted and b) that restrictions of hate speech are effective at reducing racism in society.
    - 7y ago
- tombert 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes While I'm sure China has made progress, which is great, it doesn't deter from the fact that there are a ton of human-rights violations that happen there all the time that would be front-page stories if they happened in the US. I go back and forth about how I feel about us outsourcing to countries with labor violations, so I'm not even saying I disagree with you, but it's not a good argument to say "Well what about the US's problems?!?!". Yes, we're not perfect either, no one is arguing that we are, and we have a lot of things to apologize for and fix, but that's somewhat irrelevant to the discussion.
- flattone 7y ago
  Yes we are.
  - flattone 7y ago
    Love to note that while I receive a few minus, no effective points for the above are found. I think I'm playing for par but happy to hear something more engaging than "the us isn't the poster child blablabla" get the real stuff out if you're going to make such a large claim with no meat/fauxmeat to it..
- ralusek 7y ago
  850 million people have been lifted out of poverty by going through an accelerated industrial revolution similar to what lifted the West out of poverty, largely funded by the West outsourcing the labor its citizens' expectations for quality of life would no longer allow.
  - vkou 7y ago
    And yet, for some reason, the same has not happened in India. Why is that?
    - ralusek 7y ago
      Because India has not served as the primary manufacturing hub for first world countries to nearly the same degree. Also, China has an authoritarian but competent government that very effectively reinvested their newly acquired wealth into infrastructure/development.
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      Perhaps the government in India hasn't yet figured out how to print money like the Chinese Communist Party?
- kortilla 7y ago
  China doesn’t have Indian reservations because it just forces integration or kills ethnic groups not approved by the government. The government itself functions as a massive hate group against Muslims. It just has a monopoly on which hate groups get a voice.
  - rmah 7y ago
    To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication (also known as the "one china" policy). A policy that has existed in one form or another for over a thousand years. And it's why China is China today. Other, more benign aspects of this policy are things like calling the various languages in china "dialects", even if they are mutually incomprehensible. Even "autonomous ethnic regions" are part of this policy... giving time for some minorities to slowly adapt chinese culture. You have to understand that recent western ideals of cultural pluralism is not widespread in there. Those in power in China view it as good and moral to move uyghur culture into something more closely resembling the broader chinese culture. I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible, but if you have goals beyond simply being shocked and angry, then an understanding of their perspective is important.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Yes, they do. > Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication Yes, an attitude of compulsory conformity to common tribal identity and the norms, rituals, and behaviors associated therewith is a particularly common thing in human societies, and it's exactly the main reason Muslims are targeted in the West, as well as in China. > I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible A sizable and politically powerful subset of westerners actively support the same kind of ethos and keeping pushing it into government in much of the West, and object to sinofication not because of a drive against such conformity but only because not doing so for any other culture undermines the propaganda supporting their own cultural conformity efforts.
- legulere 7y ago
  A lot of stuff missing on this list: death penalty, war crimes, mass surveillance of the whole world including industry espionage
jdavis703 7y ago
Moving production back to the U.S. would not solve the human rights issue. The UN has called out the homeless crisis that’s right in Apple’s backyard as being a human rights violation. Other commentators compare ICE detention centers to concentration camps or chastise the high number of prisoners the U.S. has even outside of ICE detention centers. Clearly no country is perfect, but if Apple were to relocate production based on human rights, it seems like a Northern European country would be the most appropriate place.
- artificial 7y ago
  This isn't an apples to apples comparison. I'm curious what the UNs solution is to homelessness?
  - cat199 7y ago
    get a loan from the world bank and imf, obviously..
- rhacker 7y ago
  Why not to the US, wouldn't that help solve the homeless problem? If ALL countries that were hiring outside right now started hiring here, wouldn't that help?
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    The different in production cost between the US and the current origin countries is vast, but not even the only factor. There were stories a few years ago highlighting how the iPhone could not have been built in the US on the schedule Apple demanded at any price. But if scheduling is ignored, then the only issue becomes cost.
- kortilla 7y ago
  People that compare ICE detention centers to concentration camps are Holocaust deniers. Do you know what a concentration camp is?
lern_too_spel 7y ago
To more directly address the human rights issue, they should not give the iCloud keys and data of Chinese users to a company controlled by the Chinese government. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-apple-in-china/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-...
- dvduval 7y ago
  Imagine if that were reversed: A Chinese company refused to give the US government access to the accounts of Americans. Would you protest?
  - wbl 7y ago
    One country sells organs of political prisoners on the black market and imprisons millions for religious beliefs. The other has millions of people including much of the media call the current leader a fool openly with no fear of arrest.
    - dvduval 7y ago
      China has lifted 850 million people out of poverty. Percentage-wise, we have far more prisoners in the US. The answer lies in the instability that China experienced in the past leading to the largest famine in human history. They will certainly do what they need to do to prevent instability. Sometimes it is heavy-handed, but as I said in another thread we have Indian reservations, border detentions, hate groups, largest per capita prison population, a high murder rate. We are far from perfect it's easy to point the finger about something that you know less about.
      - mhh__ 7y ago
        I would rather live in a flawed democracy than whatever China is becoming
        tepidandroid 7y ago
bilbo0s 7y ago
>I think Apple should stand by their human rights mantra and move their production out of China... I think you've misapprehended what the article is saying. It's saying that Apple can produce iPhones, intended for consumers in the US, outside of China. Now I think we can safely infer from that statement that it's possible for Apple to produce any iPhone outside of China. What we cannot infer from that statement, is that Apple can produce iPhones in places with no human rights violations. I mean, moving iPhone production from China, to Vietnam, Myanmar, or Malaysia, for the purposes of making a stand against human rights violations is a bit of a head scratcher. But if all we need to do is move out of China, but not necessarily avoid human rights abuses, then it works.
- graeme 7y ago
  Still not quite it. US iphones are not all iphones in the world. Foxconn is not claiming that world iphone capacity could be moved out of China. Nor is it claiming that iphone R and D can be moved out of China.
- peteretep 7y ago
  > China, to Vietnam, Myanmar, or Malaysia One of these is not like the others
  - WildGreenLeave 7y ago
    Yeah, 2 of those are still on my list to travel to! All jokes aside, can you tell me why one of these is not like the others? As far as I see they are all 3 lower incomer Asian countries or what am I missing?
    - danans 7y ago
      I think the implication is that one is not a human rights violator.
    - cat199 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Malaysia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Malaysia
ulfw 7y ago
> China has shown they do not value world opinion. So by that definition they'd obviously not be able to move production to the United States of America either.
aclsid 7y ago
Taking that moral stand should also go for other things I believe, like not buying oil from Saudi Arabia and as a consumer, demanding to know where the gas you are using is coming from so you could make an informed decision.

dvduval 7y ago

About 850 million people have lifted themselves out of poverty in China since the eighties. It's extraordinary. Just want to be clear the US is not exactly perfect when it comes to human rights. Sure, China had a lot they need to do better, but the improvements are incredible. In the US, look at Indian reservations, border detentions, hate groups, number of people in jail... We are not the human rights poster child.

threezero 7y ago
I’m not sure I’d call China running over people with tanks and imprisoning millions of Muslims in concentration camps “improvements”.
- dvduval 7y ago
  From the East India company and the opium wars and the unbalanced treaties, to the Chinese civil war and the invasion of Japan, it's not easy for an outsider to understand just how strongly China considers anything that would bring about the instability that they experienced in the past. Most Chinese people support preventing instability, as in the 80s they had the largest famine in human history. Sometimes they are heavy handed and I think they acknowledge this, and would even tell you that it's not right what they did, but I think the average Westerner does not really get the perspective of the reasoning behind it. Think about how many people we have imprisoned in our so-called drug war. As a percent of our population, it's a lot more than in China.
  - wp381640 7y ago
    There is nothing unique about China's own human rights abuses that rationalises it. Every dictatorship ever has had similar rationalisations.
    - dvduval 7y ago
      I don't feel your comment is rooted in a deep understanding of Chinese history, but I hear what you're saying. I personally believe that if the current leader started to exhibit behavior that was crazy, he would be removed. And you might go on to say that what happened in the Muslim territory in the Northwest is already crazy, but the economic track record and the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty is quite good for the current leader.
      - izend 7y ago
        The big question is what happens when that economic track record hits a road bump or a giant pothole, how will the government react?
        dvduval 7y ago
        Currently in China: largest number of people freed from poverty in human history. Their neighbors in SE Asia are also coming out of poverty, maybe 20 years behind China. I think trade war could make it tough for all, hoping we can avoid it. A bump? Let's hope it's not like the great famine China experienced in the eighties. I doubt it.
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Scant consolation for the Uyghurs, Tibetans or even HKers.
        lern_too_spel 7y ago
        The Nazis also pulled Germany out of poverty. This does not excuse their actions towards the Jews any more than your point excuses China's actions towards the Uyghurs.
- la_barba 7y ago
  Nobody said those were improvements, so what is your point?
- ummonk 7y ago
  Source to running over people with tanks?
  - kortilla 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
  - mhh__ 7y ago
    Tiananmen, And there is photographic evidence
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      There were no pictures that actually captured people being run over with tanks. The man in the famous photo was the only incident caught on film, he was not run over that day but his whereabouts are unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
      - low_poly_shiba 7y ago
        An interesting fact I learned the other day is that the man in that picture is from after the protests, when the tanks were leaving the square, not when they were entering it. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40b11/5b1fde6e0e2e7204c77b9f4b/5b1fdf956d2a7373bd71f17a/1528815549894/004_LON16896.jpg?format=500w https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40...
      - mhh__ 7y ago
        It may not have been a tank but I have a photo of someone who was clearly crushed by something that definitely wasn't a students bicycle let's say
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      Not available in China, though...
  - 7y ago
- bitbrewer 7y ago
  The Chinese have tanks running over people. Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens with semi-automatic guns. The difference? The former happened ONCE, 30 years ago. The latter happens maybe ONCE A MONTH. Talk about Chinese people living in a horrible country...
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens >happens maybe ONCE A MONTH Not to be a dick but... Cite. A. Source. A shooting with 12+ people getting shot is the kind of event that makes the national news even if nobody of dies. That's not the kind of thing that happens about monthly. I am very skeptical you will be able to back up your assertion assuming any reasonable definition of "shoot" and "dozen". Edit: My skepticism has survived one citation and counting.
    - bitbrewer 7y ago
      https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        I'm in several pages now and don't see a single number of double digit injuries let alone a dozen or multiple dozens. Several of the ones I've clicked through to the source on seem to be counting people injured in things other than the shooting (e.g. brawl injures X, dude draws gun, shoots one person = 1 dead, X injuries). The fact that they call the page "Mass Shootings in 2019" when even they say in their about-us[0] that they attempt to catalog each and every shooting seems to indicate a bias (to put it mildly). Edit: actually I'm wrong, I was only looking at the "Mass shootings" portion of their data. Their definition of "mass" seems to be "4+ people injured and/or killed including people not injured/killed" which seems slimy considering how they seem to be counting injuries. That said, they seem to be a pretty damn good source for raw information and generally unbiased with their numbers. Edit: got through all the 2019 results (couldn't get CSV export to work with my browser) and found exactly two results for a dozen. One event[1] has 6 dead, 6 injured but the source doesn't mention any of the people injured other than the 5 victims and one gunman who died, maybe an error in the data? The other event is the Virginia Beach shooting. In any case I think it's safe to conclude that events where a dozen people get shot happen less than monthly. [0]https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about [1]https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-pratt-shooting-autopsy-st-0414-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct...
javagram 7y ago
“hate groups” exist in the USA because this is a free country. In places without our commitment to freedom and human rights those type of groups would have been suppressed by the government. Edit: just to be clear some of your other points are fair although I find the “Indian reservations” a bit dated - they are treated as local sovereigns (e.g. casinos, being allowed to violate state level hunting regulations) and are even now being allowed to expand their territory in some places .
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  The US "commitment to freedom and human rights" rings a bit hollow, IMHO. If you look at western Europe, free speech is restricted a little more, so "hate groups" are illegal. Yet in pretty much all other aspects, these countries are better at ensuring human rights for their citizens. I'm fairly sure that the US is lagging due to historical reasons. Without a war like Germany experienced, there is too much resistance towards a "clean cut" elimination of racism, so you get an exponentially slow decay instead.
  - justaman 7y ago
    Germany implemented laws that forbid holocaust denial for example. The US has no such laws pertaining to its groups.
  - greedo 7y ago
    So Germany, Japan (and other countries that experienced destructive wars) have eliminated racism?
    - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
      Well, eliminated is a bit strong, as you can never eliminate an ideology. The main point, however, is that Europe has shown over a span of several decades that restricting hate speech a) does not lead to any slippery slope where other forms of speech are restricted and b) that restrictions of hate speech are effective at reducing racism in society.
  - 7y ago
tombert 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes While I'm sure China has made progress, which is great, it doesn't deter from the fact that there are a ton of human-rights violations that happen there all the time that would be front-page stories if they happened in the US. I go back and forth about how I feel about us outsourcing to countries with labor violations, so I'm not even saying I disagree with you, but it's not a good argument to say "Well what about the US's problems?!?!". Yes, we're not perfect either, no one is arguing that we are, and we have a lot of things to apologize for and fix, but that's somewhat irrelevant to the discussion.
flattone 7y ago
Yes we are.
- flattone 7y ago
  Love to note that while I receive a few minus, no effective points for the above are found. I think I'm playing for par but happy to hear something more engaging than "the us isn't the poster child blablabla" get the real stuff out if you're going to make such a large claim with no meat/fauxmeat to it..
ralusek 7y ago
850 million people have been lifted out of poverty by going through an accelerated industrial revolution similar to what lifted the West out of poverty, largely funded by the West outsourcing the labor its citizens' expectations for quality of life would no longer allow.
- vkou 7y ago
  And yet, for some reason, the same has not happened in India. Why is that?
  - ralusek 7y ago
    Because India has not served as the primary manufacturing hub for first world countries to nearly the same degree. Also, China has an authoritarian but competent government that very effectively reinvested their newly acquired wealth into infrastructure/development.
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    Perhaps the government in India hasn't yet figured out how to print money like the Chinese Communist Party?
kortilla 7y ago
China doesn’t have Indian reservations because it just forces integration or kills ethnic groups not approved by the government. The government itself functions as a massive hate group against Muslims. It just has a monopoly on which hate groups get a voice.
- rmah 7y ago
  To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication (also known as the "one china" policy). A policy that has existed in one form or another for over a thousand years. And it's why China is China today. Other, more benign aspects of this policy are things like calling the various languages in china "dialects", even if they are mutually incomprehensible. Even "autonomous ethnic regions" are part of this policy... giving time for some minorities to slowly adapt chinese culture. You have to understand that recent western ideals of cultural pluralism is not widespread in there. Those in power in China view it as good and moral to move uyghur culture into something more closely resembling the broader chinese culture. I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible, but if you have goals beyond simply being shocked and angry, then an understanding of their perspective is important.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Yes, they do. > Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication Yes, an attitude of compulsory conformity to common tribal identity and the norms, rituals, and behaviors associated therewith is a particularly common thing in human societies, and it's exactly the main reason Muslims are targeted in the West, as well as in China. > I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible A sizable and politically powerful subset of westerners actively support the same kind of ethos and keeping pushing it into government in much of the West, and object to sinofication not because of a drive against such conformity but only because not doing so for any other culture undermines the propaganda supporting their own cultural conformity efforts.
legulere 7y ago
A lot of stuff missing on this list: death penalty, war crimes, mass surveillance of the whole world including industry espionage

jdavis703 7y ago

Moving production back to the U.S. would not solve the human rights issue. The UN has called out the homeless crisis that’s right in Apple’s backyard as being a human rights violation. Other commentators compare ICE detention centers to concentration camps or chastise the high number of prisoners the U.S. has even outside of ICE detention centers. Clearly no country is perfect, but if Apple were to relocate production based on human rights, it seems like a Northern European country would be the most appropriate place.

artificial 7y ago
This isn't an apples to apples comparison. I'm curious what the UNs solution is to homelessness?
- cat199 7y ago
  get a loan from the world bank and imf, obviously..
rhacker 7y ago
Why not to the US, wouldn't that help solve the homeless problem? If ALL countries that were hiring outside right now started hiring here, wouldn't that help?
- pwinnski 7y ago
  The different in production cost between the US and the current origin countries is vast, but not even the only factor. There were stories a few years ago highlighting how the iPhone could not have been built in the US on the schedule Apple demanded at any price. But if scheduling is ignored, then the only issue becomes cost.
kortilla 7y ago
People that compare ICE detention centers to concentration camps are Holocaust deniers. Do you know what a concentration camp is?

lern_too_spel 7y ago

To more directly address the human rights issue, they should not give the iCloud keys and data of Chinese users to a company controlled by the Chinese government. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-apple-in-china/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/5-things-you-...

dvduval 7y ago
Imagine if that were reversed: A Chinese company refused to give the US government access to the accounts of Americans. Would you protest?
- wbl 7y ago
  One country sells organs of political prisoners on the black market and imprisons millions for religious beliefs. The other has millions of people including much of the media call the current leader a fool openly with no fear of arrest.
  - dvduval 7y ago
    China has lifted 850 million people out of poverty. Percentage-wise, we have far more prisoners in the US. The answer lies in the instability that China experienced in the past leading to the largest famine in human history. They will certainly do what they need to do to prevent instability. Sometimes it is heavy-handed, but as I said in another thread we have Indian reservations, border detentions, hate groups, largest per capita prison population, a high murder rate. We are far from perfect it's easy to point the finger about something that you know less about.
    - mhh__ 7y ago
      I would rather live in a flawed democracy than whatever China is becoming
      - tepidandroid 7y ago

bilbo0s 7y ago

>I think Apple should stand by their human rights mantra and move their production out of China... I think you've misapprehended what the article is saying. It's saying that Apple can produce iPhones, intended for consumers in the US, outside of China. Now I think we can safely infer from that statement that it's possible for Apple to produce any iPhone outside of China. What we cannot infer from that statement, is that Apple can produce iPhones in places with no human rights violations. I mean, moving iPhone production from China, to Vietnam, Myanmar, or Malaysia, for the purposes of making a stand against human rights violations is a bit of a head scratcher. But if all we need to do is move out of China, but not necessarily avoid human rights abuses, then it works.

graeme 7y ago
Still not quite it. US iphones are not all iphones in the world. Foxconn is not claiming that world iphone capacity could be moved out of China. Nor is it claiming that iphone R and D can be moved out of China.
peteretep 7y ago
> China, to Vietnam, Myanmar, or Malaysia One of these is not like the others
- WildGreenLeave 7y ago
  Yeah, 2 of those are still on my list to travel to! All jokes aside, can you tell me why one of these is not like the others? As far as I see they are all 3 lower incomer Asian countries or what am I missing?
  - danans 7y ago
    I think the implication is that one is not a human rights violator.
  - cat199 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Malaysia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Malaysia

ulfw 7y ago

> China has shown they do not value world opinion. So by that definition they'd obviously not be able to move production to the United States of America either.

aclsid 7y ago

Taking that moral stand should also go for other things I believe, like not buying oil from Saudi Arabia and as a consumer, demanding to know where the gas you are using is coming from so you could make an informed decision.