20 ms·

China’s assault on Cathay Pacific

240 points by hker 7y ago

mytailorisrich 7y ago
I don't know if this is a coincidence but Cathay Pacific is symbolic of colonial times. The founders were not Chinese, the main shareholder has always been British, the CEO until a week ago was British. It's always been a western (anglosphere) company operating in China/Asia, not a Chinese company and perhaps the Chinese authorities want to make clear that it is now a Chinese company.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Air China owns 30%.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Yes, that's quite recent (10 years or so iirc) and that in itself means something. The largest shareholder is still Swire (British HQ'd in London), and I believe that the departing CEO came from there.
- spacehunt 7y ago
  There are theories floating around that China is using the current unrest as an opportunity to "cleanse Hong Kong of colonialism", so to speak. Ironic to say the least.
- FabHK 7y ago
  China didn't use to have any notable aviation industry. Jetliners were predominantly manufactured in Europe, North America, Russia, and Brazil. China has only entered manufacturing in the last decade. Many aviation companies worldwide have Western expats and pilots among their staff. So, not sure that this carries special political significance.
- bhhaskin 7y ago
  Not sure if this is a coincidence, but your account is less than 65 days old and seem to mainly to post comments that are pro-Beijing. It's entirely possible that you have a bit of a bias in regards to Cathay Pacific.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Wow... Why the gratuitous personal attack? Am I guilty of a thought crime? And how are most of my comments "pro-beijing"? The world is complex and trying to have a measured approach and to understand the different points of view is not being pro or anti anything. HN promotes intellectual curiosity, not narrow-mindedness.
    - cbnotfromthere 7y ago
      "Why the gratuitous personal attack?" The attack was about your account, not about your person.
    - xster 7y ago
      This is a fascinating stanford prison experiment level social experiment spearheaded into the mainstream by twitter, facebook, youtube. I guess religious wars takes away the burden of petty intellectualism we've been trying so hard to get rid of.
  - dang 7y ago
    This crosses into personal attack. Users aren't allowed to bully other users like that here, regardless of how strongly they disagree. Would you please review the site guidelines? I'm sure your intention was a fine one, to protect the integrity of the community, but this kind of comment rapidly devolves into mob behavior, and we're seeing a lot of that right now. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
simonh 7y ago
>Chinese inspectors have started screening the phones of Cathay crew for anti-Beijing material. If that doesn't persuade ordinary Hong Kongers to love and trust the mainland authorities, I don't know what will.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  If you’re a Hong Kong resident, what are your options? Can you flee the country with a visa to a first world country with rights less under pressure from a totalitarian state? Edit: I genuinely appreciate all of the replies to this comment as this humanitarian crisis unfolds.
  - wbl 7y ago
    Visa free travel to the US. The situation isn't that desparate yet. But I fully expect this President will toss them back into the jaws of tyranny.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      Yeah, the US is cracking down hard on asylum rights. There's been a lot of people in dire conditions--fleeing human trafficking or government oppression--turned away from the southern border and sent home in danger of their lives, because they don't check all the boxes on the extremely narrow definition that ICE is using now.
      - komali2 7y ago
        Or, you know, locked up indefinitely in a cell. The USA is explicitly anti immigration right now, asylum or no. We can't even get people in on working visas to our SF office that have worked here before. They get arbitrarily denied.
      - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        I'm curious who's downvoting this. I didn't say anything that's not factual.
ra7 7y ago
https://outline.com/NG6tPU https://outline.com/NG6tPU
- nh 7y ago
  How does outline work? how do they get around the login feature
  - parliament32 7y ago
    If they told you that, the target sites would find a way to block it. Obscurity is just another weapon in this advertising-and-bloat-blocking arms race.
    - AFascistWorld 7y ago
      Actually it's hard to block them, since they just need to cache every new article once, and you can't block a user just coz he accessed every new article.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- FabHK 7y ago
  Off-topic: On Safari (both iOS and macOS), outline never works for me. Has anyone observed this? (on iOS, pressing the button does nothing - the front-page with the box to enter the URL remains there. On macOS, it says "Something went wrong. We're sorry. This page failed to Outline.") Is it because I use private browsing by default? EDIT: Private browsing is not the culprit. Geo-restrictions maybe? Or because I use a VPN?
devoply 7y ago
I have said it before but all of this is pretty classic fascist behavior where loyalty to the corporate state is demanded without question. This is for all serving purposes a monster that the West created. I just worry about what this looks like going forward, where we have this huge massive superpower which acts this way and can't be questioned.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  No disagreements with your base assessment, but how did the west create this situation? China has a longer continuous timeline than the western powers by far. Are the current political moires there not another node on that chain?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Valuing trade with China over human rights. Trade that enabled China’s superpower status. Taming the monster will be...tricky. You either have enough leverage that Beijing backs down (China is in a very precarious economic condition at the moment, don’t let it go to waste; prevent further rise in power long enough for their demographic transition to complete), or you support internal revolutionaries (which the US has done enough previously in its history I don’t need to detail here). Anything else will be outright world war (probably starting near HK, perhaps with the destruction of the bridge connecting it to the mainland to stave off a ground invasion).
  - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
    I won't say "the west" because I think it's really "capitalism", but Global capitalism created this situation by deepening trade relationships with China to the point that we're all dependent on them to the point that there's very little leverage over their international behaviour. Look at how the PRC is behaving against Canada right now. Illegal torture-like detention of two of innocent Canadian citizens in China, in retaliation for the very mild house arrest (for extradition) of a Huawei executive, something Canada _had_ to do (treaty) on US request. How they behave domestically (against Hong Kong citizens for example), yes, that's another question.
ETHisso2017 7y ago
As opposed to Trump's or Thiel's assault on Google?
- vernie 7y ago
  Thiel is just trying to find out if Alphabet's life sciences division has made any advances in eyebrow regrowth.
  - patrioticaction 7y ago
    He’s probably just mad he couldn’t sell surveillance tools to China like Google does.
- eximius 7y ago
  China does bad things. Trump does bad things. Stop whataboutism.
samstave 7y ago
They should make a backup of the phone and then reset it to factory defaults then restore the backup once out of the country. Does the chinese gov have backdoor access to gmail/gdrive?
- cmoscoe 7y ago
  This can work for travellers, but seems impractical for crew going back and forth many times each day.
- shawnz 7y ago
  There is still the possibility that border agents could implant devices with a persistent backdoor. Especially if the devices are taken out of your sight during the checks
  - samstave 7y ago
    Well the nsa has been doing that on intercepted cisco devices for literally three decades. Basically you need to assume no privacy whatsoever but at the same time, still stand the fuck up for free speech. Fu k all authoritarians. Recall when jetpack (reddit founders) were trying to sell sentiment manipulation to the government? Where the fuck is palantir these days? Twitter is the shithole of the internet. Reddit is now compromat by tencent Voat.co is compromised 8chan is gone 4chan is also uselessly trustworthy (although i admit i have been impressed over the years as to some of the things they have accomplished) ((my secret conspiracy on that is there are many intels on 4chan that know how to post true-anon and reveal shit)) I personally feel really bad for all my interest in the cyberpunk future i thought we were heading for - but instead we built digital 1984.
cdiamand 7y ago
Can anyone recommend a good book on China, or modern geopolitics?
- xiaolingxiao 7y ago
  On China, by Kissinger. Slightly outdated but still contextualizes china w/i its history.
- magicsmoke 7y ago
  Everything Under the Heavens The China Mirage How Asia Works
- silentmajority1 7y ago
  Not trolling, just read 1984 or animal farm. It’s just the same story
  - cdiamand 7y ago
    Thanks, I've read those and they're great, but I'm looking for something that's less of an analogy. Something that puts China in the context of modern geopolitics. Preferably helping me understand their development in the last century.
    - sremani 7y ago
      For pure Geopolitics - Peter Zeihan has been more right than the made for tv muppet boy Ian Bremmer. Peter Zeihan is good. Geopolitical Futures is good but they have some duds in their prediction but good deeper level analysis. Stratfor has kind of become shallow but still good. edit: On YouTube Caspian Report is probably a better production about Geopolitics.
    - cltsang 7y ago
      In that case I'd recommend The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower [0] by Hudson Institute's China expert. and Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America [1] These are rather hawkish but unfortunately also nailing the truth. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696000-the-hundred-year-marathon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696000-the-hundred-yea... [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/855077.Unrestricted_Warfare https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/855077.Unrestricted_Warf...
dekhn 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveillance_requests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveilla...
dragonsh 7y ago
It's sad to see a company suffer the cost of nationalism. This is what happens when nationalism trumps human to human connections. Protest in Hong Kong has descended into nationalism and sovereignty issue for 1.4 billion people. Majority wins even though there is some protection guaranteed in most nation and there are plenty of examples in recent days where majority wins. In social media it's majority wins, minority is always relegated to corner. I hope it resolves amicably.
llIIlIlIllIIlIl 7y ago
> When the Chinese aviation authority, absurdly, accused the airline of imperilling safety because its employees had joined the protests, Cathay dumped its chief executive. Question: Is there even remotely a legitimate security concern here? Let's say in a hypothetical scenario, the unrest spirals out of control into a state of complete desperation. The HK government and the CCP refuse to compromise on any of the five demands, and the protestors refuse to stand down. Let's say politically polarized HK pilots and cabin crew are flying a plane full of mainlanders. Would you be 100% comfortable being a passenger on that plane as a mainlander?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  No, that's not a remotely legitimate security concern. The pilot is not politicized just because some people employed by her company are protesting. Even if she were politicized, what's she going to do, crash the plane?
  - llIIlIlIllIIlIl 7y ago
    It could be disinformation, but I've read that some Cathay pilots and cabin crew were reprimanded for participating in the protests. Also, I don't necessarily mean a terrorist incident. Any kerfuffle at 35,000ft would be enough grounds to turn an airplane around and land it at the nearest runway as per standard safety practices. With HK-mainland tensions at an all time high, I don't think this can be completely ruled out.
    - alteria 7y ago
      What kind of incident are you imagining happening on a plane, and is participation in the protest a reliable indicator for the likelihood of it?
      - llIIlIlIllIIlIl 7y ago
        Imagine knowing that your people are fighting for freedom from CPC rule and mainlanders flooding into HK, taking your jobs and housing and driving up prices for essential goods. Then you get a group of obnoxious and oblivious mainlanders heading to HK on a luxury spending holiday demanding this and that from the flight hostesses. Now imagine being an HK Cathay cabin crew member making not so great pay and living in the most expensive city in the world by far. This could be a tinder box for incidents like verbal assaults, jostling and shoving and if enough passengers get involved, it could transform into a real flight risk. > is participation in the protest a reliable indicator for the likelihood of it Humans are capable of many things right or wrong when they are desperate to get their message across. Doubly true when they believe their fight is for justice.
idlewords 7y ago
China is applying a lot of pressure on Hong Kongers right now, including searching devices at the border for any signs of protest photos. The Hong Kong police have requested Octopus card records (the mass transit card that is linked to individual user IDs) and CCTV footage of the airport protests last week. There is evidence of information sharing between Hong Kong police and mainland authorities. The implied threat is that anyone who participates in protests risks their livelihood and prospects of future education, and that major companies in Hong Kong will not be allowed to remain apolitical, but must choose sides. These pressure tactics are intended to break the Hong Kong protests, and while taken very seriously by Hong Kongers, have so far failed to achieve that aim.
- spacehunt 7y ago
  It's the Cultural Revolution-era "us-versus-them" tactic. You either fall in line, or you are the enemy of the people. https://medium.com/@pnolan20/lets-stop-the-us-versus-them-conversations-before-its-too-late-8068fef03fd8 https://medium.com/@pnolan20/lets-stop-the-us-versus-them-co...
- chrischen 7y ago
  I don’t think border searches like this are out of the norm even by Western standards.
  - hker 7y ago
    I agree that border searches by Western standards have worsen recently, e.g., the US customs may ask for social media handles. But the Chinese border searches have gone even further: they install additional tracking apps on travelers’ phones [1], and they make a copy of the phone data for later analysis (in Cantonese [2]). [1]: https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/visitors-to-china-warned-about-phone-checks/ https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/visitors-to-china-... [2]: https://lih.kg/1384861 https://lih.kg/1384861
  - tptacek 7y ago
    The likelihood of a US border search that turns up protest materials costing you your degree or your next 5 job prospects is essentially 0.
AFascistWorld 7y ago
Samsung magically fell to zero market share in China in the span of 2 to 3 years, that's a warning to any company doing business in China, now they are targeting Fedex over the alleged intentional diversion to the US of some Huawei packages, when China is angry at Korea, Lotte and Samsung became sacrificial lambs to the pent-up ire, Fedex and maybe some other American campanies may be the new ones (Amazon narrowly escaped the witchhunt of anti-China items since they exited China themself just months ago).
- ospider 7y ago
  Did you remember Galaxy Note 7? That's the magic sauce.
  - mamoswine 7y ago
    Indeed, Samsung decided they wouldn't bother recalling exploding phones in China.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  Yep, any western company that thinks the Chinese government is going to allow them to have a large market share in China long term is straight up delusional (or thinking so short term they don't care at all) Company after company has been raided for IP and forced out of China, stop falling for the siren song.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Apple still has a large market share in China. Maybe Samsung just sucks and couldn’t compete against Huawei? Only reason Huawei hasn’t beat out Samsung in the US is because of anti-Huawei sentiment in the US.
    - rhegart 7y ago
      That’s not true...Huawei stole from Nortel and it’s just that tech initially. Samsung was doing great before the forced anti Samsung protests (Huawei was already 1 at the time).
spacehunt 7y ago
And today, Cathay Dragon sacked the head of the flight attendant's union. https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/video-gallery.htm?vid=1476318 https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/video-gallery.htm?vid=1476318
- deaddodo 7y ago
  These articles are useless without knowing what the actual content of the post was. It sounds like a colleague turned over a post that was on her facebook and the company responded to that. They didn't go seek out the posting to remove her. That's like complaining about being fired because a coworker reported you for sexually harassing them in text messages at home. Not defending China or Cathay; more than likely they have negative and self-interested political motive. I'm just saying, we can't judge either side without all the details.
- hker 7y ago
  The head of the flight attendant’s union was fired by Cathay Dragon, and according to her press conference regarding the termination [1], the case was based on her friends-only stories on Facebook ([1], 48:10 in Cantonese) which showed some post-it notes saying Happy Birthday to her colleagues ([1], 48:45 in English)—post-it notes are common in Hong Kong’s Lennon Wall—but it remains to be seen if there is enough grounds for termination. [1]: https://www.facebook.com/standnewshk/videos/646850612491620/ https://www.facebook.com/standnewshk/videos/646850612491620/
AimForTheBushes 7y ago
Honestly, this shouldn't surprise anyone.
rdlecler1 7y ago
This is getting ridiculous. There’s too many paywalled articles posted on HN and the web link is no longer a reliable work around. Bad user experience is just going to drive people away. Please think about reworking your algorithm otherwise comments are just going to be based in the title since few people can actually read it. Yes, I realize this is going to get downvoted because of posting policy but I’m willing to take the karma damage to try to improve the community before it’s too late.
- dannykwells 7y ago
  I think this comment is actually spot on. The web is, quickly, devolving into an unusable mess because of all these F paywalls everywhere. I would wholly support a policy of no paywalled articles on HN.
- mrighele 7y ago
  The practical solution (which is what i do) is to flag a submission if the article cannot be read. The result will be that the article will be flagged (unless enough HNers pay for that website's subscription so it is ok for it to be shared)
dangjc 7y ago
Why don't we form a new WTO, without China or other dictatorships, and only allow in democracies that are liberal or liberalizing? There's no point in opening our arms to China if they aren't moving on the right track anymore towards becoming a free and fair society.
- ReptileMan 7y ago
  Because the big money making opportunities are not in the liberal democracies. With Europe and USA on a path of the decline - none of the powers that come online care about liberal values. They learned the lesson that it is important how you manage the economy, not the social values.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  Potentially because people have different understanding of what a free and fair society is.
  - chronic829 7y ago
    > Potentially because people have different understanding of what a free and fair society is. Simple. Give people a choice which society they're allowed to live in. China currently does not do that.
    - ndarwincorn 7y ago
      > Give people a choice which society they're allowed to live in. By this metric, this would be a prohibitively small WTO.
    - theseadroid 7y ago
      Totally agree. My question is which country does do that? I have voted once by moving. But I still don't have the choice to live in a society that I think is free and fair. I wish I can live in a society where inequality is minimal, where people work and innovate not because of money, but because they enjoy their work and enjoy innovation. I wish I and my fellow citizens can have universal health and dental care, free higher education. I wish a political system without bribing disguised as lobbying, without innovation-killing monopoly. I wish we have similar chance of being happy irrelevant of how rich our parents are. A place where mental illness people are treated, instead of being free to be on the street. Where I can freely roam the city at any hour without the fear of being robbed or raped. Where the urban/transit design makes people free from using cars if they feel not like to. Where I don't have to work as a housing slave. Now, if my view of a free and fair society is a majority view, why there's isn't one that I can go? If my view is a minority one, then I still don't have the choice in a democracy isn't it?
groundlogic 7y ago
https://www.newsweek.com/cathay-ceo-refused-name-hong-kong-protesters-chinese-government-named-himself-instead-resigned-1455371 https://www.newsweek.com/cathay-ceo-refused-name-hong-kong-p... > The Taiwan News claimed that Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg's decision to resign last week came after he refused to name names to the Chinese government when he was asked to provide a list of employees who were involved in the Hong Kong protests. > China's Civil Aviation Administration ordered Cathay to provide a list of employees who were involved in a recent protest. He was also ordered to suspend the employees. According to the Taiwan News, Hogg provided the list—but it included only one name: his own. > His resignation was first announced by CCTV, China's state-run television station, 30 minutes before Cathay Pacific announced Hogg had stepped down.
- wendyshu 7y ago
  (Some say this version of events is an untrue rumor.)
  - FabHK 7y ago
    Yeah, I'd love to see some independent verification of this story. It's lovely, ben trovato, but I have seen it only sourced to some dodgy WhatsApp groups or Facebook posts or so. It is certainly not inconceivable, and frankly, if it's true, the fact that Hogg doesn't go around and flaunt it makes me think even more highly of him. But I just don't know whether it's true.
    - groundlogic 7y ago
      I'd think that he'd say something if it was false.
      - FabHK 7y ago
        Good point. I'd have responded that it has never been reported "properly", but then, Newsweek, one should hope, is pretty proper. Let's see.
  - 7y ago
jsnider3 7y ago
This probably wouldn't have happened if America had decent leadership.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  China has been doing this sort of thing well before the Trump administration. People are just now noticing the trend.
  - psychrometer 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
neonate 7y ago
http://archive.is/tAfRq http://archive.is/tAfRq
carapace 7y ago
Does this scare YC China? https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-china-qi-lu/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-china-qi-lu/
- timerol 7y ago
  Almost certainly yes. But more importantly, they are probably never going to say anything about it publicly, so that they don't face backlash.
  - AFascistWorld 7y ago
    Just found out that HN is no longer accessible in China, and now you have to pass reCAPTCHA to log in. http://ping.chinaz.com/news.ycombinator.com http://ping.chinaz.com/news.ycombinator.com
joyeuse6701 7y ago
This should be a notification for all companies, it is time to think about more than profits. This sort of behavior must not be enabled by continued business with the Chinese state.
hker 7y ago
It seems like the most dangerous threat to Cathay is the following line from the article: > China’s airline regulator declared it unsafe Based on other sources it means that Cathay would be forbidden to enter China's airspace. It entails much more than not being able to land in China: since the airspace of Hong Kong is surrounded by that of China, it is virtually impossible not to enter China's airspace when using the only international airport in Hong Kong. Being forbidden to enter China's airspace means not being able to fly to and from Hong Kong, a death spell for Cathay.
- y2kenny 7y ago
  If China is using "safety" as a political weapon, I think other countries need to respond with sanction. The idea of safety is not some abstract concept. Safety is an objective measures with international norm, standards and processes.
ngcc_hk 7y ago
The assault is real enough not just executives are gone and some employees are resigned (or fired?) due to their support of hk protestor. Not sure anyone has been fired if they post support of the police. But a related firm dragon air has top Union lady fired after confirming her holding a Facebook account. The power of china given its economic power and land mass and no of people should wake up people. Unless there is a way to constrain it, if should be contained one way or the other.

240 points by hker 7y ago

I don't know if this is a coincidence but Cathay Pacific is symbolic of colonial times. The founders were not Chinese, the main shareholder has always been British, the CEO until a week ago was British. It's always been a western (anglosphere) company operating in China/Asia, not a Chinese company and perhaps the Chinese authorities want to make clear that it is now a Chinese company.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Air China owns 30%.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Yes, that's quite recent (10 years or so iirc) and that in itself means something. The largest shareholder is still Swire (British HQ'd in London), and I believe that the departing CEO came from there.
spacehunt 7y ago
There are theories floating around that China is using the current unrest as an opportunity to "cleanse Hong Kong of colonialism", so to speak. Ironic to say the least.
FabHK 7y ago
China didn't use to have any notable aviation industry. Jetliners were predominantly manufactured in Europe, North America, Russia, and Brazil. China has only entered manufacturing in the last decade. Many aviation companies worldwide have Western expats and pilots among their staff. So, not sure that this carries special political significance.
bhhaskin 7y ago
Not sure if this is a coincidence, but your account is less than 65 days old and seem to mainly to post comments that are pro-Beijing. It's entirely possible that you have a bit of a bias in regards to Cathay Pacific.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Wow... Why the gratuitous personal attack? Am I guilty of a thought crime? And how are most of my comments "pro-beijing"? The world is complex and trying to have a measured approach and to understand the different points of view is not being pro or anti anything. HN promotes intellectual curiosity, not narrow-mindedness.
  - cbnotfromthere 7y ago
    "Why the gratuitous personal attack?" The attack was about your account, not about your person.
  - xster 7y ago
    This is a fascinating stanford prison experiment level social experiment spearheaded into the mainstream by twitter, facebook, youtube. I guess religious wars takes away the burden of petty intellectualism we've been trying so hard to get rid of.
- dang 7y ago
  This crosses into personal attack. Users aren't allowed to bully other users like that here, regardless of how strongly they disagree. Would you please review the site guidelines? I'm sure your intention was a fine one, to protect the integrity of the community, but this kind of comment rapidly devolves into mob behavior, and we're seeing a lot of that right now. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

simonh 7y ago

>Chinese inspectors have started screening the phones of Cathay crew for anti-Beijing material. If that doesn't persuade ordinary Hong Kongers to love and trust the mainland authorities, I don't know what will.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
If you’re a Hong Kong resident, what are your options? Can you flee the country with a visa to a first world country with rights less under pressure from a totalitarian state? Edit: I genuinely appreciate all of the replies to this comment as this humanitarian crisis unfolds.
- wbl 7y ago
  Visa free travel to the US. The situation isn't that desparate yet. But I fully expect this President will toss them back into the jaws of tyranny.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    Yeah, the US is cracking down hard on asylum rights. There's been a lot of people in dire conditions--fleeing human trafficking or government oppression--turned away from the southern border and sent home in danger of their lives, because they don't check all the boxes on the extremely narrow definition that ICE is using now.
    - komali2 7y ago
      Or, you know, locked up indefinitely in a cell. The USA is explicitly anti immigration right now, asylum or no. We can't even get people in on working visas to our SF office that have worked here before. They get arbitrarily denied.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      I'm curious who's downvoting this. I didn't say anything that's not factual.

ra7 7y ago

https://outline.com/NG6tPU https://outline.com/NG6tPU

nh 7y ago
How does outline work? how do they get around the login feature
- parliament32 7y ago
  If they told you that, the target sites would find a way to block it. Obscurity is just another weapon in this advertising-and-bloat-blocking arms race.
  - AFascistWorld 7y ago
    Actually it's hard to block them, since they just need to cache every new article once, and you can't block a user just coz he accessed every new article.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
FabHK 7y ago
Off-topic: On Safari (both iOS and macOS), outline never works for me. Has anyone observed this? (on iOS, pressing the button does nothing - the front-page with the box to enter the URL remains there. On macOS, it says "Something went wrong. We're sorry. This page failed to Outline.") Is it because I use private browsing by default? EDIT: Private browsing is not the culprit. Geo-restrictions maybe? Or because I use a VPN?

devoply 7y ago

I have said it before but all of this is pretty classic fascist behavior where loyalty to the corporate state is demanded without question. This is for all serving purposes a monster that the West created. I just worry about what this looks like going forward, where we have this huge massive superpower which acts this way and can't be questioned.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
No disagreements with your base assessment, but how did the west create this situation? China has a longer continuous timeline than the western powers by far. Are the current political moires there not another node on that chain?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Valuing trade with China over human rights. Trade that enabled China’s superpower status. Taming the monster will be...tricky. You either have enough leverage that Beijing backs down (China is in a very precarious economic condition at the moment, don’t let it go to waste; prevent further rise in power long enough for their demographic transition to complete), or you support internal revolutionaries (which the US has done enough previously in its history I don’t need to detail here). Anything else will be outright world war (probably starting near HK, perhaps with the destruction of the bridge connecting it to the mainland to stave off a ground invasion).
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  I won't say "the west" because I think it's really "capitalism", but Global capitalism created this situation by deepening trade relationships with China to the point that we're all dependent on them to the point that there's very little leverage over their international behaviour. Look at how the PRC is behaving against Canada right now. Illegal torture-like detention of two of innocent Canadian citizens in China, in retaliation for the very mild house arrest (for extradition) of a Huawei executive, something Canada _had_ to do (treaty) on US request. How they behave domestically (against Hong Kong citizens for example), yes, that's another question.

ETHisso2017 7y ago

As opposed to Trump's or Thiel's assault on Google?

vernie 7y ago
Thiel is just trying to find out if Alphabet's life sciences division has made any advances in eyebrow regrowth.
- patrioticaction 7y ago
  He’s probably just mad he couldn’t sell surveillance tools to China like Google does.
eximius 7y ago
China does bad things. Trump does bad things. Stop whataboutism.

samstave 7y ago

They should make a backup of the phone and then reset it to factory defaults then restore the backup once out of the country. Does the chinese gov have backdoor access to gmail/gdrive?

cmoscoe 7y ago
This can work for travellers, but seems impractical for crew going back and forth many times each day.
shawnz 7y ago
There is still the possibility that border agents could implant devices with a persistent backdoor. Especially if the devices are taken out of your sight during the checks
- samstave 7y ago
  Well the nsa has been doing that on intercepted cisco devices for literally three decades. Basically you need to assume no privacy whatsoever but at the same time, still stand the fuck up for free speech. Fu k all authoritarians. Recall when jetpack (reddit founders) were trying to sell sentiment manipulation to the government? Where the fuck is palantir these days? Twitter is the shithole of the internet. Reddit is now compromat by tencent Voat.co is compromised 8chan is gone 4chan is also uselessly trustworthy (although i admit i have been impressed over the years as to some of the things they have accomplished) ((my secret conspiracy on that is there are many intels on 4chan that know how to post true-anon and reveal shit)) I personally feel really bad for all my interest in the cyberpunk future i thought we were heading for - but instead we built digital 1984.

cdiamand 7y ago

Can anyone recommend a good book on China, or modern geopolitics?

xiaolingxiao 7y ago
On China, by Kissinger. Slightly outdated but still contextualizes china w/i its history.
magicsmoke 7y ago
Everything Under the Heavens The China Mirage How Asia Works
silentmajority1 7y ago
Not trolling, just read 1984 or animal farm. It’s just the same story
- cdiamand 7y ago
  Thanks, I've read those and they're great, but I'm looking for something that's less of an analogy. Something that puts China in the context of modern geopolitics. Preferably helping me understand their development in the last century.
  - sremani 7y ago
    For pure Geopolitics - Peter Zeihan has been more right than the made for tv muppet boy Ian Bremmer. Peter Zeihan is good. Geopolitical Futures is good but they have some duds in their prediction but good deeper level analysis. Stratfor has kind of become shallow but still good. edit: On YouTube Caspian Report is probably a better production about Geopolitics.
  - cltsang 7y ago
    In that case I'd recommend The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower [0] by Hudson Institute's China expert. and Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America [1] These are rather hawkish but unfortunately also nailing the truth. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696000-the-hundred-year-marathon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696000-the-hundred-yea... [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/855077.Unrestricted_Warfare https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/855077.Unrestricted_Warf...

dekhn 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveillance_requests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveilla...

dragonsh 7y ago

It's sad to see a company suffer the cost of nationalism. This is what happens when nationalism trumps human to human connections. Protest in Hong Kong has descended into nationalism and sovereignty issue for 1.4 billion people. Majority wins even though there is some protection guaranteed in most nation and there are plenty of examples in recent days where majority wins. In social media it's majority wins, minority is always relegated to corner. I hope it resolves amicably.

llIIlIlIllIIlIl 7y ago

> When the Chinese aviation authority, absurdly, accused the airline of imperilling safety because its employees had joined the protests, Cathay dumped its chief executive. Question: Is there even remotely a legitimate security concern here? Let's say in a hypothetical scenario, the unrest spirals out of control into a state of complete desperation. The HK government and the CCP refuse to compromise on any of the five demands, and the protestors refuse to stand down. Let's say politically polarized HK pilots and cabin crew are flying a plane full of mainlanders. Would you be 100% comfortable being a passenger on that plane as a mainlander?

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
No, that's not a remotely legitimate security concern. The pilot is not politicized just because some people employed by her company are protesting. Even if she were politicized, what's she going to do, crash the plane?
- llIIlIlIllIIlIl 7y ago
  It could be disinformation, but I've read that some Cathay pilots and cabin crew were reprimanded for participating in the protests. Also, I don't necessarily mean a terrorist incident. Any kerfuffle at 35,000ft would be enough grounds to turn an airplane around and land it at the nearest runway as per standard safety practices. With HK-mainland tensions at an all time high, I don't think this can be completely ruled out.
  - alteria 7y ago
    What kind of incident are you imagining happening on a plane, and is participation in the protest a reliable indicator for the likelihood of it?
    - llIIlIlIllIIlIl 7y ago
      Imagine knowing that your people are fighting for freedom from CPC rule and mainlanders flooding into HK, taking your jobs and housing and driving up prices for essential goods. Then you get a group of obnoxious and oblivious mainlanders heading to HK on a luxury spending holiday demanding this and that from the flight hostesses. Now imagine being an HK Cathay cabin crew member making not so great pay and living in the most expensive city in the world by far. This could be a tinder box for incidents like verbal assaults, jostling and shoving and if enough passengers get involved, it could transform into a real flight risk. > is participation in the protest a reliable indicator for the likelihood of it Humans are capable of many things right or wrong when they are desperate to get their message across. Doubly true when they believe their fight is for justice.

idlewords 7y ago

China is applying a lot of pressure on Hong Kongers right now, including searching devices at the border for any signs of protest photos. The Hong Kong police have requested Octopus card records (the mass transit card that is linked to individual user IDs) and CCTV footage of the airport protests last week. There is evidence of information sharing between Hong Kong police and mainland authorities. The implied threat is that anyone who participates in protests risks their livelihood and prospects of future education, and that major companies in Hong Kong will not be allowed to remain apolitical, but must choose sides. These pressure tactics are intended to break the Hong Kong protests, and while taken very seriously by Hong Kongers, have so far failed to achieve that aim.

spacehunt 7y ago
It's the Cultural Revolution-era "us-versus-them" tactic. You either fall in line, or you are the enemy of the people. https://medium.com/@pnolan20/lets-stop-the-us-versus-them-conversations-before-its-too-late-8068fef03fd8 https://medium.com/@pnolan20/lets-stop-the-us-versus-them-co...
chrischen 7y ago
I don’t think border searches like this are out of the norm even by Western standards.
- hker 7y ago
  I agree that border searches by Western standards have worsen recently, e.g., the US customs may ask for social media handles. But the Chinese border searches have gone even further: they install additional tracking apps on travelers’ phones [1], and they make a copy of the phone data for later analysis (in Cantonese [2]). [1]: https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/visitors-to-china-warned-about-phone-checks/ https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/visitors-to-china-... [2]: https://lih.kg/1384861 https://lih.kg/1384861
- tptacek 7y ago
  The likelihood of a US border search that turns up protest materials costing you your degree or your next 5 job prospects is essentially 0.

AFascistWorld 7y ago

Samsung magically fell to zero market share in China in the span of 2 to 3 years, that's a warning to any company doing business in China, now they are targeting Fedex over the alleged intentional diversion to the US of some Huawei packages, when China is angry at Korea, Lotte and Samsung became sacrificial lambs to the pent-up ire, Fedex and maybe some other American campanies may be the new ones (Amazon narrowly escaped the witchhunt of anti-China items since they exited China themself just months ago).

ospider 7y ago
Did you remember Galaxy Note 7? That's the magic sauce.
- mamoswine 7y ago
  Indeed, Samsung decided they wouldn't bother recalling exploding phones in China.
throwaway2048 7y ago
Yep, any western company that thinks the Chinese government is going to allow them to have a large market share in China long term is straight up delusional (or thinking so short term they don't care at all) Company after company has been raided for IP and forced out of China, stop falling for the siren song.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Apple still has a large market share in China. Maybe Samsung just sucks and couldn’t compete against Huawei? Only reason Huawei hasn’t beat out Samsung in the US is because of anti-Huawei sentiment in the US.
  - rhegart 7y ago
    That’s not true...Huawei stole from Nortel and it’s just that tech initially. Samsung was doing great before the forced anti Samsung protests (Huawei was already 1 at the time).

spacehunt 7y ago

And today, Cathay Dragon sacked the head of the flight attendant's union. https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/video-gallery.htm?vid=1476318 https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/video-gallery.htm?vid=1476318

deaddodo 7y ago
These articles are useless without knowing what the actual content of the post was. It sounds like a colleague turned over a post that was on her facebook and the company responded to that. They didn't go seek out the posting to remove her. That's like complaining about being fired because a coworker reported you for sexually harassing them in text messages at home. Not defending China or Cathay; more than likely they have negative and self-interested political motive. I'm just saying, we can't judge either side without all the details.
hker 7y ago
The head of the flight attendant’s union was fired by Cathay Dragon, and according to her press conference regarding the termination [1], the case was based on her friends-only stories on Facebook ([1], 48:10 in Cantonese) which showed some post-it notes saying Happy Birthday to her colleagues ([1], 48:45 in English)—post-it notes are common in Hong Kong’s Lennon Wall—but it remains to be seen if there is enough grounds for termination. [1]: https://www.facebook.com/standnewshk/videos/646850612491620/ https://www.facebook.com/standnewshk/videos/646850612491620/

AimForTheBushes 7y ago

Honestly, this shouldn't surprise anyone.

rdlecler1 7y ago

This is getting ridiculous. There’s too many paywalled articles posted on HN and the web link is no longer a reliable work around. Bad user experience is just going to drive people away. Please think about reworking your algorithm otherwise comments are just going to be based in the title since few people can actually read it. Yes, I realize this is going to get downvoted because of posting policy but I’m willing to take the karma damage to try to improve the community before it’s too late.

dannykwells 7y ago
I think this comment is actually spot on. The web is, quickly, devolving into an unusable mess because of all these F paywalls everywhere. I would wholly support a policy of no paywalled articles on HN.
mrighele 7y ago
The practical solution (which is what i do) is to flag a submission if the article cannot be read. The result will be that the article will be flagged (unless enough HNers pay for that website's subscription so it is ok for it to be shared)

dangjc 7y ago

Why don't we form a new WTO, without China or other dictatorships, and only allow in democracies that are liberal or liberalizing? There's no point in opening our arms to China if they aren't moving on the right track anymore towards becoming a free and fair society.

ReptileMan 7y ago
Because the big money making opportunities are not in the liberal democracies. With Europe and USA on a path of the decline - none of the powers that come online care about liberal values. They learned the lesson that it is important how you manage the economy, not the social values.
theseadroid 7y ago
Potentially because people have different understanding of what a free and fair society is.
- chronic829 7y ago
  > Potentially because people have different understanding of what a free and fair society is. Simple. Give people a choice which society they're allowed to live in. China currently does not do that.
  - ndarwincorn 7y ago
    > Give people a choice which society they're allowed to live in. By this metric, this would be a prohibitively small WTO.
  - theseadroid 7y ago
    Totally agree. My question is which country does do that? I have voted once by moving. But I still don't have the choice to live in a society that I think is free and fair. I wish I can live in a society where inequality is minimal, where people work and innovate not because of money, but because they enjoy their work and enjoy innovation. I wish I and my fellow citizens can have universal health and dental care, free higher education. I wish a political system without bribing disguised as lobbying, without innovation-killing monopoly. I wish we have similar chance of being happy irrelevant of how rich our parents are. A place where mental illness people are treated, instead of being free to be on the street. Where I can freely roam the city at any hour without the fear of being robbed or raped. Where the urban/transit design makes people free from using cars if they feel not like to. Where I don't have to work as a housing slave. Now, if my view of a free and fair society is a majority view, why there's isn't one that I can go? If my view is a minority one, then I still don't have the choice in a democracy isn't it?

groundlogic 7y ago

https://www.newsweek.com/cathay-ceo-refused-name-hong-kong-protesters-chinese-government-named-himself-instead-resigned-1455371 https://www.newsweek.com/cathay-ceo-refused-name-hong-kong-p... > The Taiwan News claimed that Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg's decision to resign last week came after he refused to name names to the Chinese government when he was asked to provide a list of employees who were involved in the Hong Kong protests. > China's Civil Aviation Administration ordered Cathay to provide a list of employees who were involved in a recent protest. He was also ordered to suspend the employees. According to the Taiwan News, Hogg provided the list—but it included only one name: his own. > His resignation was first announced by CCTV, China's state-run television station, 30 minutes before Cathay Pacific announced Hogg had stepped down.

wendyshu 7y ago
(Some say this version of events is an untrue rumor.)
- FabHK 7y ago
  Yeah, I'd love to see some independent verification of this story. It's lovely, ben trovato, but I have seen it only sourced to some dodgy WhatsApp groups or Facebook posts or so. It is certainly not inconceivable, and frankly, if it's true, the fact that Hogg doesn't go around and flaunt it makes me think even more highly of him. But I just don't know whether it's true.
  - groundlogic 7y ago
    I'd think that he'd say something if it was false.
    - FabHK 7y ago
      Good point. I'd have responded that it has never been reported "properly", but then, Newsweek, one should hope, is pretty proper. Let's see.
- 7y ago

jsnider3 7y ago

This probably wouldn't have happened if America had decent leadership.

partiallypro 7y ago
China has been doing this sort of thing well before the Trump administration. People are just now noticing the trend.
- psychrometer 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.is/tAfRq http://archive.is/tAfRq

carapace 7y ago

Does this scare YC China? https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-china-qi-lu/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-china-qi-lu/

timerol 7y ago
Almost certainly yes. But more importantly, they are probably never going to say anything about it publicly, so that they don't face backlash.
- AFascistWorld 7y ago
  Just found out that HN is no longer accessible in China, and now you have to pass reCAPTCHA to log in. http://ping.chinaz.com/news.ycombinator.com http://ping.chinaz.com/news.ycombinator.com

joyeuse6701 7y ago

This should be a notification for all companies, it is time to think about more than profits. This sort of behavior must not be enabled by continued business with the Chinese state.

hker 7y ago

It seems like the most dangerous threat to Cathay is the following line from the article: > China’s airline regulator declared it unsafe Based on other sources it means that Cathay would be forbidden to enter China's airspace. It entails much more than not being able to land in China: since the airspace of Hong Kong is surrounded by that of China, it is virtually impossible not to enter China's airspace when using the only international airport in Hong Kong. Being forbidden to enter China's airspace means not being able to fly to and from Hong Kong, a death spell for Cathay.

y2kenny 7y ago
If China is using "safety" as a political weapon, I think other countries need to respond with sanction. The idea of safety is not some abstract concept. Safety is an objective measures with international norm, standards and processes.

ngcc_hk 7y ago

The assault is real enough not just executives are gone and some employees are resigned (or fired?) due to their support of hk protestor. Not sure anyone has been fired if they post support of the police. But a related firm dragon air has top Union lady fired after confirming her holding a Facebook account. The power of china given its economic power and land mass and no of people should wake up people. Unless there is a way to constrain it, if should be contained one way or the other.