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Apple told some Apple TV+ show developers not to anger China

440 points by jmsflknr 7y ago

mokash 7y ago
Apple are beholden to China. Sure, China is a huge market for them but I think the bigger issue is manufacturing: if they piss China off they won’t have anything to sell, anywhere! I’m sure Apple execs know this and I hope they’re quickly planning to reduce, if not remove this dependency.
- deleted 7y ago
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- imjasonmiller 7y ago
  I thought Apple was in the process of moving some of its production to India?
  - rudiv 7y ago
    That's only for products being sold in India, to avoid import taxes. And of course, it's only products from more than a couple generations ago, e.g. the iPhone SE, the 6S. I think the newest phone they're planning to manufacture in India is the 8.
    - wingspar 7y ago
      As of Dec 2018, they were reported to begin building ‘high end’ phones in India this year. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-india-exclusive-idUSKCN1OQ0M6 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-india-exclusive-idU... Granted, it’s small production numbers, but have to start somewhere.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  It's mind boggling to me that Apple has become so big, and a huge majority of their revenue is still coming from outsourced products.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    Why? Until Trump was elected, which none of the elite class in the US thought was remotely possible, a massive trade war with China was on nobody’s radar.
- Teever 7y ago
  Can I ask you why you have this particular hope? Is it because you are a user of apple products and hope that you will continue to do so in the future because you are dependent on them? Is it because you believe that apple is a good company and you hope for the best for them? Why should we hope for the best for a company that has made hundreds of billions off of offshoring jobs to an authoritarian country with little regard for investing in manufacturing in America? The way I see it is that if China decides to squeeze Apple by restricting their production it will be a fair comeuppance for a company that has seen fit to extract billions in wealth from developers through their app store and has sought to turn their commodity hardware into status symbols to extract even more wealth from middle class people who want to feel like they're more than middle class. If the executives at Apple had any foresight and any interest beyond self interest they would have encouraged domestic production a decade or more ago. Instead we have a situation where people are crying for poor Apple, a company who that has more money than god and who could have used that to create their own supply chain domestically which would have had tremendous benefits for America and the American people. Instead they have chose to consort and ultimately enable an authoritarian country into a situation where they now pose a legitimate threat both militarily and culturally to America, the albeit flawed but last best hope for freedom in the world. Think different indeed.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    It's pointless expecting corporations do make those sort of sacrifices, it would be economic suicide.
    - vharuck 7y ago
      If a company chooses to heavily invest in a nation with limited freedoms, the suicide started when the decision was made. Not when the consequences start to hurt.
      - throwaway2048 7y ago
        Yep, the idea that companies should be given a free pass to act with utter amorality because they put themselves in a situation where they are obliged to do so is ridiculous.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  This is a bit of a lesson of what happens when your focus on the price tag only. Sure, I want my products to be cheap, but there might be some hidden costs that will eventually show up at a very inconvenient time. Sure, Apple can do CKD assembly of their products everywhere, the manufacture of custom parts is the tricky part.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Chinese people are also beholden to China (the government). It may be a political game to you, but trying to destabilize the government would have serious consequences to the livelihoods of the people there, just because some policies (that don’t affect you) don’t agree with your world view. Even though there are kinks in their regime, for the most part they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty. Imagine if the U.S. had a massive foreign power prodding it during the early years of slavery, manifest destiny (the justification for eradicating the Native Americans), racism, drug war, Vietnam, and mass incarceration. Yes, they have a big brother-style regime, but they are also capable of sorting out their own political issues. And if not, they’ll reap the consequences without you having to do it form them. If you really believe in democracy, then trying to influence their politics from afar is ultimately going to be far-less democratic than they influencing their own politics. I understand they don't have directly elections or a multi-party system, but that does not mean there is not opinion sharing in policy decisions, or intra-party elections. In a representative form of government direct-elections are not really a thing anyways. If you truly support democracy, the last thing you would do is to try to influence the policies of another people. That would be robbing them of their self-determinacy, even if it is to prevent them from robbing themselves of it.
  - dwoozle 7y ago
    LOL what a riot. Support Chinese people by letting them dictate what Americans do? Fuck that, we should have squashed this government like a cockroach 50 years ago. Now that we fucked that up and fed them an entire manufacturing sector we need to deal with the evil superpower we created.
    - dang 7y ago
      Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Comments like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222450 are not cool here, regardless of how right you are or feel. I'm sure you can express your substantive points thoughtfully, so please take the spirit of the site to heart and do. We'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ekianjo 7y ago
  That goes both ways. If Apple don't make iPhones in China then chinese workers in these factories have nothing to work on, because nothing sells like Apple products. Apple is just being weak.
  - psv1 7y ago
    Strongly authoritarian regimes can (and already do) easily give up a lot of the well being and livelihood of their citizens. It's not even remotely close to a symmetric dependency, market forces simply don't apply the same way to China as they apply to Apple or to the US in general. Which is another reason why getting into an already pointless trade war is such a bad idea.
- summerlight 7y ago
  Yeah, this is true. Apple is now desperately trying to reduce the dependency on China, but this will take at least several years which is more than enough to damage its reputation. Building supply chain that spans over an entire country is still a non-trivial problem even though Samsung did most of the hard works for Apple. And worse, even this is still a very optimistic projection given that it might be impossible at all. Samsung was lucky in that they were still producing majority of their semiconductors in South Korea, of course, which makes them still important enough to China. I don't know if Apple holds any thing comparable as a negotiation card.
- Uhuhreally 7y ago
  can't believe Apple can't do its own manufacturing in USA or Europe
newscracker 7y ago
> “Given how authentically good Apple is at protecting user privacy, it's very dismaying to see it doing the wrong thing in other areas, especially its relationship with the [Chinese Communist Party],” one former Apple employee told BuzzFeed News. Apple seriously needs to stop knee jerk reactions and pause to think about the values its been trumpeting. Its actions seem to portray a company that will say things that are favorable to it in the market. I don’t believe that to be the case in every instance with Apple, but soon these actions will drown out the positives it has done on its own initiative. The sooner Apple moves manufacturing out of China, the better for it and others. There are many other markets it can make money in.
- mb_72 7y ago
  I'm not sure it's realistic for many or any countries to move manufacturing out of China. Say assembly is moved out of China, they still need to source the parts, and how far do you go with this? To the point where Apple is making, in their own factories, every resistor, capacitor, logic IC, ribbon connector, PCB etc? This would seem to require a reversal of the changes in manufacturing that have occurred over recent decades in a much shorter period of time. I am no fan of China - in the news recently a couple of our politicians have been called out as having a 'cold war mentality' just because they pointed out there differences between Australian and Chinese values - but I have to keep using Apple devices to develop and support software for clients. Likewise, I bet no matter what Apple does there will be others who stick with them as a matter of commercial reality. 'Commercial reality' has been and will continue to be China's way to be a mandatory part of world events.
  - newscracker 7y ago
    I agree with your points, but relying too much on one country or one supplier is actually not Apple’s style or preference. Now this large reliance on China seems to be restricting it in ways that aren’t what any company would choose. Samsung recently stopped manufacturing in China, though it still has a small market share there and will continue to sell its devices there. When it comes to shifting manufacturing, it seems like the main lower cost choices are “worse” and “less worse”. The less worse choices may be other countries in Asia, each with its own drawbacks and baggage, like Vietnam, India, etc.
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praptak 7y ago
This makes me want to anger China. What would be the best way to go about it for an individual person?
- mikelyons 7y ago
  Be elected president, and then figure this out on your own?
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  This makes me want to anger China. Remember media like Buzzfeed wants you to be enraged, it keeps you coming back for more.
  - deleted 7y ago
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- noah-kun 7y ago
  Let's see, you could colonize their country, cut off trade or place tariffs on their goods. You could fight wars with their poorer neighbours. You could place your aircraft carriers in nearby waters (if you don't have a carrier already, highly recommend purchasing one for intimidating nations worldwide). Or try anger them by derailing full passenger trains in Hong Kong and spray painting Pepe the frog everywhere. Don't have time? Just send $29 million to Hong Kong to finance terrorism and propaganda there. In all of the above, someone has already beat you to it. You want to anger a country that is already under siege from terrorism, yet not angry enough to still want peace and trade with everyone. Making them angry might actually be quite hard. And I'm not sure I want to see them angry, because they would win a war of attrition if it came down to it. A Buzzfeed article about a media company executive's business plan and content strategy made you angry, though. So angry you wanted to strike back--not at Apple or their executives--but at China, who are victims of Trump's trade war and growing hostile presence around it's land and sea borders. I watched a Chinese film. A character, meek but incredible at mathematics and game theory, is lured into a game of life and death. He and some peers devise and plan to survive the game together, but he's betrayed and awaits execution while his friends survive off the game elements they shared (imagine casino chips or something). He manages to buy back into the game and then uses his strategic skills to save those who tried to have him killed so they could take their shared money. The film ends with the protagonist saying, "Maybe everyone only cares about themselves. But even if it seems crazy, I will help people no matter what. That's just how I am. Crazy." You go ahead and try take some revenge on China because of Apple executives. For me, I'd rather consider the Chinese values revealed in that film, and in the actions and achievements of the nation over the past decades. Misplaced pettiness I do not see among them.
noah-kun 7y ago
American films often use military assets and personal, and give the military final cut on the films. They follow rules set by the navy, Air Force, etc to portray their personnel and decision making in a certain, glorifying way. This program has been rampant in US film, but it's arguably increased in it's offerings to film makers; more money, more sets, more extras--and more demands. Film franchises work with U.S. forces to produce recruitment material using the film's IP, story, actors and brand. Black Mirror, from memory, season 3 episode 5(?), a soldier fights a non-human enemy that is simply hiding from them. [Spoiler ahead] Turns out, military manipulation of the soldier's brain causes him to see non-humans where there are actually helpless humans. Independence Day 2 lent their story, one of fighting alien invasion, to US armed forces recruitment videos. Actors gave mock interviews about their brave children who fought the aliens, and viewers were encouraged to join the REAL armed forces to be like the fictional ones fighting the fictional enemy. This scratches the surface of what I mean to compare Cook's alleged requests to. Apple, without military money, asked writers to be sensitive of another nation. Their motive: a wider audience and more subscribers and customers. Heinous and selfish--sure, why not--but a far cry from recruiting folks to dump napalm on villages or use Iraqi farmers as target practice. As a freaking media company, producers and other executives ask for content and define the market in which they want to address. It sounds like that's all Apple's really done. And if they've actually made an effort to curb US propaganda about China, then, even better. But I think it's more about expanding to a very promising market.
- codesushi42 7y ago
  Independence Day 2 lent their story, one of fighting alien invasion, to US armed forces recruitment videos. Actors gave mock interviews about their brave children who fought the aliens, and viewers were encouraged to join the REAL armed forces to be like the fictional ones fighting the fictional enemy. And if they've actually made an effort to curb US propaganda about China, then, even better Your entire post is fake news, and sounds like CCP propaganda.
  - izacus 7y ago
    Except that it's all true - Captain Marvel is for example the new example of US Air force using a hollywood movie to drive their recruitment. (It's kinda funny really - in the movie the hero returns to earth disgusted because she had to help with operations colonising neutral worlds. And then joins the Air Force.)
gigatexal 7y ago
Every world power worth the title forces trading partners to treat it like a delicate flower or otherwise lose the opportunity to trade and even though the US is the current largest economy in the world China is on track to surpass it so US companies have almost no choice but to appease the heavy-handed Chinese government.
- deleted 7y ago
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- throw_m239339 7y ago
  > Every world power worth the title forces trading partners to treat it like a delicate flower or otherwise lose the opportunity to trade and even though the US is the current largest economy in the world China is on track to surpass it so US companies have almost no choice but to appease the heavy-handed Chinese government. Yes, but what China does is go one step further by making extremely clear that Western corporations who want to do business with China don't disparage the Chinese government publicly, don't talk about Tibet, don't call Taiwan a free country... And every company has the choice, it's just that they chose to abide by Chinese rules, that's all. I mean the bill always comes due, always. For 30+ years the west has depended on China to produce consumer grade products such has high tech, toys, and what not, looking the other way when it comes to human rights, and now people are complaining that a bloody dictatorship behaves like one? When trade agreements were signed, why did no other world power imposed ethical conditions on China? Because building our stuff in a bloody dictatorship to drive down cost is what all the west wanted, that's all. It's a bit easy to wake up 30+ years later and act all surprised that there are political consequences to this. Look at Hollywood, the biggest propaganda tool in the world, bending over backward not to offend China because of their cinema market. All these "actors/activists" so vocal about everything, you never hear them talking about China curiously, That's the bill I was talking about earlier. Now they work for China.
  - gigatexal 7y ago
    I agree. I want nothing more than to revel in the fact that I can both call Trump a pumpkin idiot and President Xi a dictator that looks like Winnie the Pooh. (Don’t even get me started on Taiwan or Hong Kong — none of my stances would be appreciated by the Party) But I’m not trying to sell Trump fans or supporters of President Xi goods and or services. I don’t envy Tim Cook and his role as leader of Apple, beholden to Wall Street pundits always seeking growth, and yet espousing safety and privacy for all on its platform and yet caving to the Chinese government. That said who knows if the claims made in Tim’s email about harm coming to Chinese police from the app or attacks on citizens not sympathetic to the HK protests — there’s so much misinformation out there and it’s in China’s best interest to spin things.
ngcc_hk 7y ago
As said hk is the frontier. You can’t fight the dragon who has such a large market and production empire. You can’t. We know. We fight still. Not because we see hope. But we fight may be we can have hope. Or our kids. Or our grand. Or at least we can tell them we do not run like our father and grands. We stay and fight.
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hhtoyou 7y ago
they should not anger the android users too ! they are also humans !
Razengan 7y ago
This whole situation is depressing. Here's a list of companies that have bent over for Chinese censorship requests: https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina You can add any others that you know of. This is what it must have felt like for a sane person watching the Nazis coming into power.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  I think you should sort them according to importance or categorize them. Otherwise seeing a too long list may lead to outrage fatigue.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  > This is what it must have felt like for a sane person watching the Nazis coming into power. Hannah Arendt described it well in an interview, and it also sheds light on contemporary mental gymnastics, especially on HN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoImQfVsO4&t=31m44s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoImQfVsO4&t=31m44s
anon9001 7y ago
Why is this such a big deal? If companies can buy product placements in TV shows, I don't see why China can't buy censorship. Apple, the NBA, Google, and Blizzard are all trying to make money. Somehow shilling for Pepsi is widely accepted, but shilling for China is too far?
- alt_f4 7y ago
  It's the whole selling of a sugary drink vs selling the oppression of a billion people.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    Both seem bad. Isn't the thing to be offended about that you're consuming media that you think is an artistic work, but it's got some propaganda mixed in with it? If you're doing business with Pepsi and your workers are publicly trashing Pepsi, it makes sense that you'd put a stop to it. That's what Apple (and the rest) are doing with China.
    - austhrow743 7y ago
      >Isn't the thing to be offended about that you're consuming media that you think is an artistic work, but it's got some propaganda mixed in with it? No the thing to be offended about is genocide. Art can go fuck itself compared to that. No offence to art or dislike for it.
      - anon9001 7y ago
        What genocide? This whole thing boiled over due to a proposed law to allow extradition of HK residents to China, which is bad, but it's not genocide.
        austhrow743 7y ago
        The Uyghurs. HK is getting most of the China attention lately but right before that it was all directly about the Uyghurs. HK gets more attention because they have more ability to broadcast their struggle. Videos of people fighting police are more entertaining than satellite photos of bland looking buildings. That China is forcing abortions and harvesting organs from people in concentration camps is what gives the HK and global business capitulation stories their edge though. A country slightly reducing the independence of one of its cities isn't all that big of a deal, unless that country is evil incarnate. Businesses working within the framework set by, and cooperating with, the governments they are working under isn't a big deal, unless that government is evil incarnate. It turns those things in to the equivalent of Poland being swallowed up by WW2 Germany and allied countries fueling the German war machine. Yes I am making a Nazi reference, of which I consider the CCP to be within the ballpark of.
golemiprague 7y ago
I don't mind what apple or blizzard or the NBA are doing to appease china in order to make money, it is their prerogative. But I will ask them to shut up with their preaching about Trump or diversity or inclusiveness or BLM or all this bullshit they try to preach to us, you are not above us, at least we are not hypocrites
Reason077 7y ago
I see lots of trailers for upcoming Apple TV+ shows that look vaguely interesting, but then I remind myself that it’s Apple and they’d never risk doing anything even remotely edgy, racy, subversive or controversial. Don’t want to risk offending someone and harming the brand and it’s squeaky-clean, inoffensive values!
- jasonvorhe 7y ago
  Why would they? Not everything has to be any of these things. Sometimes you can just produce decent entertainment and that's fine, as long as you don't claim to be breaking new ground.
  - AdrianB1 7y ago
    If you don't dream of a world full of lobotomized people to enjoy completely bland and inoffensive "entertainment", you need these things. Ostrich tactics don't make good products.
- Simon_says 7y ago
  They shouldn’t even be in the content creation business. But shareholders demand their 10% growth every year. iTunes was great, but can you imagine Apple-made music?
  - amadeuspagel 7y ago
    It's interesting that shareholders are now blamed for demanding growth, when typically they're blamed for demanding stock buybacks.
    - sudhirj 7y ago
      Isn’t it the same thing? Growth in share price, not necessarily in revenue or profit. https://youtu.be/ylLTMYt24lA https://youtu.be/ylLTMYt24lA
  - layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
caublestone 7y ago
Why does the culture that becomes outraged by offending people’s identity also become outraged by China being offended?
NicoJuicy 7y ago
So, Apple has become China's bitch or was it already? Thanks for increasing the influence of authoritarian regimes in our Western world. Last time I checked, freedom of speech is a human right. Thanks for not defending it. With a gay ceo on top ( with all respect, it means they should better respect/understand Western values and freedom than other companies), these actions make clear that privacy and security are not on top of apple's list as they claim. It's profits and nothing else. They just pack innovation to have another POV and privacy and security was the easy tactic. Screw you, crApple.
- deltron3030 7y ago
  Is Cook actually gay or is it just a marketing trick too?
  - tooltalk 7y ago
    most likely a feel-good marketing gimmick to sell mo' Apple products. Tim Apple was once upon a time marketed as a "supply-chain genius," but there is no reason to believe that either.
    - droopyEyelids 7y ago
      Honestly, I would LOVE to hear Tim Cook give his honest assessment of why staying 100% reliant on China was the correct supply chain move for a company with one hundred billion in cash reserves. It seems unfathomable to me, a person who doesn't know much about supply chains etc
wildchild 7y ago
Corporation of the faggots.
rosege 7y ago
"anyone who would betray their ideals just to make money in China isn't worth a lick of spit." - Stan South Park
- capableweb 7y ago
  How is Apple betraying their ideals here? The entire point of Apple as a for-profit company is to earn a profit. They are doing what they are saying is the most important for them. Big surprise? Seems many Americans think that companies somehow have to have a moral or something. The explicit purpose of setting up a for-profit company is to make it explicit that the company is out after earning a profit. If there is a choice between two options, and one will lead to less profit, the choice is obvious to them. If you think Apple is "for encryption" because they are just the good guys, you're missing the picture of why a company exists in the first place.
  - sambull 7y ago
    This explains Standard Oil and Ford during WWII pretty well. They provided material support to the Nazis. It was just profit. The war worked out well for some of those who supported it. But unlike this the people like Ford were fighting for their aryan ideals.
    - capableweb 7y ago
      Feels like you're implying that this is not true anymore for modern for-profit companies? If I misread what you wrote, I'm sorry.
  - Swenrekcah 7y ago
    If you are content with letting any company or executive off the hook with everything because “the purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value” then you have given up on democratic society.
    - capableweb 7y ago
      I'm not content with that, but people seems to have the wrong expectations about what a for-profit is all about. Of course, there are ways to get profit that are illegal, but agreeing to self-censor (or be censored) by states is up to the companies. If it gives them more money, you can't be shocked when they chose that way. I would only put trust in organizations who are not for-profit companies if it's for important things. I couldn't care less about food-delivery services for middle-class and above, but for hospitals, prisons, water, electricity and so on, you can't have (well, you can [look at the US], but usually doesn't turn out great for the people, only the stakeholders) for-profit companies running them as the incentives are all misaligned.
exabrial 7y ago
Apple: We're totally LGBTQ friendly! Also Apple: We make all of our products in a country that brutally oppresses these people!
- tachyonbeam 7y ago
  I got the impression Chinese people didn't really have as much of an issue with LGBTQ people as other cultures, because they don't have as much religious hangups as people from a christian background. Is that inaccurate? I know the Chinese government suppresses speech it doesn't like, but is it actively doing things against LGBTQ people? Honest question.
  - justin66 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_China
  - chibg10 7y ago
    I don’t think the government has shown it has a position on the issue really. China is not a gay-friendly place though — gays often hide their homosexuality from their parents and parents often insist “it’s a choice.” The younger generations are more accepting though (although still not nearly as much as in the West). But I think this is more due China’s level of development than it is to the CCP.
notadoc 7y ago
Remember when the US entertainment industry was considered part of American soft power? I guess that is now Chinese soft power?
thesquib 7y ago
1. American companies: don't piss off China. 2. American companies: make more money than ever before from China. 3. China now controls those companies even without holding majority shares. 4. ...
thesquib 7y ago
Apple used to say "Think Different" - perhaps allowing individuality and creativity. Overwhelmingly, it now feels like they want us all to think in the same Apple ordained way.
foogazi 7y ago
What I don’t understand is how the US accepts doing business with China, allowing tourist and student visas for a country that can just block US companies from doing business there without due process The moment the CCP tried to influence a US company the US should have responded in kind - open the market or face tariffs
- pas 7y ago
  Exactly. Some people probably knew well before 2012, but since the publication of Why Nations Fail it should be more common knowledge that doing business with an extractive political system makes very little difference in their chance of becoming inclusive. (A better economy does not translate into better politics.) It's upon other political systems to ratchet open these totalitarianist systems.

440 points by jmsflknr 7y ago

Apple are beholden to China. Sure, China is a huge market for them but I think the bigger issue is manufacturing: if they piss China off they won’t have anything to sell, anywhere! I’m sure Apple execs know this and I hope they’re quickly planning to reduce, if not remove this dependency.

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imjasonmiller 7y ago
I thought Apple was in the process of moving some of its production to India?
- rudiv 7y ago
  That's only for products being sold in India, to avoid import taxes. And of course, it's only products from more than a couple generations ago, e.g. the iPhone SE, the 6S. I think the newest phone they're planning to manufacture in India is the 8.
  - wingspar 7y ago
    As of Dec 2018, they were reported to begin building ‘high end’ phones in India this year. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-india-exclusive-idUSKCN1OQ0M6 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-india-exclusive-idU... Granted, it’s small production numbers, but have to start somewhere.
jjeaff 7y ago
It's mind boggling to me that Apple has become so big, and a huge majority of their revenue is still coming from outsourced products.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Why? Until Trump was elected, which none of the elite class in the US thought was remotely possible, a massive trade war with China was on nobody’s radar.
Teever 7y ago
Can I ask you why you have this particular hope? Is it because you are a user of apple products and hope that you will continue to do so in the future because you are dependent on them? Is it because you believe that apple is a good company and you hope for the best for them? Why should we hope for the best for a company that has made hundreds of billions off of offshoring jobs to an authoritarian country with little regard for investing in manufacturing in America? The way I see it is that if China decides to squeeze Apple by restricting their production it will be a fair comeuppance for a company that has seen fit to extract billions in wealth from developers through their app store and has sought to turn their commodity hardware into status symbols to extract even more wealth from middle class people who want to feel like they're more than middle class. If the executives at Apple had any foresight and any interest beyond self interest they would have encouraged domestic production a decade or more ago. Instead we have a situation where people are crying for poor Apple, a company who that has more money than god and who could have used that to create their own supply chain domestically which would have had tremendous benefits for America and the American people. Instead they have chose to consort and ultimately enable an authoritarian country into a situation where they now pose a legitimate threat both militarily and culturally to America, the albeit flawed but last best hope for freedom in the world. Think different indeed.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  It's pointless expecting corporations do make those sort of sacrifices, it would be economic suicide.
  - vharuck 7y ago
    If a company chooses to heavily invest in a nation with limited freedoms, the suicide started when the decision was made. Not when the consequences start to hurt.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      Yep, the idea that companies should be given a free pass to act with utter amorality because they put themselves in a situation where they are obliged to do so is ridiculous.
raverbashing 7y ago
This is a bit of a lesson of what happens when your focus on the price tag only. Sure, I want my products to be cheap, but there might be some hidden costs that will eventually show up at a very inconvenient time. Sure, Apple can do CKD assembly of their products everywhere, the manufacture of custom parts is the tricky part.
chrischen 7y ago
Chinese people are also beholden to China (the government). It may be a political game to you, but trying to destabilize the government would have serious consequences to the livelihoods of the people there, just because some policies (that don’t affect you) don’t agree with your world view. Even though there are kinks in their regime, for the most part they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty. Imagine if the U.S. had a massive foreign power prodding it during the early years of slavery, manifest destiny (the justification for eradicating the Native Americans), racism, drug war, Vietnam, and mass incarceration. Yes, they have a big brother-style regime, but they are also capable of sorting out their own political issues. And if not, they’ll reap the consequences without you having to do it form them. If you really believe in democracy, then trying to influence their politics from afar is ultimately going to be far-less democratic than they influencing their own politics. I understand they don't have directly elections or a multi-party system, but that does not mean there is not opinion sharing in policy decisions, or intra-party elections. In a representative form of government direct-elections are not really a thing anyways. If you truly support democracy, the last thing you would do is to try to influence the policies of another people. That would be robbing them of their self-determinacy, even if it is to prevent them from robbing themselves of it.
- dwoozle 7y ago
  LOL what a riot. Support Chinese people by letting them dictate what Americans do? Fuck that, we should have squashed this government like a cockroach 50 years ago. Now that we fucked that up and fed them an entire manufacturing sector we need to deal with the evil superpower we created.
  - dang 7y ago
    Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Comments like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222450 are not cool here, regardless of how right you are or feel. I'm sure you can express your substantive points thoughtfully, so please take the spirit of the site to heart and do. We'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ekianjo 7y ago
That goes both ways. If Apple don't make iPhones in China then chinese workers in these factories have nothing to work on, because nothing sells like Apple products. Apple is just being weak.
- psv1 7y ago
  Strongly authoritarian regimes can (and already do) easily give up a lot of the well being and livelihood of their citizens. It's not even remotely close to a symmetric dependency, market forces simply don't apply the same way to China as they apply to Apple or to the US in general. Which is another reason why getting into an already pointless trade war is such a bad idea.
summerlight 7y ago
Yeah, this is true. Apple is now desperately trying to reduce the dependency on China, but this will take at least several years which is more than enough to damage its reputation. Building supply chain that spans over an entire country is still a non-trivial problem even though Samsung did most of the hard works for Apple. And worse, even this is still a very optimistic projection given that it might be impossible at all. Samsung was lucky in that they were still producing majority of their semiconductors in South Korea, of course, which makes them still important enough to China. I don't know if Apple holds any thing comparable as a negotiation card.
Uhuhreally 7y ago
can't believe Apple can't do its own manufacturing in USA or Europe

newscracker 7y ago

> “Given how authentically good Apple is at protecting user privacy, it's very dismaying to see it doing the wrong thing in other areas, especially its relationship with the [Chinese Communist Party],” one former Apple employee told BuzzFeed News. Apple seriously needs to stop knee jerk reactions and pause to think about the values its been trumpeting. Its actions seem to portray a company that will say things that are favorable to it in the market. I don’t believe that to be the case in every instance with Apple, but soon these actions will drown out the positives it has done on its own initiative. The sooner Apple moves manufacturing out of China, the better for it and others. There are many other markets it can make money in.

mb_72 7y ago
I'm not sure it's realistic for many or any countries to move manufacturing out of China. Say assembly is moved out of China, they still need to source the parts, and how far do you go with this? To the point where Apple is making, in their own factories, every resistor, capacitor, logic IC, ribbon connector, PCB etc? This would seem to require a reversal of the changes in manufacturing that have occurred over recent decades in a much shorter period of time. I am no fan of China - in the news recently a couple of our politicians have been called out as having a 'cold war mentality' just because they pointed out there differences between Australian and Chinese values - but I have to keep using Apple devices to develop and support software for clients. Likewise, I bet no matter what Apple does there will be others who stick with them as a matter of commercial reality. 'Commercial reality' has been and will continue to be China's way to be a mandatory part of world events.
- newscracker 7y ago
  I agree with your points, but relying too much on one country or one supplier is actually not Apple’s style or preference. Now this large reliance on China seems to be restricting it in ways that aren’t what any company would choose. Samsung recently stopped manufacturing in China, though it still has a small market share there and will continue to sell its devices there. When it comes to shifting manufacturing, it seems like the main lower cost choices are “worse” and “less worse”. The less worse choices may be other countries in Asia, each with its own drawbacks and baggage, like Vietnam, India, etc.

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praptak 7y ago

This makes me want to anger China. What would be the best way to go about it for an individual person?

mikelyons 7y ago
Be elected president, and then figure this out on your own?
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
This makes me want to anger China. Remember media like Buzzfeed wants you to be enraged, it keeps you coming back for more.
- deleted 7y ago
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noah-kun 7y ago
Let's see, you could colonize their country, cut off trade or place tariffs on their goods. You could fight wars with their poorer neighbours. You could place your aircraft carriers in nearby waters (if you don't have a carrier already, highly recommend purchasing one for intimidating nations worldwide). Or try anger them by derailing full passenger trains in Hong Kong and spray painting Pepe the frog everywhere. Don't have time? Just send $29 million to Hong Kong to finance terrorism and propaganda there. In all of the above, someone has already beat you to it. You want to anger a country that is already under siege from terrorism, yet not angry enough to still want peace and trade with everyone. Making them angry might actually be quite hard. And I'm not sure I want to see them angry, because they would win a war of attrition if it came down to it. A Buzzfeed article about a media company executive's business plan and content strategy made you angry, though. So angry you wanted to strike back--not at Apple or their executives--but at China, who are victims of Trump's trade war and growing hostile presence around it's land and sea borders. I watched a Chinese film. A character, meek but incredible at mathematics and game theory, is lured into a game of life and death. He and some peers devise and plan to survive the game together, but he's betrayed and awaits execution while his friends survive off the game elements they shared (imagine casino chips or something). He manages to buy back into the game and then uses his strategic skills to save those who tried to have him killed so they could take their shared money. The film ends with the protagonist saying, "Maybe everyone only cares about themselves. But even if it seems crazy, I will help people no matter what. That's just how I am. Crazy." You go ahead and try take some revenge on China because of Apple executives. For me, I'd rather consider the Chinese values revealed in that film, and in the actions and achievements of the nation over the past decades. Misplaced pettiness I do not see among them.

noah-kun 7y ago

American films often use military assets and personal, and give the military final cut on the films. They follow rules set by the navy, Air Force, etc to portray their personnel and decision making in a certain, glorifying way. This program has been rampant in US film, but it's arguably increased in it's offerings to film makers; more money, more sets, more extras--and more demands. Film franchises work with U.S. forces to produce recruitment material using the film's IP, story, actors and brand. Black Mirror, from memory, season 3 episode 5(?), a soldier fights a non-human enemy that is simply hiding from them. [Spoiler ahead] Turns out, military manipulation of the soldier's brain causes him to see non-humans where there are actually helpless humans. Independence Day 2 lent their story, one of fighting alien invasion, to US armed forces recruitment videos. Actors gave mock interviews about their brave children who fought the aliens, and viewers were encouraged to join the REAL armed forces to be like the fictional ones fighting the fictional enemy. This scratches the surface of what I mean to compare Cook's alleged requests to. Apple, without military money, asked writers to be sensitive of another nation. Their motive: a wider audience and more subscribers and customers. Heinous and selfish--sure, why not--but a far cry from recruiting folks to dump napalm on villages or use Iraqi farmers as target practice. As a freaking media company, producers and other executives ask for content and define the market in which they want to address. It sounds like that's all Apple's really done. And if they've actually made an effort to curb US propaganda about China, then, even better. But I think it's more about expanding to a very promising market.

codesushi42 7y ago
Independence Day 2 lent their story, one of fighting alien invasion, to US armed forces recruitment videos. Actors gave mock interviews about their brave children who fought the aliens, and viewers were encouraged to join the REAL armed forces to be like the fictional ones fighting the fictional enemy. And if they've actually made an effort to curb US propaganda about China, then, even better Your entire post is fake news, and sounds like CCP propaganda.
- izacus 7y ago
  Except that it's all true - Captain Marvel is for example the new example of US Air force using a hollywood movie to drive their recruitment. (It's kinda funny really - in the movie the hero returns to earth disgusted because she had to help with operations colonising neutral worlds. And then joins the Air Force.)

gigatexal 7y ago

Every world power worth the title forces trading partners to treat it like a delicate flower or otherwise lose the opportunity to trade and even though the US is the current largest economy in the world China is on track to surpass it so US companies have almost no choice but to appease the heavy-handed Chinese government.

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throw_m239339 7y ago
> Every world power worth the title forces trading partners to treat it like a delicate flower or otherwise lose the opportunity to trade and even though the US is the current largest economy in the world China is on track to surpass it so US companies have almost no choice but to appease the heavy-handed Chinese government. Yes, but what China does is go one step further by making extremely clear that Western corporations who want to do business with China don't disparage the Chinese government publicly, don't talk about Tibet, don't call Taiwan a free country... And every company has the choice, it's just that they chose to abide by Chinese rules, that's all. I mean the bill always comes due, always. For 30+ years the west has depended on China to produce consumer grade products such has high tech, toys, and what not, looking the other way when it comes to human rights, and now people are complaining that a bloody dictatorship behaves like one? When trade agreements were signed, why did no other world power imposed ethical conditions on China? Because building our stuff in a bloody dictatorship to drive down cost is what all the west wanted, that's all. It's a bit easy to wake up 30+ years later and act all surprised that there are political consequences to this. Look at Hollywood, the biggest propaganda tool in the world, bending over backward not to offend China because of their cinema market. All these "actors/activists" so vocal about everything, you never hear them talking about China curiously, That's the bill I was talking about earlier. Now they work for China.
- gigatexal 7y ago
  I agree. I want nothing more than to revel in the fact that I can both call Trump a pumpkin idiot and President Xi a dictator that looks like Winnie the Pooh. (Don’t even get me started on Taiwan or Hong Kong — none of my stances would be appreciated by the Party) But I’m not trying to sell Trump fans or supporters of President Xi goods and or services. I don’t envy Tim Cook and his role as leader of Apple, beholden to Wall Street pundits always seeking growth, and yet espousing safety and privacy for all on its platform and yet caving to the Chinese government. That said who knows if the claims made in Tim’s email about harm coming to Chinese police from the app or attacks on citizens not sympathetic to the HK protests — there’s so much misinformation out there and it’s in China’s best interest to spin things.

ngcc_hk 7y ago

As said hk is the frontier. You can’t fight the dragon who has such a large market and production empire. You can’t. We know. We fight still. Not because we see hope. But we fight may be we can have hope. Or our kids. Or our grand. Or at least we can tell them we do not run like our father and grands. We stay and fight.

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hhtoyou 7y ago

they should not anger the android users too ! they are also humans !

Razengan 7y ago

This whole situation is depressing. Here's a list of companies that have bent over for Chinese censorship requests: https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina You can add any others that you know of. This is what it must have felt like for a sane person watching the Nazis coming into power.

im3w1l 7y ago
I think you should sort them according to importance or categorize them. Otherwise seeing a too long list may lead to outrage fatigue.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
> This is what it must have felt like for a sane person watching the Nazis coming into power. Hannah Arendt described it well in an interview, and it also sheds light on contemporary mental gymnastics, especially on HN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoImQfVsO4&t=31m44s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoImQfVsO4&t=31m44s

anon9001 7y ago

Why is this such a big deal? If companies can buy product placements in TV shows, I don't see why China can't buy censorship. Apple, the NBA, Google, and Blizzard are all trying to make money. Somehow shilling for Pepsi is widely accepted, but shilling for China is too far?

alt_f4 7y ago
It's the whole selling of a sugary drink vs selling the oppression of a billion people.
- anon9001 7y ago
  Both seem bad. Isn't the thing to be offended about that you're consuming media that you think is an artistic work, but it's got some propaganda mixed in with it? If you're doing business with Pepsi and your workers are publicly trashing Pepsi, it makes sense that you'd put a stop to it. That's what Apple (and the rest) are doing with China.
  - austhrow743 7y ago
    >Isn't the thing to be offended about that you're consuming media that you think is an artistic work, but it's got some propaganda mixed in with it? No the thing to be offended about is genocide. Art can go fuck itself compared to that. No offence to art or dislike for it.
    - anon9001 7y ago
      What genocide? This whole thing boiled over due to a proposed law to allow extradition of HK residents to China, which is bad, but it's not genocide.
      - austhrow743 7y ago
        The Uyghurs. HK is getting most of the China attention lately but right before that it was all directly about the Uyghurs. HK gets more attention because they have more ability to broadcast their struggle. Videos of people fighting police are more entertaining than satellite photos of bland looking buildings. That China is forcing abortions and harvesting organs from people in concentration camps is what gives the HK and global business capitulation stories their edge though. A country slightly reducing the independence of one of its cities isn't all that big of a deal, unless that country is evil incarnate. Businesses working within the framework set by, and cooperating with, the governments they are working under isn't a big deal, unless that government is evil incarnate. It turns those things in to the equivalent of Poland being swallowed up by WW2 Germany and allied countries fueling the German war machine. Yes I am making a Nazi reference, of which I consider the CCP to be within the ballpark of.

golemiprague 7y ago

I don't mind what apple or blizzard or the NBA are doing to appease china in order to make money, it is their prerogative. But I will ask them to shut up with their preaching about Trump or diversity or inclusiveness or BLM or all this bullshit they try to preach to us, you are not above us, at least we are not hypocrites

Reason077 7y ago

I see lots of trailers for upcoming Apple TV+ shows that look vaguely interesting, but then I remind myself that it’s Apple and they’d never risk doing anything even remotely edgy, racy, subversive or controversial. Don’t want to risk offending someone and harming the brand and it’s squeaky-clean, inoffensive values!

jasonvorhe 7y ago
Why would they? Not everything has to be any of these things. Sometimes you can just produce decent entertainment and that's fine, as long as you don't claim to be breaking new ground.
- AdrianB1 7y ago
  If you don't dream of a world full of lobotomized people to enjoy completely bland and inoffensive "entertainment", you need these things. Ostrich tactics don't make good products.
Simon_says 7y ago
They shouldn’t even be in the content creation business. But shareholders demand their 10% growth every year. iTunes was great, but can you imagine Apple-made music?
- amadeuspagel 7y ago
  It's interesting that shareholders are now blamed for demanding growth, when typically they're blamed for demanding stock buybacks.
  - sudhirj 7y ago
    Isn’t it the same thing? Growth in share price, not necessarily in revenue or profit. https://youtu.be/ylLTMYt24lA https://youtu.be/ylLTMYt24lA
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago

caublestone 7y ago

Why does the culture that becomes outraged by offending people’s identity also become outraged by China being offended?

NicoJuicy 7y ago

So, Apple has become China's bitch or was it already? Thanks for increasing the influence of authoritarian regimes in our Western world. Last time I checked, freedom of speech is a human right. Thanks for not defending it. With a gay ceo on top ( with all respect, it means they should better respect/understand Western values and freedom than other companies), these actions make clear that privacy and security are not on top of apple's list as they claim. It's profits and nothing else. They just pack innovation to have another POV and privacy and security was the easy tactic. Screw you, crApple.

deltron3030 7y ago
Is Cook actually gay or is it just a marketing trick too?
- tooltalk 7y ago
  most likely a feel-good marketing gimmick to sell mo' Apple products. Tim Apple was once upon a time marketed as a "supply-chain genius," but there is no reason to believe that either.
  - droopyEyelids 7y ago
    Honestly, I would LOVE to hear Tim Cook give his honest assessment of why staying 100% reliant on China was the correct supply chain move for a company with one hundred billion in cash reserves. It seems unfathomable to me, a person who doesn't know much about supply chains etc

wildchild 7y ago

Corporation of the faggots.

rosege 7y ago

"anyone who would betray their ideals just to make money in China isn't worth a lick of spit." - Stan South Park

capableweb 7y ago
How is Apple betraying their ideals here? The entire point of Apple as a for-profit company is to earn a profit. They are doing what they are saying is the most important for them. Big surprise? Seems many Americans think that companies somehow have to have a moral or something. The explicit purpose of setting up a for-profit company is to make it explicit that the company is out after earning a profit. If there is a choice between two options, and one will lead to less profit, the choice is obvious to them. If you think Apple is "for encryption" because they are just the good guys, you're missing the picture of why a company exists in the first place.
- sambull 7y ago
  This explains Standard Oil and Ford during WWII pretty well. They provided material support to the Nazis. It was just profit. The war worked out well for some of those who supported it. But unlike this the people like Ford were fighting for their aryan ideals.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    Feels like you're implying that this is not true anymore for modern for-profit companies? If I misread what you wrote, I'm sorry.
- Swenrekcah 7y ago
  If you are content with letting any company or executive off the hook with everything because “the purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value” then you have given up on democratic society.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    I'm not content with that, but people seems to have the wrong expectations about what a for-profit is all about. Of course, there are ways to get profit that are illegal, but agreeing to self-censor (or be censored) by states is up to the companies. If it gives them more money, you can't be shocked when they chose that way. I would only put trust in organizations who are not for-profit companies if it's for important things. I couldn't care less about food-delivery services for middle-class and above, but for hospitals, prisons, water, electricity and so on, you can't have (well, you can [look at the US], but usually doesn't turn out great for the people, only the stakeholders) for-profit companies running them as the incentives are all misaligned.

exabrial 7y ago

Apple: We're totally LGBTQ friendly! Also Apple: We make all of our products in a country that brutally oppresses these people!

tachyonbeam 7y ago
I got the impression Chinese people didn't really have as much of an issue with LGBTQ people as other cultures, because they don't have as much religious hangups as people from a christian background. Is that inaccurate? I know the Chinese government suppresses speech it doesn't like, but is it actively doing things against LGBTQ people? Honest question.
- justin66 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_China
- chibg10 7y ago
  I don’t think the government has shown it has a position on the issue really. China is not a gay-friendly place though — gays often hide their homosexuality from their parents and parents often insist “it’s a choice.” The younger generations are more accepting though (although still not nearly as much as in the West). But I think this is more due China’s level of development than it is to the CCP.

notadoc 7y ago

Remember when the US entertainment industry was considered part of American soft power? I guess that is now Chinese soft power?

thesquib 7y ago

1. American companies: don't piss off China. 2. American companies: make more money than ever before from China. 3. China now controls those companies even without holding majority shares. 4. ...

thesquib 7y ago

Apple used to say "Think Different" - perhaps allowing individuality and creativity. Overwhelmingly, it now feels like they want us all to think in the same Apple ordained way.

foogazi 7y ago

What I don’t understand is how the US accepts doing business with China, allowing tourist and student visas for a country that can just block US companies from doing business there without due process The moment the CCP tried to influence a US company the US should have responded in kind - open the market or face tariffs

pas 7y ago
Exactly. Some people probably knew well before 2012, but since the publication of Why Nations Fail it should be more common knowledge that doing business with an extractive political system makes very little difference in their chance of becoming inclusive. (A better economy does not translate into better politics.) It's upon other political systems to ratchet open these totalitarianist systems.