5 ms·

> totally excluding China from any and all international trade I don't have an opinion whether this is the right thing to do or not. But regardless of my opin

> totally excluding China from any and all international trade I don't have an opinion whether this is the right thing to do or not. But regardless of my opinion, how does not hiring chinese citizens help with that? This just sounds like harassing chinese people because of their government. If you really wanted to change something, hiring chinese people and showing them what the western world is like would be the best thing to do. Harassing chinese people because of their government, and at the same time buying all the stuff their factories produce, sounds like the most idiotic course of action if you want to change the status quo.

XuMiao 7y ago
Good comment. A truly ideological person with high moral ground should help instead of blame. Media's double standard is a deal with evil.
mschuster91 7y ago
> If you really wanted to change something, hiring chinese people and showing them what the western world is like would be the best thing to do. The Western world has tried this and ended up with Chinese students harrassing and intimidating pro-Hongkong protestors. This path has failed.
- yorwba 7y ago
  > This path has failed. Has it? Not convincing 100% of Chinese students is not automatically a failure. What about Chinese pro-Hongkong protestors?
poutrathor 7y ago
> Harassing Harassing : the action of subjecting someone to aggressive pressure or intimidation. Where do you see any harassment ? Gitlab has no Chinese or Russian employee so far -> so nobody got pressure or intimidate, ffs. China is harassing the rest of the world. China is systematically spying with state wide support. China is bullying with military, economic or soft power. China is a threat. * Recently, in France, concerns were raised by the intelligence community about the outsized number of young Chinese students flirting / marrying with military & defence engineers. You don't even need to spy, really, just marrying people to stop any aggressive ideas toward China spreading. I mean, you would not push to war against your wife's birth place where you are now visiting every year, right ? * Apple spotted 2 cases, how many are missed ? https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203718/apple-self-driving-trade-secrets-china-titan https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203718/apple-self-drivi... * Lol, there is a whole wikipedia page on the topic, just for the USA : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_Unite... * In the European Union, they buy big companies from small countries to get leverage on EU decision making process. https://www.ft.com/content/d7145792-4743-11e9-b168-96a37d002cd3 https://www.ft.com/content/d7145792-4743-11e9-b168-96a37d002... Gitlab is simply pragmatic and clear-minded, their teams works in transparency and trust, they can't handle potential threats without a deep rework. I think it's much more than just having permissions baked in their systems, it's the whole defence industries layering that they would need to acquire. Western players are now actively reducing their Chinese exposure (buying less critical stuff from their factories, cf. Huawei's affairs, moving factories to others countries). I am afraid it's too little too late. While western people, and even more highly educated western people, have low levels of nationalism, Chinese people are brain-washed into thinking it's the best country in the world, best ever. Helping China is very important and their authorities have lots of leeway to push this. Currently using Gitlab, I am glad they are aware of the issue and of their limited capacity to stop it from inside. Putting the fox in charge of the hen house, am I right ? > if you really wanted to change something : It's not West mission to bring democracy in China, it's not our country, they are grown up already and will keep finding their own way. It's typically USA ego to think the whole world must be awoken to USA values. The rest of the world is fine, thank you very much. We witness South America's fate in the XX century and Middle East's fate in the XXI. China just want western technology : buying, trading or spying it. The most idiotic course of action has been followed already by moving the whole factories chains to China and thinking we could keep the knowledge here while it is applied there.
- amzin 7y ago
  > Gitlab has no Chinese or Russian employee so far -> so nobody got pressure or intimidate, ffs. Actually, they do have employees there. There are at least 5 Russians and 1 Chinese listed here: https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ There are no Russians at the role that had been debated though.
anilakar 7y ago
If you are a citizen of a state that is known to coerce its people to work for it, you are not an individual, you're a state-level actor. If you are known to directly or indirectly provide assets to a government and said assets are a critical part of the infrastructure, you're responsible for the safety of the government in your dealings. An American company refusing to recruit people from China is just the US government refusing to hire the Chinese government to run the country, not companies discriminating against individuals. This holds true even if you swap the states in the previous sentence. For the record, I'm not a citizen of either of the aforementioned countries but my home country has a similar relation with its neighbor.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  > If you are a citizen of a state that is known to coerce its people to work for it, you are not an individual, you're a state-level actor. You are putting collective blame on a billion people for the actions of their dictatorial government. This is not a reasonable position to hold in a supposedly enlightened society, it is rather just a thinly veiled excuse for run-of-the-mill xenophobia.
  - eastendguy 7y ago
    Nobody blames anyone here. The point is that anyone who lives (or has family) in a dictatorship can be easily blackmailed by its own state, with no legal recourse.

XuMiao 7y ago

Good comment. A truly ideological person with high moral ground should help instead of blame. Media's double standard is a deal with evil.

mschuster91 7y ago

> If you really wanted to change something, hiring chinese people and showing them what the western world is like would be the best thing to do. The Western world has tried this and ended up with Chinese students harrassing and intimidating pro-Hongkong protestors. This path has failed.

yorwba 7y ago
> This path has failed. Has it? Not convincing 100% of Chinese students is not automatically a failure. What about Chinese pro-Hongkong protestors?

poutrathor 7y ago

> Harassing Harassing : the action of subjecting someone to aggressive pressure or intimidation. Where do you see any harassment ? Gitlab has no Chinese or Russian employee so far -> so nobody got pressure or intimidate, ffs. China is harassing the rest of the world. China is systematically spying with state wide support. China is bullying with military, economic or soft power. China is a threat. * Recently, in France, concerns were raised by the intelligence community about the outsized number of young Chinese students flirting / marrying with military & defence engineers. You don't even need to spy, really, just marrying people to stop any aggressive ideas toward China spreading. I mean, you would not push to war against your wife's birth place where you are now visiting every year, right ? * Apple spotted 2 cases, how many are missed ? https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203718/apple-self-driving-trade-secrets-china-titan https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203718/apple-self-drivi... * Lol, there is a whole wikipedia page on the topic, just for the USA : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_Unite... * In the European Union, they buy big companies from small countries to get leverage on EU decision making process. https://www.ft.com/content/d7145792-4743-11e9-b168-96a37d002cd3 https://www.ft.com/content/d7145792-4743-11e9-b168-96a37d002... Gitlab is simply pragmatic and clear-minded, their teams works in transparency and trust, they can't handle potential threats without a deep rework. I think it's much more than just having permissions baked in their systems, it's the whole defence industries layering that they would need to acquire. Western players are now actively reducing their Chinese exposure (buying less critical stuff from their factories, cf. Huawei's affairs, moving factories to others countries). I am afraid it's too little too late. While western people, and even more highly educated western people, have low levels of nationalism, Chinese people are brain-washed into thinking it's the best country in the world, best ever. Helping China is very important and their authorities have lots of leeway to push this. Currently using Gitlab, I am glad they are aware of the issue and of their limited capacity to stop it from inside. Putting the fox in charge of the hen house, am I right ? > if you really wanted to change something : It's not West mission to bring democracy in China, it's not our country, they are grown up already and will keep finding their own way. It's typically USA ego to think the whole world must be awoken to USA values. The rest of the world is fine, thank you very much. We witness South America's fate in the XX century and Middle East's fate in the XXI. China just want western technology : buying, trading or spying it. The most idiotic course of action has been followed already by moving the whole factories chains to China and thinking we could keep the knowledge here while it is applied there.

amzin 7y ago
> Gitlab has no Chinese or Russian employee so far -> so nobody got pressure or intimidate, ffs. Actually, they do have employees there. There are at least 5 Russians and 1 Chinese listed here: https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ There are no Russians at the role that had been debated though.

anilakar 7y ago

If you are a citizen of a state that is known to coerce its people to work for it, you are not an individual, you're a state-level actor. If you are known to directly or indirectly provide assets to a government and said assets are a critical part of the infrastructure, you're responsible for the safety of the government in your dealings. An American company refusing to recruit people from China is just the US government refusing to hire the Chinese government to run the country, not companies discriminating against individuals. This holds true even if you swap the states in the previous sentence. For the record, I'm not a citizen of either of the aforementioned countries but my home country has a similar relation with its neighbor.

jakobegger 7y ago
> If you are a citizen of a state that is known to coerce its people to work for it, you are not an individual, you're a state-level actor. You are putting collective blame on a billion people for the actions of their dictatorial government. This is not a reasonable position to hold in a supposedly enlightened society, it is rather just a thinly veiled excuse for run-of-the-mill xenophobia.
- eastendguy 7y ago
  Nobody blames anyone here. The point is that anyone who lives (or has family) in a dictatorship can be easily blackmailed by its own state, with no legal recourse.