23 ms·

China

• mc32 7y ago
  >”It’s economically productive for the 1% to maintain a trade relationship with China. The financial incentives don’t help any Americans, and in fact, most of us are hurt by this relationship...” So true, since its inception with GHW, its execution and realization through Clinton and then once fully engaged the timid, supplicant responses from GW and BO, China has contributed to the stagnation of the blue collar worker on America with the full complicity of Democrats, Republicans and most of Industry and even unions who didn’t oppose their cozy politicians. They all only saw starry dollar signs... That’s where we are now. People have had enough. That’s why they put up with the guy no one likes because he’s willing to sever that codependent relationship. Now, if you ask any pol running for the nomination who the greatest threat to America is... it’s not going to be China...
  • christophilus 7y ago
    This upcoming presidential election is definitely more interesting due to this issue. My brother is a staunch Democrat, but he's made it clear that he's not voting for them if they put someone up who's soft on China. I suspect he'd be voting 3rd party in that scenario.
    • rapsey 7y ago
      I don’t think it will be all that interesting. Trump has it in the bag.
      • polymatter 7y ago
        so did Hilary
    • lazaruzatgmail 7y ago
      which means he is voting to keep the incumbent in This is a binary choice dem or repub any other choice is a vote for the incumbent
      • cheonic728 7y ago
        Trump 2020 Los Angeles
      • siffland 7y ago
        I have someone I work with who quite literally mocks people for voting for a 3rd party and actually tries to "shame" them for it, usually using a line like "which means he is voting to keep the incumbent in" (usually with more colorful words about the incumbent and the voter). Voting 3rd party exercises your right to say you don't like either of the other 2 candidates. I will not argue which candidate it will help, but i think this line of thinking is detrimental to our voting process and wrong to rub in peoples faces.
        • mc32 7y ago
          Yup. Votes are earned, they are not owed anyone. You want my vote? Earn it.
        • threatofrain 7y ago
          Can’t you both be right at the same time? Going all in for poker may be interpreted as an exercise of my human rights, but it can also be interpreted as giving all my money to the chip lead. Of course I don’t wish to argue the efficacy of my poker moves. They are an expression of my free spirit.
        • Analemma_ 7y ago
          > Voting 3rd party exercises your right to say you don't like either of the other 2 candidates You can say whatever you want, but no one is listening. Voter turnout is so low that the signal of voting 3rd-party is completely lost in the noise of passive non-voting. 3rd-party votes might feel good, but pragmatically (and what is voting except a pragmatic attempt to advance your preferred policy), they are useless. I encourage everyone on this comment chain to read Clay Shirky's "There is no such thing as a protest vote" [0], and really take it seriously, instead of jumping to thought-terminating cliches by angrily denouncing him as a sheep or whatever. He's right. [0]: https://medium.com/@cshirky/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-protest-vote-c2fdacabd704 https://medium.com/@cshirky/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-protes...
  • gbear605 7y ago
    It’s one of the only issues I agree on with the current president. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem willing to actually be effective, and he doesn’t seem to care about the actual human rights issues. I’m hopeful that he might be willing to get things done though.
    • spamizbad 7y ago
      I’m genuinely shocked Trump hasn’t capitalized more on the HK situation. It would have been perfect for him to, at the very least, get some major concessions from China. Instead, we’ve been ones suffering.
  • kick 7y ago
    The guy "no one likes" isn't innocent of China-worship. Guiltier than most. On Jinping: "He is a great leader who very much has the respect of his people. He is also a good man in a 'tough business.'" Misrepresenting him as "willing to sever that codependent relationship" is harmful. He's just as complicit if not more than most politicians, and most of his actions involving China have been inconsistent and self-serving.
    • mc32 7y ago
      He’s prone to this honne tatemae and it’s hard to know his actual take. I think he’s like a used car salesman who uses and throws whatever cheap trick he has to try to get his way...
      • CharlesColeman 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae > In Japan, honne are a person's true feelings and desires (本音 hon'ne, "true sound"), and tatemae are the behavior and opinions one displays in public (建前 tatemae, "built in front", "façade").
    • metalchianti 7y ago
      Despite his praise of Xi (IMO it's just part of Trump's "style" of negotiating), he's willingly initiated a trade war. I think that's a good indicator that he's willing to at least threaten decoupling. Trump has taken this much farther than any preceding US president.
    • cabaalis 7y ago
      > and most of his actions involving China have been inconsistent and self-serving. I think what we're seeing is a president who is at odds with the intelligence and diplomatic communities. It's truly testing the ideas of who's actually in charge. The president assumes since he was elected and runs the executive branch that he has the final say on what will be done, and will go "off-script" in direct communications with other leaders to forward his agenda. The diplomats/intelligence have long-established precedents and procedures and want everyone, including the president, to not rock their boat. When they are unable to work together, you will see these inconsistent decisions being made.
  • koube 7y ago
    The article focuses on human rights abuses which I think is a cogent criticism of China-US trade. On the economics issue though, readers should know he disagrees with economists, who nearly universally agree that trade with China benefits Americans as a whole, with the caveat that there are concentrated losses in certain populations. Economists are highly certain on this, with uncharacteristically few people responding "uncertain" on the survey [0]. You can go through the other surveys on the IGM Forum to see what more common distributions looks like. [0] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/china-us-trade http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/china-us-trade
    • keiferski 7y ago
      I’m not sure these economists have spent time in the Rust Belt, then. Entire cities were economically destroyed from the offshoring of jobs to China and other low-cost areas.
      • kick 7y ago
        Modern economists are completely out-of-line with reality on many things, "life outside of George Mason University" being one of them. Pick your flavor of elitist sub/urbanism, it doesn't matter, none are substantially different. (HN's poor Markdown formatter transfers asterisks cross-paragraph, so what was originally "George Mason University (asterisk)" and "(asterisk)Pick your flavor" just made everything between italicized.)
        • erik_seaberg 7y ago
          No markdown, just https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc.
      • Aunche 7y ago
        It's not just China. It started with Japan, and even without China, it will continue in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and eventually it will be replaced by automation.
  • codingslave 7y ago
    I am still shocked by how many people do not give Trump credit for putting China on the political issue radar. Both sides of the aisle were destroying the American economy and middle class, and literally no one was talking about it. The guy has issues, and even if he fails in his endeavors, he brought trade and immigration into the national conversation. For all we know, he saved the USA
    • jjoonathan 7y ago
      You aren't the only one who feels that way.
      • johndevor 7y ago
        He definitely isn't.
    • kick 7y ago
      https://www.google.com/search?q=before%3A2016%20china%20human%20rights%20abuses https://www.google.com/search?q=before%3A2016%20china%20huma...
    • spamizbad 7y ago
      Because despite his bluster he’s been completely ineffective. Talk is cheap. Execution matters.
      • codingslave 7y ago
        Talk isnt cheap when politicians wont even speak about real issues in the country
    • throwaway34241 7y ago
      Because automation is an even bigger factor in the decline of manufacturing jobs than China. Because focusing on China specifically will not lead to outsourced jobs coming back to the US when there are many, many other countries with cheap labor (many cheaper than China at this point). Because even if you banned foreign trade altogether, automation would probably happen 10x faster since then the incentives would be so high. Because manufacturing has many steps, and sometimes the US is in the middle (buy steel from China, make motorcycle, sell to Europe) and lack of access to trade can put these jobs in jeopardy. Because even if by some miracle all these issues disappear, manufacturing is a small percent of employment so you don't fix the problems for the rest of the middle/lower class. Because the expenses that are killing us (housing, health care, education) aren't outsourced at all. As far as I can tell (and according to most economists), the idea that "we can fix the middle class by going after China trade" is intuitive, simple, and wrong. And it's popular on both sides of the aisle. And historically, it's always been easier to find some group to blame than to fix structural economic issues. So I think the further we go along this path, the less likely it is we will end up fixing our actual problems, and the more likely countries will be distracted by trade wars and maybe real wars in various parts of the world as those problems increase, and various groups are blamed instead of fixing economic policy. This is separate from the human rights issues. But I think if we want to put penalties to try to address the human rights issues, we should be clear about that. Because if the penalty is for other political reasons it doesn't add an incentive to improve human rights, since that wouldn't make the penalty go away.
  • swlkr 7y ago
    I know this wasn't intended but I thought it was interesting that he doesn't think of the 1% as Americans.
    • Lammy 7y ago
      The 1% are above any state. They will align with any state that gives them favorable tax loopholes. If America clamps down they will just leave. Look at Eduardo Saverin for example.
      • CharlesColeman 7y ago
        > The 1% are above any state. They will align with any state that gives them favorable tax loopholes. If America clamps down they will just leave. Look at Eduardo Saverin for example. The ability for an individual to choose their favored tax jurisdiction is an artifact of law, and laws can be changed. If America decides to clamp down on the 1%, it can also create laws to disincentivize leaving for tax reasons, like Saverin did.
      • GhettoMaestro 7y ago
        Technicality: You're not referring to the 1%, but something like the .01% or even .001%. The difference between 1% and .01% income is staggering.
      • cobookman 7y ago
        I think you mean .01%. The 1% maybe have 1-10million of savings.
        • swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
          And likely invest in assets that can't be moved to foreign soil.
    • kick 7y ago
      They aren't, generally. Given the condition of the lowest of our nation, "traitors" isn't an unreasonable way to describe the 1%, and no one in the 1% has ever seen a firing squad or the electric chair. Not even lethal injection. If they aren't subject to the same rules as Americans, are they really Americans? If they have a higher amount of wealth than sovereign countries, can they be considered anything but sovereign?
  • Barrin92 7y ago
    most of the job losses of blue-collar work are the result of automation, not foreign trade (this is a statement for which ample evidence exists[1]), furthermore on the aggregate Americans do benefit from trade with not just China but also other low-cost nations, which again is economics 101. If the United States were to produce goods at the level of domestic wages a small segment of the workforce would benefit, but consumers on average would lose out due to the increase in price. The price for an iPhone could go from ~850$ to ~2000$[2]. Now imagine that this happens for every good that is produced largely in China and think again if bringing back a few ten thousand jobs is worth the total loss of consumer welfare in the states. Also, it goes without saying of course that it would also hurt the Chinese workers who are equally deserving of good employment as their American counterparts, and it's not clear why discounting their welfare is anything other than tribalism. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs... [2]https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/how-much-would-an-all-american-iphone-cost-two-reports-say-2000/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/how-much-would-an-all-america...
    • remarkEon 7y ago
      >increase in price I, and I’m sure many many others, would be willing to pay a little more if I know that money is staying here and supporting families in this country. I can do without more plastic crap from China, and I consider it strategically important that high tech manufacturing comes back to the US. For defense reasons, among others. I’m sure someone will link the Wikipedia page with some neat plots from “economics 101”, which is fine. But some things are worth paying a little more for.
      • Barrin92 7y ago
        Well you may be fine if you have a lot of disposable income, but many poor Americans will not. Which is of course the opposite story that the OP tried to tell. If you are a minimum wage US worker paying hundreds of dollars more for basic goods is a drastic cut into your quality of life. This mercantilism on display here will be extremely harmful to people in America who rely on low cost imported goods just for the sake of predominantly wealthy people attempting to play geopolitics. If you're willing to harm poor Americans and cut trade then please state it like this, don't wrap it up in patriotism. And to expand on the 'jobs coming back'. Given the high production costs that American companies would have to live with would instantly make their products unattractive in the rest of the world, where people are still going to buy Chinese phones. Giving companies like Apple an incentive to drastically increase the pace of automation, which again is the primary eliminator of jobs. And even worse, unless you put a tariff on Samsung who will still produce in countries with access to cheap labour, american products will be uncompetitive in their own markets. If you do eliminate competition, the incentive to innovate will vanish. This in fact already happened in the US in the 80s, when the Reagan administration engaged in a trade-war with the Japanese to protect the automotor industry. We all know what this did to the american car market as a result.
  • claudeganon 7y ago
    The destruction of much of the working class industrial base also provides the opportunity to shift them into a right wing alliance with the ruling class through scapegoating. And because of both their location (the industrial Midwest) and undemocratic structures like the electoral college, allows the ruling class to maintain a tight grip on executive branch power.
  • hammock 7y ago
    >Now, if you ask any pol running for the nomination who the greatest threat to America is... it’s not going to be China... Well, that's not exactly true. There is at least one person who ran his campaign saying exactly that- China was America's greatest threat... He's "the guy nobody likes"... he is the current President!
  • poulsbohemian 7y ago
    I don't disagree with anything you are saying regarding the culpability of American politicians, but this common narrative overlooks the role of unadulterated greed on the part of American corporations. BigCo saw a billion person market. They saw cheap labor and a Wild West of regulations, especially environmental. Nevermind that they had to form joint ventures and expose their IP, it would be worth it. I saw an article earlier this year - think it was in the NYT - making the statement that now the US understood that the Chinese never had any intention of letting US companies gain a foothold in their domestic market - well duh! It was clear as day twenty+ years ago to anybody paying attention. It wasn't the Chinese that did this to the American worker and consumer, it was our own corporations with the full support of politicians. The current buffoon political administration has identified a surface problem, but not the causes and certainly not a solution. The only solution I see comes in two parts: 1) The world needs to make China persona non grata. 2) Shareholders and corporate boards need to hold corporations accountable, not just on a moral basis, but also in terms of good business. Foreign companies cannot win there because the playing field isn't fair. Thus, while yes we need politicians who can defend American interests, we also need to hold their corporate masters accountable.
  • jmartrican 7y ago
    I think with every president there r good things and bad things they do. Would like to just say that in the good category of our current president is their stance on China. Finally someone standing up and saying no more. I have not decided who to vote for in the next election but this issue will be one of the main ones I will be looking at.
  • toraobo 7y ago
    > It’s economically productive for the 1% to maintain a trade relationship with China. This leading argument is not specific to China at all and would equally apply to India and most poor countries. Severing trade with all those countries would severely hurt their economies and their citizens. It's the same logic behind "dey terk er jerbs" but somehow made reasonable by throwing accusations of fascism.
  • Aperocky 7y ago
    Speaking as if the jobs of the blue collar workers are going to come back, ever. If China is an ocean instead it’s still gone, forever, either to other cheap country or robots. It’s currently politically convenient to hate China, but quit blaming every woe on China.
  • scarmig 7y ago
    The biggest issue with Trump isn't his domestic policies, which aren't too divorced from typical Republican ones. It's not even his uncouth persona. The biggest issue with him is how he's destroyed our system of alliances, which administrations of both parties have defended and cultivated over decades. See, for instance, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/18/china-signs-defence-agreement-south-korea-us-angers-seoul-demand/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/18/china-signs-defe.... This is disastrous. It's insane that the US is losing South Korea to China, considering we sacrificed tens of thousands of soldiers and considered starting nuclear war to prevent it in the 1950s. And people just shrug, because to the extent people care about politics right now, it's to focus on impeachment hearings, which themselves are happening because Trump blackmailed an important ally. The core foreign policy of whoever is President should be recognizing China as our most formidable strategic competitor and working to maintain and build upon a system of alliances to limit its power and reach. Instead Trump is just a thug trying to shake down our allies for cheap wins and PR releases based on an idiotic understanding of American foreign policy interests.
    • ufmace 7y ago
      > because Trump blackmailed an important ally Allegedly blackmailed, which nobody who was actually involved corroborates, to investigate exactly how it is that Joe Biden's son managed to get a very high-paying make-work job on the board of a Ukrainian oil company, and Joe Biden bragged on videotape about how he did infact blackmail the Ukrainian Government to fire the prosecutor who was investigating that. What we're discovering is not that Trump is that out there. It's that the entire US Government and political elite has been that out there for many years now, and the entire mainstream media conspired to ignore it and cover it up. As they are continuing to do now.
      • mc32 7y ago
        It’s telling that when the establishment agrees with you executive orders and privileges are just that. If they disagree then it’s “it’s your privilege but you’re abusing it”. What seems to be happening is people are losing some of their dirty money connections (like these post term engagements and talk circuits and appointments where you have no expertise, etc and these people are furious and upset. So they are willing to engage in destabilization or at the minimum distractive tactics (collusion didn’t work, let’s try this for that, no, let’s try bribery, if that doesn’t work it’ll be something else). Not to say the current president is a Saint, but it would appear he’s ruffled some important feathers, otherwise they just wait him out.
  • perennate 7y ago
    > Now, if you ask any pol running for the nomination who the greatest threat to America is... it’s not going to be China... Well, they asked a similar question during one of the democratic party debates [1] and some candidates said Trump but others pointed out climate change, Russia meddling in elections, China, etc. But the question was greatest "geopolitical threat" so I guess it's not exactly the same. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/2020-democratic-debate-responses-us-biggest-geopolitical-threat-2019-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/2020-democratic-debate-respo...
• sneilan1 7y ago
  The conversation about China has shifted from being relatively peaceful during the Obama years to war like today. The author of this article doesn’t understand how the presidential bully pulpit slowly changes the national conversation to war. Not to say that China isn’t violating human rights. They are. But we, the Americans, are the ones who started this fight by goading them on. Also: the crux of the argument in this article is “trade is bad for the little guy because our jobs are gone” which is one of the memes our political establishment is using to get us interested in war. Dear author, can you go deeper into why trade is bad for anyone other than the 1%? Something beyond a ramble and some half baked repetitions of what we hear every day?
  • christophilus 7y ago
    > we, the Americans, are the ones who started this fight by goading them on That depends on how you measure it. There's a good case to be made for the thesis that we've been in a trade war ever since opening trade with China, but it's only recently that we've actually started counter-attacking. Also, while it's gained traction recently, the political scientists I know personally have been decrying China's human rights violations for the past 20 years. Some of them were hoping things would improve as trade continued and the Chinese economy forced liberalization on the political sphere. That doesn't seem to be the way things have played out.
  • johndevor 7y ago
    > The conversation about China has shifted from being relatively peaceful during the Obama years to war like today. Just because the fight is now verbalized and on the forefront of the public's mind doesn't mean it wasn't already occurring, just not acknowledged. And I don't see the threat of war as being a serious one, given the nuclear deterrents of both sides.
    • hdkrgr 7y ago
      Absolutely agree. Also, as a European, I can tell you that this perceived escalation is not an American phenomenon based on Donald's rhethoric. It's based in increasing perception of Chinese misdeeds in the West and around the world. And it's real in actual escalation of what China is doing. In 2015, during the umbrella movement, there was discontent in Hong Kong over the taken-away promise of near-future free elections in 2017. In 2019 Hongkongers have their rights taken away NOW and are affected NOW. In 2019 we have a fairly accurate picture of what's going on in Xinjiang. The list could go on...
• simlevesque 7y ago
  Drew is a smart guy. It's cool that we get to hear his geopolitical views. I knew he had some when I saw his name in the Patreon of Caspian Report. edit: DDOS on sr.ht starts in 3... 2... 1...
• pjc50 7y ago
  There are a lot of jobs dependent on trade with China (our company was affected by the Huawei ban, for example), and the fantasy that you can just cut-over to US manufacturing without huge transition job losses is unrealistic. And if the US wants to get serious about the use of trade sanctions against human rights violations, there are a lot of places closer to home that it could look at. Not to mention the laws against boycotting a certain country for its human rights violations. There's also the fantasy of assuming that China's next move after the trade sanctions would be a de-escalation. There's a lot of escalation opportunities for them. Like Taiwan. (Let's be clear, this is not an apology for the human rights violations by China, which are very real especially in Xinjiang; what I am asking for is the same to be applied consistently and not driven by straightforward nationalism)
  • icelancer 7y ago
    >> There are a lot of jobs dependent on trade with China (our company was affected by the Huawei ban, for example), and the fantasy that you can just cut-over to US manufacturing without huge transition job losses is unrealistic. Completely agree. I very much empathize with the author and this issue is the only one where I feel some sort of connection with the current POTUS, but the engineering-at-scale capacities in the United States pale in comparison to China for a variety of reasons - some due to a cheaper labor force and more "flexible" labor laws, and some simply due to culture. We do not have this capacity now and it is dubious that we can build it quickly without serious governmental subsidies and efforts not seen since World War 2. I'm personally good with the change, but it will cost billions if not trillions of dollars in lost productivity and marginal costs over the next decade or two, and this is not something to handwave away.
    • sct202 7y ago
      There are a hundred million+ factory workers in China producing products at massive scale for the world. Scaling up enough equipment, robots, and skilled workers in America to do even a fraction of that work is going to be a huge undertaking.
  • jeffdavis 7y ago
• maximente 7y ago
  i applaud your willingness to publish this content under your real name, and also understand your real name is closely associated with your software service. i understand that gives you a certain amount of power that other employees, say of Apple, may not have. kudos to you for using it fruitfully - sincerely. i am sure this will come across as tin foily, but i would advise you to monitor your digital assets and maybe even personal ones for probing/attack/etc. you're publishing an anti-CCP piece on a widely trafficked web property and are easily identifiable. you are making an enemy of a powerful adversary. appreciate the piece and best of luck.
  • ddevault 7y ago
    Author here. Thank you for your earnest concern. I'm a pretty risk-averse person and I take lots of pains to address those contingencies for all of my digital services.
    • Vysero 7y ago
      I agree with you and imagine many others do as well. I think you are right it's about time I draw a line in my own personal life as well. No more Chinese manufactured goods for me. In fact, I think I will go ahead and get rid of what I currently own.
      • rlue 7y ago
        People suggest this a lot, but I don't think it does the trick. Some merchant bought a bunch of inventory from a Chinese factory, then tried to sell it to you, and you didn't buy it. When they get tired of holding onto it, they'll sell it at deep discount and eat the loss, then try to make up the loss on another product (and politically indifferent consumers will happily swoop in for a good deal). Meanwhile, China is laughing all the way to the bank. If you really care, reach out directly to the merchants you buy from. Tell them you used to be a loyal customer, but you won't buy from them again until they stop carrying products made in China. Get your friends and coworkers to do the same, and keep the pressure on. If they go for it, follow through by rewarding them with your loyalty, and broadcast that win as publicly as possible. Talk about it, hashtag it, whatever. Organize. Changing individual consumption habits rarely amounts to much more than virtue signalling. And don't toss your existing stuff. You already paid for it, so it's not helping China anymore, and throwing it away doesn't hurt them. If anything, selling it to someone else reduces demand for new products (by exactly 1 unit).
• mdorazio 7y ago
  The problem is that doing what the author proposes and severing trade relations entirely would be extremely harmful to the 99% of Americans in the short term. Prices for virtually everything would skyrocket far faster than wages. And they would do so for everyone, not just blue collar workers. In the long term things might be better, but it would be a lot more painful to get there than I think most Americans are prepared to stomach. Personally, my thoughts are in line with the author’s, but realistically we need to be looking at unified trade sanctions on key goods and potentially clamping down on foreign investment in both directions.
  • Invictus0 7y ago
    The tariffs are working; companies are thinking about China as a problem and how to minimize their reliance on China in case of disaster. Supply chains are moving out of China and into Taiwan and Vietnam and the Philippines. This is happening slowly but also smoothly. Let's keep raising the tariffs and let companies know the planned tariffs schedule for several years in advance. When companies understand that they need to get out of China or lose their competitive edge, only then will we start to see a mass exodus from Chinese manufacturing.
  • esotericn 7y ago
    If you treat the cost of consumer goods in isolation as the only thing that matters in the economy, sure. People who are gainfully employed do not have a problem with the cost of general goods like food and electronics; this stuff is cheap. The problem (not only in the US) for most is under/unemployment and the cost of housing. Because the jobs have been shipped offshore.
    • zip1234 7y ago
      The cost of housing is a complicated matter but is mostly not due to jobs going elsewhere. Single family zoning and 'never change' rules in home owners associations and cities are some of the biggest drivers of housing prices.
  • nfoz 7y ago
    Well I'm somewhere in that 99% of Americans, and I can tell you that "what keeps prices low for me" is very far from the top of my list of priorities. People have values and principles, that are important to us.
• kp98 7y ago
  This post talks a lot about the Nazi party and its parallels to the CCP, but it really only talks about a couple things so I figure I'd write a list of how I think about it to see where other people think differently: Nazis - tight control over information, propaganda, and news CCP - even tighter control over information through technology Nazis - serious degradation in rule of law across the nation CCP - lacks legal arbitration (ie. 99% conviction rate) Nazis - had an army solely devoted to the party and not the German people CCP - the PLA is beholden to the CCP and none else Nazis - outlawed all parties except the Nazi party CCP - no other parties exist in China Nazis - did not prioritize the individual, prioritized the 1000 year reich CCP - has no care for individuals, but is focused on the CCP's long term vision at any cost Nazis - at first territorial ambitions to land it believed was their right CCP - territorial ambitions in Hong Kong and Taiwan Nazis - worked hard to build its military to compete & dominate globally CCP - boosted spending on military 20% last year Nazis - significant belief of exceptionalism with strong nationalist undertones CCP - a lot of nationalism coming from the top & propaganda arms ie global times Nazis - secret police ie Gestapo CCP - similar tactics to secret police ie interrogating or detaining reporters, insurgents, and stories of people disappearing Nazis - fought against religiosity of its people CCP - ethnically cleansed certain minority groups while closing monitoring others Differing Nazis - serious degree of racism CCP - small degree of racism (ie Han vs minorities) Nazis - severe punishment and brutally violent tactics ie death camps CCP - less severe in terms of execution and punishment ie concentration camps Idk these are just some thoughts off the top of my head. Is this uncalled for invective? I know everything is now compared to Nazis these days, but perhaps it's like the boy who cried wolf and now there's a reason to. Btw I am not trying to compare severity, just some similarities. I realize it's nearly impossible to do something worse than the holocaust, and in many ways I doubt the CCP ever would. Also add to the list if you think of anything to change or add.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• trynewideas 7y ago
  this is certainly one way to inexpensively pentest sr.ht at enterprise scale, and thanks for the heads up
• baron_harkonnen 7y ago
  If I might post an unpopular opinion, and let me assure you I'm not secretly a pro-CCP shill: what's happening HK has much more to do with changing economic realities than it does with an evil agenda from the Chinese government. In 1997 HK had 1/3 of the GDP of mainland China and was the only way for Western companies to interact with China. Today HK has 3% of the GDP of mainland China and a huge part of this is because China has opened its borders to foreign investment. Shenzhen has a thriving economy because if you're a western company and want to do business with China, you can just go there and do business. In the past you would have had to go through Hong Kong to make this happen. The Hong Kong riots were sparked because China wanted to extradite someone who murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan and then went to hide in HK to avoid extradition. If the same thing happened in the united states we would be equally furious. Of course I'm not stupid, I know that this extradition is part of a growing feeling of increasingly powerful influence of China on HK, and I know this because this how independent nations feel when the US similarly puts extradition pressure on other countries. Look what happened with Julian Assange! But the protests in Hong Kong aren't just about some emergent "evil" coming from China. Their part of the economic and social anxiety that comes from having your economic power completely change in the span of 20 years. In America we know power and independence go hand in hand. I'm equally as wary of growing Chinese political power as I am of US Hegemony. But the current strife in Hong Kong is perfect propaganda fuel for both the US and China. Both nations essentially get to stoke the flames of nationalism while HK suffers. I strong encourage people to at least question the prevailing narratives from both sides and start to look at the economic realities of what's happening.
  • honest_tovarich 7y ago
    Exactly, I will also like people to get more familiar with the matter before making an opinion for them self ,but yeah , you pretty much nailed it.
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  • kp98 7y ago
    I heard the economic side of the argument before; I do not believe it entitles China to break the deal it made - the date set was 2047 not 2019
• spectramax 7y ago
  Liberal societies, such as the Bay Area (where I live), it’s impossible to criticize anyone without having the doubt of “offending” someone. When it comes to China, I can’t go out in the lunch room and openly criticize CCP because you know, I could “offend” a Chinese National. This needs to stop. I see this behavior on HN, which is frustrating, counterproductive, anti-free speech and extremely left-winged. Another problem is to try being a moderate in these liberal pockets of America. The moment you pick out a couple of things that I agree about what Trump is doing, I get intense opposition, lose friendships, get judged, etc. The Bay Area, the Silicon Valley, the 3 trillion dollar neighbor of America is a suffocating place for anyone who has dissenting opinion about some liberal concepts. Silicon Valley people think that moderates and right-wing folks hate gays, lgbt community and loves guns, hates China which is far from the truth. Then they feel to justify themselves by overcompensating, supporting China and smearing the truth. Ironically, they make fun of right-wing echo chambers. If your political ideology looks away from objective truth, you need to question it. No matter how “conservative” or “liberal”. This is from my personal experience, your MMV.
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  • geofft 7y ago
    That's surprising, didn't left-leaning employees at Google heavily criticize Dragonfly? Why weren't they worried about offending Chinese nationals?
  • echelon 7y ago
    You're being downvoted for expressing a contrarian viewpoint. This kind of censorship isn't even targeting hate speech, and it drives me crazy. Why downvote them?
    • big_chungus 7y ago
      Because he's criticizing liberals and most people on HN are liberals. Most censorship ("hate speech" included) is code for shutting your political opponents up. HN makes this really easy by making comments hard to read by removing contrast with the background as they get voted down; post something too much against the grain and it'll get flagged and hidden by default. When you hand users the power to shut those with whom they disagree up, it will inevitably be abused.
• honest_tovarich 7y ago
  I lived in China for 5 years, most of the time in Xinjiang, and is sad how the media manipulates people in the west, you clearly have never been in XinJiang or in China at all. You can believe whatever you want and I'm sure most readers here will support you, because like you , they have been deceived. What is happening in Hong Kong is sad, I agree with you there, and something should be done by the US and their allies.But, Uighurs are one of the 56 ethnics groups of China, like Mongolians, Weiwer, ... not a nationality, and not the only Muslim ethnic group, there is no concentration camps or anything like that. Sorry. There are Uighurs terrorists in prison after the bomb car exploded in TianAnMen and the incident in Kunming's train station in 2013, that you probably dont know about, in the same way the US have Iraqis and afghans in Guantanamo... just because..... Good luck with your campaign, I'm sure people with join you and think you are the coolest guy in HN today. But I had to break it up to you... sorry
  • Miner49er 7y ago
    It is whataboutism, but the U.S. is guilty of a lot of similar things that China is, not as bad in most cases, but I think it's fair to compare the Uyghurs to Guantanamo, the way we're treating immigrants at the border, or how discriminatory our justice system is towards black people. We have a higher percentage of people in jail then China by a lot (5x). Many of them are in jail for political/racial reasons (the Drug War, Immigration). We have the NSA spying on all of us. As well as Google, FB, etc. We treat our protestors horribly as well, look at what the FBI did to black rights protesters or look at how the Dakota Access pipeline protesters were treated. Don't get me wrong, I agree with Drew on this article, and I'd support a boycott, but in the words of someone I'm not a fan of: "Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world."
    • fastball 7y ago
      The Drug War is hardly political, and hardline immigration policies are not "racial".
      • Miner49er 7y ago
• jchw 7y ago
  Hey Drew, just wanted to say I couldn’t agree more. I do not know about the US’s domestic manufacturing capabilities, and I don’t think I care, either; this situation is not OK. It probably wasn’t OK for a very long time. Something needs to change. It probably won’t come at a small cost. I’m sure this thread will have a lot of whataboutism. Remember what your parents always told you: two wrongs don’t make a right.
  • ThisIsBrilliant 7y ago
    My parents told me two eyes for an eye.
• sneak 7y ago
  It really surprised me that Google staff went apeshit over Dragonfly, and GitHubbers over the ICE contract, yet Apple rank and file seem relatively content with a special backdoored iCloud service that is used in China, no doubt used daily to target people for human rights abuses via surveillance.
  • Lammy 7y ago
    I think the compartmentalized nature of Apple corporate culture probably influences that. You can’t be upset about a project you don’t know exists.
    • sneak 7y ago
      It’s public knowledge.
  • flyingswift 7y ago
    Same thing could be said for Microsoft, where employees were upset they were providing O365 and Azure to ICE, but there is no similar outrage directed towards the special China cloud they run
    • sneak 7y ago
      Microsoft has always been firmly embedded with human rights abusers and military the world over—there was no departure from the status quo there.
• piinbinary 7y ago
  What can I, as an average Joe living in the US, do to help? Edit: After reading responses, I realize that there is a better question to ask: What people in the US in general do to help (vote a certain way, write to certain politicians, change purchasing habits), and how can I specifically participate in that?
  • mendelmaleh 7y ago
    I would suggest buying more US made products, try to be less dependent on China...
  • kick 7y ago
    You work at a multibillion-dollar company, yet live in a state with an (comparatively) uneducated population. That's far from average. One idea would be to run workshops for children/or families teaching them how to repair their devices, and which devices to get if they want them to last (think upgradability, battery-replacement, similar). If we're wanting to lessen China's power over the working class, making people capable of maintaining electronics in the same way they can maintain cars will go a long way. Bonus points if you teach them how to reinstall operating systems without bricking their systems. Another idea would be to use your programming ability to create software to help people: think getting past censorship, keeping communications secure, similar. China and Hong Kong both are more or less tech wonderlands, solving the UX issues that stop anyone from throwing a single-board computer (think Orange/Raspberry Pi) online and using it to communicate over the open web and store data without fear of it being compromised in some way by doing nothing more than flashing an OS image and booting would mean that almost everyone would gain, but especially people in those countries.
• rado 7y ago
  > Hong Kong is the place where humanity makes its stand against oppressors. Really? I didn’t know protesters targeted the local tycoons who made their lives unbearable in the past 20 years. Not to mention the humanity of laundering money for the worst thugs in the world. Perspective.
  • yorwba 7y ago
    You may have heard reports of vandalism. I'm pretty sure the tycoons weren't too happy about their property getting damaged. They'd probably also like to keep the seats in Election Committee that they'd lose if universal suffrage were instated, but that the CCP has guaranteed them so far. https://www.elections.gov.hk/ecss2016/eng/figures.html https://www.elections.gov.hk/ecss2016/eng/figures.html If you think the protesters support tycoons because they oppose the CCP, you ought to reconsider whether those are really opposites.
    • rado 7y ago
      Yes, this sounds reasonable, unlike the outcry over Communist oppression.
• ilamont 7y ago
  Xi's in a trap. The nationalist fervor that the CCP has whipped up for decades, coupled with the demonization of the HK protestors by Chinese media and Xi's 'no compromise' stance, makes it impossible for him to lighten up -- and the protests to de-escalate -- without him seeming weak. The HK protestors/population at this point are so angry and the radical wing so large, that they won't willingly de-escalate. Even if Lam leaves the demonstrations will continue. This sets up the stage for atrocities and more international condemnation. Already on the international front, China is in trouble. The pro-China KMT party in Taiwan may suffer greatly in the next election because of what's going on in HK now (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3037040/taiwan-2020-election-race-influence-mainland-based-voters-may https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3037040/tai...), making China's aggressive demands for forced unification even more unlikely in the medium term. This week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a HK rights bill (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-usa/us-senate-passes-hk-rights-bill-backing-protesters-angers-beijing-idUSKBN1XT2VR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-usa/us-...) that, if it becomes law, will put China through an annual review, which will further erode the Sino-U.S. relationship for years to come. There have been calls for a boycott of the 2022 Olympics in Beijing which seems fringey now, but won't be if China sends in the troops. There's also the internal question. Ordinary people in China are getting censored news, but some of the raw information about what's going on is getting through via social media. What does this mean for sentiment in Cantonese speaking areas of southern China, or for areas of China where provincial officials are resented for unjust or unfair treatment of citizens?
  • FussyZeus 7y ago
    The Nationalist trap is not isolated to China. Indeed Trump is flirting with the same issues, as is Kim Jong Un, as is Bolsanaro, as is Duterte, as is Erdogan. All over the world strongman nationalists are gaining power and simultaneously dooming us to the conflicts of the older generations. It's depressing as shit that so many countries are regressing right now when we should be more united than ever. China may be the most flagrant (debatable) but they are far from the only instance, and the problems that are haunting Xi now will haunt all of these leaders eventually. Some already are feeling it.
• torgian 7y ago
  All I can say is that I agree with everything in this article.
  • kangnkodos 7y ago
    The article ignores the impact on poor people in the US if trade with China was cut off. In general, poor people would pay more for everything that is currently imported from China. Everyone would pay more, but poor people would be impacted the most. I'm not sure if that's enough to say trade with China is a good thing. But it should turn your idea of a very simple answer into a much more complicated picture.
• spacehunt 7y ago
  As a Hong Konger, thank you for writing this. One nitpick: Hong Kong has its own legal definition of "rioting". It's from the Public Order Ordinance[1], and carries a maximum 10 years jail sentence. The entire law itself is quite draconian and was struck down in the final days of British rule, but was reinstated immediately after the handover. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Ordinance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Ordinance
  • gscott 7y ago
    When China took the book sellers they prosecuted them in China under Chinese laws. It stands to reason China could take and prosecute some "rioters" under Chinese law and Chinese implications. https://qz.com/1110266/two-years-later-the-last-of-the-vanished-hong-kong-booksellers-gui-minhai-has-been-freed-in-china/ https://qz.com/1110266/two-years-later-the-last-of-the-vanis...
    • spacehunt 7y ago
      Of course. But I'm specifically talking about "rioting" as referenced in the Five Demands.
• marcoseliziario 7y ago
  Richard Nixon carries a lot of responsibility for the current situation. He never ever put the human rights issue on the table, he never pressed on the issue, because from the beginning his sole goal was having access to a cheap workforce, and damned the rest. The Communist Party situation at that time rested on the abuse of power. Nixon just strengthened their position by given market access and capital without pressure on the human rights issues. Actually, the cynic in me thinks that this was by design. By reinforcing the power of the communist party, american corporations wouldn't have to worry about the chinese workers fighting for better labor and environmental conditions, thus keeping costs low.
  • friendlybus 7y ago
    They do work together. There is benefit in controlling the growth and rise of the Chinese and american populace. I don't know how you guarantee working conditions for 1 billion people. Just the spread of resources alone gets thin very quickly. Buy giving them the space to rise by selling to the US with subsidized shipping and what else has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, abuses or not. That is a fundamental good assuming it is stable. I think the courageous view is to integrate the cynical view and go one step further.
  • CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > because from the beginning his sole goal was having access to a cheap workforce, and damned the rest. Uh. His goals were to further American interests in Cold War geopolitics and increase his personal stature as a statesman. Friendly American relations with Chinese Communists put more pressure on Soviet Communists. Free trade has nothing to due with it. You're forgetting that Nixon went to China in 1972, but the Chinese economy didn't start opening up until 1978 under Deng (and long after Nixon).
• deweller 7y ago
  I applaud standing up to China's human rights violations. But this post grossly underestimates the short term economic effects that cutting trade ties with China would have. Companies would go bankrupt. It is quite likely that the US and possibly the world would enter a recession or depression. These events will have devastating effects on people around the world far beyond the 1%. We are part of a world economy. We are dependent on China and China is dependent on us. Surely there are better ways to effect change in China than waging economic war. War of any kind will cause suffering.
  • Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
    In 10 or 15 years the the better way to effect change will be armed conflict in addition to economic recession. In another 30 years there will be no way to effect change. The time to act is now.
    • deweller 7y ago
      Sure, let's act. But is cutting trade ties with China the right way to achieve our goals? I disagree with the premise that starting an economic war is the right way to get China to change its policies.
      • rocqua 7y ago
        What are the alternatives of not kinetic or economic? Sanctions of government officials? Cyber warfare?
        • deweller 7y ago
          Maybe not cyber warfare. But perhaps there are ways to give more and better uncensored information to Chinese citizens.
• gregwebs 7y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with the article, I just want to point out that outside of the US others will readily view this line of thought as hypocritical and self-serving. As a US citizen, I try to consider how the rest of the world may view our actions (glass houses and all). Following the logic here it would make sense for the rest of the world to cutoff trade with the United States due to the Iraq war, which has caused many civilian deaths. But if you agree that the rest of the world should have sanctioned the US for the Iraq war (among other things) then there might be a consistency with trying to sanction China.
  • typon 7y ago
    The Iraq war is just one example out of the many atrocities that the US has committed around the world. (as we speak, the US is currently supporting coups in Latin America). So even though the US has absolutely no moral high ground - I still think that it is important for individual Americans to take a stand against atrocities around the world. I don't think we can discredit Drew's post based on the fact that the US government is just as (or more) evil than the Chinese government. I do think that special care needs to be taken to avoid the hypocrisy and call out US atrocities as they happen - but calling out the Chinese crimes is very important in the current global climate.
    • marcosdumay 7y ago
      > the US is currently supporting coups in Latin America Should it support popular coups (that promise elections as soon as they take over) or dictatorships?
  • blfr 7y ago
    > outside of the US others will readily view this line of thought as hypocritical and self-serving Sitting here in a former eastern block country I completely disagree. It is absolutely obvious that communism is by far humanity's greatest moral failure and China just proves it again. United States would need need to start dropping nukes on cities to even approach communism's death toll. A regime change, however misguided, here and there won't be enough for centuries.
  • deleted 7y ago
• bigpumpkin 7y ago
  The key logical fallacy is that by cutting trade with China, the various grievances you list will somehow improve. For example, if we don't trade with China, do you think the recently passed Hong Kong Freedom And Democracy act will have any leverage with the Chinese? They will turn Hong Kong into another city in Guangdong the next day.
• moderngrandma 7y ago
  Thank you for the article. I’ve personally stopped buying Chinese made/owned products due to the HK protests, but it has been extremely difficult to convince friends and families to do the same because I couldn’t properly explain to them why this was such a big issue. Thank you for spending the time to write up this article, and thank you for taking a stand.
• deleted 7y ago
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• AlexanderNull 7y ago
  We're already starting to get a lot of Whataboutism in the comments here. Yes there are other issues in the world, do you really think we're not aware there's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world??? If you're so concerned with those other issues go write your own blog post about your issue and gather supporters on your own.
• davidw 7y ago
  No mention of the TPP? Seems like a pretty big omission, given that it's what smart people were putting together to give us some better leverage against them without "going cold turkey", which would tank the economy in a massive way that would absolutely crush those who are not so well off.
• csomar 7y ago
  > It’s nice to believe that we would have stood up to Nazi Germany if we had been there in the 1940’s. China is our generation’s chance to prove ourselves of that conviction. This, right over here, might explain why Hitler got away with what he did for a long time before the international community decided it's time to do something.
• igammarays 7y ago
  Empires rise and fall, and are replaced by new ones. It's the cycle of life. As much as I would hate to live in a China-dominated global economy, it now seems highly likely to happen within my lifetime. Better learn to live with it, or move to a country which isn't so dependent on the global supply chain by virtue of its Western lifestyle.
  • rocqua 7y ago
    With a concerted effort we could push india into being the next superpower.
• asymmetric 7y ago
  > We talk a big game about fighting against white nationalists in our own country, and pride ourselves on standing up against “fascists”. It’s time we turned attention to the real fascists, on the world stage. Are you implying that domestic fascists are not real fascists? See e.g. [0]. > It’s nice to believe that we would have stood up to Nazi Germany if we had been there in the 1940’s. China is our generation’s chance to prove ourselves of that conviction Is it really useful to compare everything to Nazi Germany? What is the actual connection? Nazism was a very specific phenomenon at a very specific time, I think it does your argument no favors to play the Godwin card[1]. > The people of Hong Kong have been constant allies to the West, and their liberty is at stake. I don't know what this means. The people of Hong Kong have been _colonized_ by the West, among other things. I find it very naïf to talk about "friends of the West" (and consequently, enemies of the West). This is a geopolitical conflict, nobody's "friends". [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomwaffen_Division https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomwaffen_Division [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
• notadamsmith 7y ago
  I'm a Chinese. I admire your courage to post this article. But there's one thing that's fundamentally wrong in your article. Trading with China is, for now, beneficial to EVERYONE, including you, Drew DeVault, and the top 1% richest. Specialization and trading are the fundamental ways to advance the economy. Surely there will be blue collar workers in the US losing their jobs, but that's just how economy goes. We care about individuals, and it's a tragedy that anyone loses job, but looking at the big picture every working individual should be able to learn new skills and ready to move to new industries if the current industry no longer provides enough jobs. When Samsung moved its factories out of China and into Vietnam, lots of Chinese workers lost their jobs. One day if Samsung pulled their factories out of Vietnam and moved to an even cheaper country, workers in Vietnam will lose their jobs too. What should those workers do? Learn new skills and move on to other industries. That's a cold thing to say but that's how the economy works. Workers in country A lose their jobs because of the trading with country B does not mean trading with country B is wrong. If you hate (and you should) what the Chinese government has been doing, the right thing to do is work together to move factories, plants, and companies out of China and to another country, if and only if they can still provide the products/services at the same or even better quality with a lower cost.
  • Vysero 7y ago
    A company is only going to move their production to another country where production is cheaper if they know their consumers will continue consuming despite where said production is taking place. So I disagree, trading with China is NOT beneficial to everyone; we are simply feeding the dragon.
  • kp98 7y ago
    I think it is not about not trading persay - it's about not supporting a totalitarian mercantilist. While we both benefit on paper, the fact that so much of this wealth is concentrated at the top in America slows the velocity of money, and the fact that the Chinese are using it to fuel totalitarian measures compounds the trade deficit to the point where it is no longer simply about money and jobs. Maybe having a gigantic trade deficit is natural and okay, but when it is being used to fund the CCP it is problematic. America may have to take a short term hit, but if it moves its factories out to India, Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, even back to America the marginal loss in wealth due to trade will be outranked by the substantial benefit to society we will get from not fuelling a nation that seeks supremacy at the cost of humanity.
• m_alexgr 7y ago
  Thanks for having the guts to say this. Granted that collectively "the West", those who explicitly or tacitly support the Anglo-American banking cartel, are not without major flaws and human rights abuses as well. But execution of your political opponents to harvest their organs for money? That is above and way, way beyond the pale. We don't need China. Increasing automation, and with other countries picking up the slack, China will become more and more irrelevant. We don't need to support in any way the completely amoral CCP.
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• empy 7y ago
  Free trade only benefits the rich. However, there's no need to cut trade completely, impose higher than 100% tariffs would be a better option.
• hohohmm 7y ago
  Full of bs that rides the trending US narrative on China. How much a self-fulfilling bubble of lies the western propaganda machine has weaved. Reading this article makes me feel like reading a white day dream that totally misses the reality, but checks all the right marks for the crusader mentality. I see how quickly this gets down voted. I guess the media is not to be blamed for fabricating all kinds of lies, for it what does is only a reflection of what the western audience wants to see. The world is dividing just as quickly as the US is dividing internally. I would not doubt the possibility of another cold war, if the US bloc continues down this path by painting rivaling nations with a different ideology as a heretic against US' version of democracy and freedom, as an ultimate evil to be crusaded, its people as mindless zombies brainwashed and eager for a quick dose of freedom drug. After all, the zealous fever commits all the worst atrocities with the most self-righteous goals. History has repeated itself enough times to not see the obvious.
  • ThisIsBrilliant 7y ago
    Winnie the pooh. Tainamen square
    • hohohmm 7y ago
      If there was much sympathy for the students in the Tiananmen square incident, it's now totally wiped clean by the Hong Kong rioting. Use YouTube, it does slightly better than your main stream fake news.
      • jjcc 7y ago
        It was also a big surprise that there's a significant change of the altitude towards Tiananmen Square incident. It's less obvious in the comments on Youtube but more on Chinese social media that are invisible to English readers. No body support killing innocent people but many people think differently than before.
  • bilbo0s 7y ago
    To be fair, Western lies or Chinese lies, it's all the same. A bit disingenuous to only call out the Western lies. What do you think about the Chinese lies? I don't think you're any more honest than the guy who wrote this article. Neither of you are being forthright. Perhaps that's ignorance? Or maybe willful deceit? Either way, you're not to be taken seriously either.
• ThisIsBrilliant 7y ago
  Straight from the heart of a coding nerd and amazingly well written. I had to make an account just for this. It there were pulitzers for blogs, this nameless coder would win it.
• dirtyid 7y ago
  > Hong Kong have been constant allies to the West This is certainly an... interesting assertion. HK is the financial conduit that made Chinese rise possible, and the engine that powers Chinese financial influence abroad. HKers enabled this, not so much the generation that's protesting mind you, but most remotely affluent HK migrant in the past 30 years was the beneficiary to this arrangement. Overall, fairly lazy and unsophisticated, Reddit tier analysis from generic American exceptionalism lens. Just to touch on XinJiang briefly, since people in the west are quick to draw on Godwins law and make ridiculous Nazi + genocide comparisons. The leaked NYT reports confirms if anything that the CPC motivations is consistent with their past claims of de-radicalization and de-secularization. There's no intention to eliminate if only because killing all the Uyghurs means China has to revise 56 minorities into 55, that would look bad on Xi's legacy. What is happening is an extremely immoral and excessive COIN strategy, you know the kind US embarked on post 9/11 that continues to this day. Each using instruments to their strength - US bombs, Chinese infrastructure. At best it would be classified as cultural-genocide, which is basically undefined and unenforceable in UN. The silver lining is that since the motivation is counter-terrorism, there's a chance China will pivot away from the harsh strategies. Mandatory disclaimer that explanation doesn't not mean endorsement. Regardless, it's always a little cringe to see Americans try to play the moral Trump card. Argue security, argue hegemony, argue influence, but don't argue morals like that has any weight anymore. HK rights bill passed on the same day US changed stance on West Bank settlements. Chinese containment is cold geopolitics. The appeal for international condemnation is particularly out of touch. China is a driver for global growth, economically and demographically, most countries including the majority of developed g20 has their future prosperity pegged to China. US is the least trade dependent major economy int he world with enviable geopolitical posturing that enables her to disengage with China on a long enough timeline, no one else has that benefit, and they have even less incentive to as US is becoming increasingly unreliable and withdrawn from the global order that she created. There's a reason why, including US, only 2/5 and 3/195 countries in the world banned Huawei despite years aggressive US posturing. South Korean just signed a defense agreement with China. Being near peer power with US means China is afforded the luxury of getting away with crimes against humanity like the US have. Want the world to shun the future Chinese order? Propose and _demonstrate_ a better one.
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• yorwba 7y ago
  > Note: if you are interested in conducting an independent review of the factuality of the claims expressed in this article, please contact me. Since the author reads HN, I'll assume this comment counts. > The Chief Executive of Hong Kong (Carrie Lam) is elected directly by the mainland Chinese government, and the people have no representation in the election whatsoever. The Chief Executive is elected by the Election Committee. While that includes some members representing China's National People's Congress, the majority is made up of a carefully gerrymandered selection of company representatives and professional associations, similar to the Legislature Council. https://www.elections.gov.hk/ecss2016/eng/figures.html https://www.elections.gov.hk/ecss2016/eng/figures.html Also, if you intend to e.g. prevent Chinese developers from using your products, I'd advise against it. Foreign code hosting platforms are a major way for Chinese developers to organize where they can't be reached by the government.
  • ddevault 7y ago
    Hey yorwba, thanks for the comments. I received similar comments from HKers earlier wrt the Chief Executive office. Minor corrections are on the way out. The changelog for this article is here: https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/drewdevault.com/log/master https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/drewdevault.com/log/master I have no plans to block Chinese citizens from using my services, though I wouldn't be surprised if the great firewall had other plans.
    • gregwebs 7y ago
      I am not trying to troll but genuinely interested in figuring out the boundaries of these proposed boycotts. What is the difference between "accept investments from China" and allowing Chinese citizens to pay for your service? This article does not call on US companies to stop selling to China. There seems to be a baseline assumption that creating (from the US point of view) trade deficit will destroy freedom and that a trade surplus does not. Intuitively it makes some sense, but I think it is good to explicitly discuss this question. It seems like your real issue is with US companies that "kowtow", but having your own company accept a Chinese customer or a company accept Chinese investment does not require kowtowing. As pointed out in the above comment, some forms of trade can promote freedom, and others can contribute to its destruction, so I am wondering if an approach that was rule-based rather than blanket would make more sense (but I have no idea how to make such rules).
• awinder 7y ago
  "The United States would be unable to buy $155B worth of electronics, which we already have domestic manufacturing capabilities for4 4: https://www.lg.com/us/press-release/lg-electronics-to-build-us-factory-for-home-appliances-in-tennessee https://www.lg.com/us/press-release/lg-electronics-to-build-... 4: http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/Global-Intel-Manufacturing_FactSheet.pdf" http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/Global-Int... This is a truly perplexing argument, especially the sourcing to "make" the argument. Ones an article about a single factory that LG opened for washing machines in the US, the other that Intel has chip manufacturing plants in the US. This does not make the argument that America has the resources, both human and raw materials, to pull off a China manufacturing pull-out. A lot of the article, especially the parts on who gets rich off this arrangement and the human rights components are very much on point. But making it out like a China manufacturing break would just be simply accomplished because LG makes some washing machines here is pretty ridiculous. It would be very difficult, and it would require a lot of government assistance & policy encouragements to develop people, acquire access to rare earth minerals, and lay out vast sums of upstart capital to get factories built. It would take time. Making it out like it's a simple fix is convenient and simple, but like most complex things that are made out to be simple & convenient, it's just flat-out wrong.
• ridaj 7y ago
  I stopped reading here: > $155B worth of electronics, which we already have domestic manufacturing capabilities for [4] The citation here is to the effect that the manufacturing technology is already present in the US. This does not at all translate to the capability to produce these goods, in at least three respects: * Capacity of production (an industry manufacturing billions of goods requires at least new plants to be built) * Logistics network (transportation, special zones with enough industry concentration to generate economies of scale) * Skilled and experienced labor. Take whatever item you can think of, the people who have been in the manufacturing business for that specific item for over a decade have skill and experience above and beyond the mere technological capability to produce. All of these things would translate at least to higher production costs (regardless of thoughts on currency exchange), market shrinkage from lower affordability, and potentially shortages as well. The real economy is not as easy as software - you can't just install a new OS and run, it takes decades to transform industries at this scale.
  • djokkataja 7y ago
    Sure, it would cost the US to make a point to China that they find some of China's policies unacceptable in a trading partner, but it would also cost China - that's the point.
    • ridaj 7y ago
      I am concerned with this statement appearing to make a misleading minimization of the cost on the US side, as if it was a simple matter of turning around to a different seller.
• novok 7y ago
  I don't think that the cheaper goods that China gave the world only benefited the %1, and actually has helped a lot people in america and the world. I also don't think that the economic miracle that has happened in China is a bad thing, and they could of been more singaporean/south korean authoritarian vs. genocidal authoritarian to achieve it. I really want china to become another Japan or Korea eventually. I do agree with you that China is basically a modern day nazi germany, pre WW2 at this point.
  • bcrosby95 7y ago
    The logic behind opening things up with China (including allowing them to buy American companies) was that as they become economically successful, they would be more open to things like democracy. At what point do you realize you failed and close the barn door?
    • Aperocky 7y ago
      This assume the goal for China is democracy, and the one the west set for them. If they failed, we must destroy their economy, take their people into poverty, because the barn door must be closed. This narrative basically can be taken verbatim by the CCP as propaganda material. “The west didn’t like our political system that made great economical progress, and they will try to destroy your livelihood. By the way, they think the economical success of China is entirely a gift of the west. It has nothing to do with your hard working.“
      • bcrosby95 7y ago
        So we should continue to let them buy US companies despite the reverse not being allowed? We should continue to let their companies operate freely in our markets despite the reverse not being allowed? We must maintain this double standard because the CCP might make propaganda out of it?
        • hungryhobo 7y ago
          Given the number of times 'national security' has been the reason for barring Chinese companies from operating in the US or anywhere else, I don't think what you describe is true any more
• blfr 7y ago
  I'm not convinced that most people are hurt by trade with China but I'm perfectly fine with paying $2 more for a keyboard and $15 more for a cupboard to not deal with a murderous communist (redundant, I know, no one is really surprised here, right) regime. What is true is that this will not meaningfully impact lives of ordinary westerners. There is no reason other than corporate greed for the status quo.
  • nycsamurai 7y ago
    I'm just playing devil's advocate here but I don't think it would cost $2 more for a keyboard, try > $100 for a keyboard. Unicomp is one example, made in Japan Realforce keyboards go for $200-$300. New balance makes sneakers in the USA but those cost ~$200. Everything would cost 2-3x. Would you pay $3000-4000 for an iphone that's built in the USA? Ever try to find a toaster oven that's made in USA? There is one but it'll set you back $285. I would buy usa made stuff because I have the means to, currently typing this on a Realforce keyboard wearing USA NB sneakers. But I'm pretty sure it would put a huge dent in retail sales across the board. Maybe higher volume in manufacturing would lower usa-made prices and create more jobs in the usa which might tip the revenue flow from the 1% to everyone else.
    • aianus 7y ago
      Why made in USA? Why not made in India or Vietnam?
      • uitersers 7y ago
        If it’s human rights you’re worried about, then Vietnam is also communist and what India is doing in Kashmir is worse than Hong Kong’s situation.
• AlexandrB 7y ago
  I agree with all of this, but also can't help thinking about the old Bastiat quote: "When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will."
• cedivad 7y ago
  Well, it does look like the West found its archenemy after all.
• gnomewascool 7y ago
  I mostly agree with the substance and recommendations of the article, and greatly appreciate it. The following is just a quibble. > Let’s lay out the facts: China is conducting human rights violations on the largest scale the world has seen since Nazi Germany. Even if you ignore events like the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer rouge or the Rwandan genocide, on the basis that, while far more intensive, they affected a considerably smaller population, China's own cultural revolution was a far greater human rights violation than what is happening now in China. (Arguably, in terms of scope, it was even worse than anything than the Nazis did, even if its intentions were probably more benign.) I'd recommend changing the quoted sentence to something to the effect of "one of the largest scales".
  • scarmig 7y ago
    The Cultural Revolution was bad, but it caused "only" 1-2M deaths. Probably a stronger comparison would be the earlier Great Leap Forward, with 20-50M deaths. But, yes, both are far greater human rights violations than what is happening now in mainland China.
• known 7y ago
  China is like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood and the devil is in the details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_trade_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr...
• bachmeier 7y ago
  > The financial incentives don’t help any Americans, and in fact, most of us are hurt by this relationship. What a weird statement. We buy Chinese goods because it makes us better off. "The US is full of idiots that engage in voluntary transactions that make them worse off" is a hard claim to accept. Obviously some people are worse off because of trade with China. And some are worse off because of technology. And a much larger number are worse off because of domestic competition. Open source software has killed lots of commercial software jobs. That's a good thing for most of us.
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• a13n 7y ago
  Hey mods is there a particular reason this post is being penalized? As of writing it's #22 with 400 points in 1 hour, while #5 has 119 points in 3 hours.
  • zzzcpan 7y ago
    Votes alone don't determine frontpage position and it's still on the front page, so clearly it's not being penalized. Some people probably flagged it too, as I did.
    • nailer 7y ago
      Why did you flag it?
      • yorwba 7y ago
        It's flamewar fuel. (I didn't flag it, but only because I enjoy the heat too much.)
  • Aunche 7y ago
    I noticed this happens to a greater extent the further the post is about tech. For example, opinions about the Damore memo got over a thousand upvotes, but disappeared off the front page in a few hours.
    • dang 7y ago
      I'd beware of drawing general conclusions about HN or HN moderation from examples that stand out to you. Which particular examples stand out are going to be highly conditioned by what you're already interested in and/or feel strongly about. (I don't mean you personally, but everyone.) That tends to lead to erroneous conclusions—and people who feel the opposite way derive the opposite erroneous conclusions. Based on how we work as moderators, I'd say it happens to a lesser extent the further the post is about tech—but that's not really what we're looking for either way. What we're looking for is topics that are intellectually interesting and can support intellectually curious discussion. Topics that have already been debated to death are much more likely to get penalized whether they're about tech or not. Initial discussions about the Damore thing spent much time on HN's front page, just like the Snowden thing in 2013, and the Stallman thing a few years later. Why do we tend to penalize topics that have already been debated to death, unless a story contains significant new information? Because curiosity withers under repetition and people's responses become predictable. In other words, moderating this way is a simple consequence of intellectual curiosity being HN's organizing principle. That's the one thing we optimize for in everything we do here. Even with all that, I'd say we barely get by in terms of having an intellectually curious site—but there are so many strong forces acting against it, that barely getting by is probably the best one can do. From the beginning, the idea of HN has been to stave off decline for as long as possible. I've always liked that goal, as it seems modest enough to have a chance.
• grumple 7y ago
  I can't help but agree. We're supporting a nation that is basically the equivalent of Nazi Germany, only of even greater power, committing atrocities of a similar scale, if not depth, and that's just what we know of - the reality can only be worse, not better. We do not need them, and we absolutely should not permit their behavior, or allow them to profit from it. The time for a stand has come.
• pcr910303 7y ago
  Er... why the fact that US is a net importer from China is a bad thing? (Admittedly, I'm not a US citizen, & I'm not really interested in US's trades so I don't know the numbers but...) I thought US was basically using China as a big factory? US's exports will decrease when manufactured in the US since China's cheap labor is allowing US goods to have a not-that-high price. So really the net-import from China is just something that US should embrace to get the net-exports to other countries.
  • Jarwain 7y ago
    From what I understand, the issue is dependence on an external source for those goods that we consume, and through that the implicit support for the Chinese Government & its current regime
• jayliew 7y ago
  Tech people: Rant about egregious things that China and Russia does (political, freedom, basic human rights, etc.) Also tech people: Vehemently oppose helping the US DoD with their highly-sought after skills, sign online petitions, protest and/or quit their high-paying jobs at <insert tech company that provides value to US DoD>. Serious question for these tech people: What are you exactly doing to help solve the issues you've ranted about? I'd like to hear thoughtful responses that are not the typical fallacies (e.g. ad hominem, ad populum, straw man, etc.)
  • dh5 7y ago
    I think it's a vocal minority that promotes those ideas and the rest follow because it's career suicide to go against it. I'm quite patriotic but not quite brave enough to go against the grain at this time.
  • driverdan 7y ago
    How is the DoD going to help with China and Russia? We're not going to invade them. If you're referring to the NSA or CIA they're both organizations that ignore the US constitution so there's great reasons to not work for them.
    • jayliew 7y ago
      > We're not going to invade them. So, that is your opinion. The whole point of having a credible option to use violence, is that one is willing to use it. Otherwise, there is no credibility in the threat, which defeats the entire purpose of peace and security that is backed by the potential use of violence. In that sense, if one misses a court ordered appearance, one shouldn't be surprised to see law enforcement knocking on one's doorstep with the threat of violence for legal non-compliance. Do black hat cyber attacks constitute an "invasion"? If you say no, then that's what Russia / China is banking on, because they're doing it, and betting that the US won't resort to conventional military use of force in retaliation. Since there's no real threat of painful retaliation, they can continue hacking away with no consequence then? If you say yes, then you're saying that the US should respond to cyber attacks with conventional military use of force, tanks, planes, boots on ground, etc. because you see cyber attacks as no different than a conventional attack by those countries. Regardless, the US needs more cyber security professionals and other technical professionals (e.g. machine learning etc.) to help with the defense against these actors, but that's hard to do with all this backlash from techies.
• AdeptusAquinas 7y ago
  Didn't the US blow up 30 afghani civilians a few months ago with drone strikes? Didn't even make the front page. We all make deals with monsters for economic safety, or because there is near nothing we can do about it. That includes China AND the US.
  • jjcc 7y ago
    Killing civilians is unfortunate and mistake. However it's controversial because the views of the leaders of a nation is quite different from average people that there are costs and risks you cannot avoid to protect more civilian death. Logically that's a legitimate claim. In statistics majority of killed were terrorists. i.e. the killing is quite effective and accurate. The real flaw of the strategy is fundamental misunderstanding of root cause and how human society works. Killing didn’t reduce the capability of the terrorists. The growth of terrorists out paste target drone killing numbers. Killing cause more growth. That’s why US eventually talk to Taliban. The failure is on another level not accuracy of drone target killing.
• slowenough 7y ago
  China doesn't want the protest to end. People who believe they are protesting China by supporting these terrorists and their activities in Hong Kong are only supporting the central government's plan. The Hong Kong human rights and democracy act if enacted only supports the central government's position on Hong Kong. The unrest is an opportunity for Beijing. The media discourse suggests otherwise... only to the benefit of Beijing. Understand the true meaning of your position, so as not to look so foolish. Or not, and keep supporting China ( I thank you ) but thinking you're not. The world doesn't have to be unipolar.
• dosy 7y ago
  Yes, fight.. And be polarised. That is what they want. Said Darth Siddius.
• mrobot 7y ago
  I support China.
• jeffdavis 7y ago
  "not beneficial to anyone but those who are already obscenely rich, and certainly not for our poorest" An otherwise fact-driven post is undermined with this claim. Even if true, it would be very hard to support this claim.
  • buboard 7y ago
    while exaggerated, he s probably referring to this: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16868838/elephant-graph-chart-global-inequality-economic-growth https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16868838/el...
• GoodJokes 7y ago
  I would have an easier time caring if this person cared at all about all the human rights abuses and war crimes the USA continues to commit. When there are protests on Chile of equal size and coup in Bolivia, it’s telling he only focuses on China.
• snogaraleal 7y ago
  It's also worth noting that the financial elites and the CCP aren't really doing business, they're committing fraud and theft. China isn't exporting productivity, it's exporting deflation and corruption. Arguably, the trade war may have nothing to do with trade and, together with financial decoupling, everything to do with deliberate monetary strangulation. The Trump administration holds all the cards, the CCP holds none. The challenge is getting the job done without more people getting killed. https://mises.org/wire/china-trouble https://mises.org/wire/china-trouble https://mises.org/wire/chinas-biggest-problem-isnt-trump-its-broken-banking-system https://mises.org/wire/chinas-biggest-problem-isnt-trump-its... https://thesoundingline.com/chinas-money-supply-has-outgrown-its-economy-over-two-fold-since-2009/ https://thesoundingline.com/chinas-money-supply-has-outgrown...
• kd3 7y ago
  I'm well aware of the fact that the author lives in the US which has been and is still involved in numerous cases of human rights violations and oppression of entire countries worldwide. But the article is excellent. While China's foreign policy hasn't been as oppressive as the US so far, locally they are implementing Orwell's 1984 with precision. It is fucking disgusting.
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• cnThrowaway 7y ago
  I traveled extensively in China this year. A strong sense of nationalism keeps the government strong and allows them to trample on the rights of minorities. A trade war / sanctions will only fuel that even further. (Like the humiliation of Germany after WWI helped Hitler to gain power). The best remedy is to undermine the Great Firewall. And the easiest to hide censored content* in sites that are not filtered (like this one). Just hide it well enough that Baidu etc. cannot get to it. *: That can include proxies to news sites, facebook etc.
  • yorwba 7y ago
    If Baidu can't get to it, what's the point? Hiding censored content in sites that are not filtered isn't going to help anyone if it can't be found.
    • cnThrowaway 7y ago
      Many ways. A members only section or a captcha would look the most natural.
• jdkee 7y ago
  What is discounted is the value of a decent middle class job to a high school graduate in many parts of the country. The qualitative value of that loss of human happiness to pride, satisfaction, purpose is not measured by traditional economists. Now, 25 years out from NAFTA and the start of major deindustrialization in the Midwest we are seeing the fruits of those globalist policies. The rise of deaths of despair which is reducing lifespan for middle aged males in the United States. This is the tragedy so silently born by The many that eludes the “but Wal-Mary lowered prices” crowd that is enriched by free trade.
• mrtweetyhack 7y ago
  There's plenty perfectly good shit to buy from Goodwill, thrift shops, and yardsales. Don't buy more China crap.
• bloody-crow 7y ago
  It's very easy to critisize someone else for not standing to some principles as long as you don't have to deal the the consequences of doing so. Think Blizzard for example. Sure, they could potentially publicly support Hong-Kong out of principle and immediately get banned in China. The consequence of this would be - Millions of Chinese people (lot of whom have nothing to do with HK or goverment or human right violation) instantly lose access Blizzard products. Their lives become unequivocally shitter. - Blizzard loses a ton of money and have to downsize significantly firing half of their staff. They can't affort investing in new projects at the scale they used to. Their products become cheaper and lose in quality. Maybe the company even have to shut down due to not being able to sustain itself. It's pretty shitty for Blizzard on all fronts here. - A lot of Blizzard employees lose their jobs, stop paying taxes and participating in economy at the rate they could afford while being employed by Blizzard. Seems pretty shitty for them and their communities. - Millions of consumers all over the world miss out on new Blizzard titles, stop buying their games and participating in events organized by Blizzard because company ceases to exist or can't afford to maintain the quality of their products due to less budget. This is a significant impact on the economy as a whole when a huge company generating wealth out of thin air ceases to exist or loses its steam. - Chinese goverment is not affected by any of this and keeps doing whatever it's doing. Overall, seems like the move will hurt everyone involved, except for the Chinese government. Remind me please, why we keep demanding Blizzard to punch themselves in a dick for no benefit whatsoever? I'm not necessary defending Blizzard here, really. I'm just pointing out that the situation is a lot more complicated than shallow takes like in the one in the linked article tend present to it to be.
  • hkmaxpro 7y ago
    It’s the outrageous penalty that upset Blizzard supporters. Initially announced penalty to Blitzchung: [1] (1) banned from the current tournament (2) forfeit any prize money (approximately US$4,000 by that point) (3) banned from other Grandmaster tournaments for one year By contrast, Overwatch League player Josh "Eqo" Corono made a racist gesture and said "I am Korean" on a stream, and was suspended for three games and fined $3000. [2] Not that Blizzard cannot penalize Blitzchung. Just not out of proportion. > Millions of Chinese people (lot of whom have nothing to do with HK or goverment or human right violation) instantly lose access Blizzard products. Their lives become unequivocally shitter. Judging from China’s ban on NBA’s that lasted only two days, China’s ban on Blizzard may be equally short-lived. [3] > Blizzard loses a ton of money and have to downsize significantly firing half of their staff. They can't affort investing in new projects at the scale they used to. Their products become cheaper and lose in quality. Maybe the company even have to shut down due to not being able to sustain itself. It's pretty shitty for Blizzard on all fronts here. Only 12% of Blizzard revenue comes from Asia-Pacific, which includes China but also South Korea, Taiwan, etc [4]. Some sources say only 5% comes from China [5]. Even if Blizzard loses Chinese market completely, I don’t see why they need to downsize significantly and fire half of the staff. The same goes for your remaining claims. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy [2] https://www.usgamer.net/articles/blizzard-is-in-an-international-mess-of-its-own-making https://www.usgamer.net/articles/blizzard-is-in-an-internati... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-basketball-nba/excited-china-fans-cheer-nba-game-despite-row-over-hong-kong-tweet-idUSKBN1WO017 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-basketball-nba/exci... [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/dfezlv/activision_blizzard_revenue_by_country_boycotts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/dfezlv/activis... [5] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/dp1py7/blizzard_lost_a_big_sponsor_after_the_hong_kong/f5s6rr8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/dp1py7/blizzard...
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• jariel 7y ago
  To be clear - moral issues notwithstanding - everyone who has a job (i.e. participating in the economy) benefits quite a lot from 'China'. 90% of the value derived from China goes to 'consumer surplus' - i.e. 'cheaper goods'. What we gain is immense, much more than Apple and Google are profiting. The 1% get most of the profits, true, but most of win. Also remember: that 'cheap goods' are most beneficial to poor people. We all love to hate Walmart - but Walmart (supplied by China) is what enables 150 million Americans to have 'stuff' that enables the quality of their lives that they simply would not have. It's been immensely positive at least on those terms (again ignoring all those externalities). The 'losers' on 'our side' are of course those who have been put out of work. The 'losers' on 'their side' are those stuck in factories and concentration camps. And of course, we all 'lose' due to the pollution etc.. But can make thew world a better place; China is not immune to pressure and if we acted collectively I bet we could get them to close those camps, though I doubt the surveillance state will end. They want better justice and less pollution - that will get worked on - and a more advanced economy will empower workers will yield benefits for their 'regular folk' as well.
• paggle 7y ago
  I feel like the human rights angle might add enough political capital to the economic argument (that we should have used 50 years ago) to stop the fucking CEOs from mortgaging the country's economic future for an extra zero on their bonus checks. TVs should cost $5000, washing machines $2500, etc... that will create a domestic repair industry, be better for the environment, create skilled jobs that don't require college, and improve our national self-sufficience and thus security, and deprive a totalitarian government of revenues.
• throwaway0x00ff 7y ago
  >We’re a net importer from China Ok, one more guy writing "we" as is everyone were from the USA... Why are "you" guys always so self-centered ??
  • dang 7y ago
    Please don't add gratuitous extra flamebait to what is already a nationalistically provocative thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• babisour 7y ago
  You don't understand China.
  • dang 7y ago
    Could you please take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587861?
• babisour 7y ago
  You don't understand China. What I saw in this article is completely biased and brain washed by you know who.
  • dang 7y ago
    Ok, but rather than name-calling ("completely biased", "brain washed"), it would be better to add good information in a neutral way, so readers can learn something. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, it would be better not to post, even though it's frustrating to see a thread full of comments you disagree with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• resters 7y ago
  All governments use the same playbook of tactics. China is in some ways worse than the US, but the US has caused a lot more harm and destruction around the world than China has over the past few decades. It’s absurd to spend one’s moral indignation on foreign countries that are marginally worse than the US in a handful of ways. Organ donation in the US is hamstring by one main factor: Christianity. American views on US atrocities are colored by one main factor: the religion of American Exceptionalism. The essay’s take on the economic consequences of economic freedom is utter rubbish, but the larger issue is the absurd and misplaced moral indignation. What a shameful, naive rant. Wow.
• mac01021 7y ago
  > It’s nice to believe that we would have stood up to Nazi Germany if we had been there in the 1940’s. China is our generation’s chance to prove ourselves of that conviction. I don't think the US joined the war out of concern for the welfare of Europeans so much as out of fear of Germany's continually-expanding borders (and as a reaction to that Pearl Harbor thing)
• drudru11 7y ago
  Why is this on the front page of HN? It is showing up at #48 and yet has 672 points.
• badrabbit 7y ago
  A few problems. For one rare earth minerals are dominated by China making domestic electronic manufacturing impossible. Second, less profit means stocks go down,economic recession is likely. People loss jobs,savings,etc... China will be hostile, they have infiltrated US institutions extensively. I agree the west should move away from China but only because of China's hostility and this needs to be done slowly!
• craftoman 7y ago
  "I call for a worldwide boycott of Chinese products, and of companies". Yeah throw away every piece of electronic you have including Apple products.
• kashmiri 7y ago
  It would be naive to say that China is the only country perpetrator of genocide today, look at its another neighbour i.e. India who is governed by extremist political party today and has locked down 8Million Kashmiri people from more than 100+ days who's land has been UN designated disputed territory. There are well documented genocides perpetrator by Indian military there. Whole of Kashmir is loced down under curfew (no mobiles, no data, no business, no healthcare services etc) from Aug 5 after Indian parliament unilaterally abrogated their rights articles. NO one talks about them :(
• biolurker1 7y ago
  I am a bit weirded out and pessimistic. If in any case in 27 years HK will be totally under Chinese control what would be the reason to fight it now temporarily? Unless the issue at stake is complete freedom. That can escalate to full blown war and possibly a global one.
• baud147258 7y ago
  > China is conducting human rights violations on the largest scale the world has seen since Nazi Germany I'm pretty sure China had been already committed human right violation on that scale before.
• dailiangren 7y ago
  When you refer to some resources, you'll have great responsibility to check their factuality (especially for this kind of sensitive topic), otherwise, you are wasting your efforts on making your points and the reader's time for reading and even worse misleading the audience largely.
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