3 ms·

Yeah what the fuck, that was some weird casual racism you don't expect to see on HN.

rootsudo 6y ago
I disagree it's "racism." It's how the CCP operates. We can say the same story for different super powers from previous times. People suspected German Ambassador to USA for being a bosch spy. Founder of a communications company isn't that far off. Huawei is a great example. Founders of a company control the companies direction.
- hakka-nyu-su 6y ago
  Except Eric is not any sort of govt or party representative. He is a naturalized American of Chinese ancestry. In history, this kind of scapegoating was counterproductive.
  - anonymousab 6y ago
    The CCP can and will exert pressure on family members to get expats and former citizens to do what they want. They're not the only country to do so, not by a long shot, but they are particularly brazen about it. Though I think the CEO is less relevant than the critical amount of developers Zoom relies on that are directly living under and subject to CCP malfeasance.
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      > The CCP can and will exert pressure on family members to get expats and former citizens to do what they want. Could you give a few such cases?
      - mthoms 6y ago
        Here's a bunch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-targets-harassed https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-...
        justicezyx 6y ago
        Summary: Chinese government harass the relatives of the fugitive corruption suspects to force these suspects to return voluntarily. That's definitely one area the Chinese system is vastly behind the international standard. But this has not been conscious to me. When I was a child, we had horror stories of people sentenced to death penalty and were executed on superficial charges that sexual misconduct. And my parents have witnessed detained thief were beaten like wild animals by policeman, and the thief's scream was heart far in the then poor village. These measures can even escalate during "Yanda", a nationally-coordinated clampdown on criminal activities. In [1], it was noted: "China's execution rate increases dramatically during Yanda campaigns." Such brutal national campaigns are dying down, the most recent one [2] has much less cruelty. And historically such campaigns enjoyed universal domestic support. As of today, the Chinese government has a high degree of popular endorsement to use whatever not-too-out-of-line measures to bring back the corrupted businessman or former government officials, who are prosecuted by the public attorneys. Thanks a grain of national pride, i.e., "those corrupted bastard not only embezzled our money, and they escape to the country that is unfriendly and can be benefited from those fortune". [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23639486?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23639486?seq=1 [2] https://www.economist.com/china/2019/02/28/china-is-waging-a-nationwide-campaign-against-gang-crime https://www.economist.com/china/2019/02/28/china-is-waging-a...
        mthoms 6y ago
        I'll be honest, I'm not sure what your point is. Your response reads a bit like a defence of the practice, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt (since there's an obvious language issue). I will say... it's curious to me that you seem to be well aware of such practices but still challenged the parent to provide examples (the implication being, that they were misinformed). Why did you ask the parent to provide examples if you knew of some already? What's your motivation?
        justicezyx 6y ago
        #1 I was aware of the flaw in legal system. But the flaws I know was that the Chinese legal system was ineffective, inefficient, and quite a bit corrupted. #2 I was not aware of the details of harassing on corruption suspects' relatives. #3 I think it was reasonable to not able to link these 2 facts automatically together as self-evident.
      - anonymousab 6y ago
        I'm not at a desktop at the moment so I had to just Google for some examples. I was thinking of stuff like this: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uses-family-members-to-silence-criticism-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uses-family-members-to... Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that China is unique in doing this. They are simply much more openly aggressive and nonchalant about it. EDIT: I also think it was both reasonable and correct for you to ask for examples. Superpowers do enough sketchy things that we don't need to be muddying the waters with made up claims.
- danso 6y ago
  Which German ambassador are you talking about?
- analyst74 6y ago
  People also suspected Japanese Americans to be spies during WW2 and sent them to concentration camps. I hope we do not repeat the same mistakes.
- admax88q 6y ago
  Is the argument still that this man is a CCP agent because he comes from China? That's literally all the evidence that was provided in the parent post. Do you not understand the racism behind assuming someone is a CCP agent based on nothing more than their race?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
briandear 6y ago
Chinese is also a nationality and that does have relevance if the person has ties to Beijing and the CCP. If the founder were Russian and had ties to Moscow would we be complaining about “casual racism?” It’s racist to suggest racism when a Chinese is involved when similar accusations wouldn’t have been made if the situation were Russian.
shaan1 6y ago
no, its not racism. Almost all independent American company is banned in China. Thats racism. Google, FB..etc..etc.

I disagree it's "racism." It's how the CCP operates. We can say the same story for different super powers from previous times. People suspected German Ambassador to USA for being a bosch spy. Founder of a communications company isn't that far off. Huawei is a great example. Founders of a company control the companies direction.

hakka-nyu-su 6y ago
Except Eric is not any sort of govt or party representative. He is a naturalized American of Chinese ancestry. In history, this kind of scapegoating was counterproductive.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  The CCP can and will exert pressure on family members to get expats and former citizens to do what they want. They're not the only country to do so, not by a long shot, but they are particularly brazen about it. Though I think the CEO is less relevant than the critical amount of developers Zoom relies on that are directly living under and subject to CCP malfeasance.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    > The CCP can and will exert pressure on family members to get expats and former citizens to do what they want. Could you give a few such cases?
    - mthoms 6y ago
      Here's a bunch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-targets-harassed https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/31/china-families-interpol-...
      - justicezyx 6y ago
        Summary: Chinese government harass the relatives of the fugitive corruption suspects to force these suspects to return voluntarily. That's definitely one area the Chinese system is vastly behind the international standard. But this has not been conscious to me. When I was a child, we had horror stories of people sentenced to death penalty and were executed on superficial charges that sexual misconduct. And my parents have witnessed detained thief were beaten like wild animals by policeman, and the thief's scream was heart far in the then poor village. These measures can even escalate during "Yanda", a nationally-coordinated clampdown on criminal activities. In [1], it was noted: "China's execution rate increases dramatically during Yanda campaigns." Such brutal national campaigns are dying down, the most recent one [2] has much less cruelty. And historically such campaigns enjoyed universal domestic support. As of today, the Chinese government has a high degree of popular endorsement to use whatever not-too-out-of-line measures to bring back the corrupted businessman or former government officials, who are prosecuted by the public attorneys. Thanks a grain of national pride, i.e., "those corrupted bastard not only embezzled our money, and they escape to the country that is unfriendly and can be benefited from those fortune". [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23639486?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23639486?seq=1 [2] https://www.economist.com/china/2019/02/28/china-is-waging-a-nationwide-campaign-against-gang-crime https://www.economist.com/china/2019/02/28/china-is-waging-a...
        mthoms 6y ago
        I'll be honest, I'm not sure what your point is. Your response reads a bit like a defence of the practice, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt (since there's an obvious language issue). I will say... it's curious to me that you seem to be well aware of such practices but still challenged the parent to provide examples (the implication being, that they were misinformed). Why did you ask the parent to provide examples if you knew of some already? What's your motivation?
        justicezyx 6y ago
        #1 I was aware of the flaw in legal system. But the flaws I know was that the Chinese legal system was ineffective, inefficient, and quite a bit corrupted. #2 I was not aware of the details of harassing on corruption suspects' relatives. #3 I think it was reasonable to not able to link these 2 facts automatically together as self-evident.
    - anonymousab 6y ago
      I'm not at a desktop at the moment so I had to just Google for some examples. I was thinking of stuff like this: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uses-family-members-to-silence-criticism-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-uses-family-members-to... Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that China is unique in doing this. They are simply much more openly aggressive and nonchalant about it. EDIT: I also think it was both reasonable and correct for you to ask for examples. Superpowers do enough sketchy things that we don't need to be muddying the waters with made up claims.
danso 6y ago
Which German ambassador are you talking about?
analyst74 6y ago
People also suspected Japanese Americans to be spies during WW2 and sent them to concentration camps. I hope we do not repeat the same mistakes.
admax88q 6y ago
Is the argument still that this man is a CCP agent because he comes from China? That's literally all the evidence that was provided in the parent post. Do you not understand the racism behind assuming someone is a CCP agent based on nothing more than their race?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

briandear 6y ago

Chinese is also a nationality and that does have relevance if the person has ties to Beijing and the CCP. If the founder were Russian and had ties to Moscow would we be complaining about “casual racism?” It’s racist to suggest racism when a Chinese is involved when similar accusations wouldn’t have been made if the situation were Russian.

shaan1 6y ago

no, its not racism. Almost all independent American company is banned in China. Thats racism. Google, FB..etc..etc.