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Interesting that it's not the 51% (and I think some of the 51% may be held by non Chinese investors) that has been key but rather Allen Wu having the seal - so
by klelatti 5y ago
Interesting that it's not the 51% (and I think some of the 51% may be held by non Chinese investors) that has been key but rather Allen Wu having the seal - so even without control of the board he's still been able to get control of the company.
- dylan522p 5y agoAuthor here, there is a Singaporean investor as well, but they have deep Chinese ties. I agree with your assessment. Allen Wu is an American citizen too, but loyal to China with deep CCP contacts.
- cwizou 5y agoSince you are the author, there's a near duplicated paragraph below the CPU/XPU pictures, the paragraphs starts with "Besides standing out and calling themselves". Very interesting content otherwise, I remember the seal issue being something very controversial too when other companies went there (I believe it was regarding Intel, that was maybe 15 years ago). To this day it still is a pretty prevalent issue when doing local branches in China.
- dylan522p 5y agoThanks, I messed up when copying to from the actual site to the Substack, which is the one being shared here. Thanks!
- leephillips 5y agoDid he register with the US gov. as a foreign agent? If not, he should be apprehended next time he enters the US.
- nzmsv 5y agoGo look up the actual requirement for FARA before spewing nonsense.
- leephillips 5y agoThe FARA act covers a person who “solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value within the United States” while acting in the interests of a “foreign government, a foreign political party, any person outside the United States ... and any entity organized under the laws of a foreign country or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.”
- nzmsv 5y agoBut an individual person is not a foreign entity, especially not if they are a US citizen. There is the loophole for "representing interests of a foreign principal before US government officials" though, so I guess this is written broadly enough to snag anyone who may step on some toes.
- leephillips 5y agoWho’s talking about the person being a foreign entity? You’re seriously confused.
- dang 5y agoPlease don't cross into personal attack. If another commenter is confused, or you feel they are, it's enough to supply correct information in a helpful spirit. Alternatively, it's always fine not to post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jlduan 5y agoYou can't throw out accusations like that without evidence, what deep CCP contacts Allen Wu has? Elon Musk has a factory in Shanghai, is he "loyal to China with deep CCP contacts" too?
- baq 5y agoThis is China, deep contacts with the CCP are expected. You can be sure that neither Musk nor Tesla has full control of the factory.
- wonnage 5y agoBasically every large corporation in existence has deep government ties, but CCP bad
- anm89 5y agoLast time I checked the US wasn't harvesting organs, running concentration camps, blatantly committing genocide and ethnic cleansing. Yes, CCP bad.
- smhost 5y agoIn fact, the US is doing all of those things.
- dnautics 5y agoNope, it's only doing #2, and in far smaller numbers.
- anm89 5y agoI'll agree with this but the difference is drastic. Compare the number of people in Guantanamo to the number of people in Xinjiang. An order of magnitude of an order of magnitude difference. Guantanamo is an embarrassment but it isn't even close to the Xinjiang camps
- klelatti 5y agoThanks for an interesting piece. Presumably Wu wouldn't have done this if he didn't have (or think he has) CCP approval? Also Son with his long term business interests in China probably thought he would be OK. Someone has miscalculated badly?
- perfopt 5y agoArm China was conceived and even happened before Arm was bought by Softbank
- axpy906 5y agoI don’t understand why this is buried and not at the top. Thanks for the article.
- justicezyx 5y ago> but loyal to China with deep CCP contacts What are the evidence of this? Other than him being self interested and commit misconduct.
- slim 5y agoNot really. The key here is that he needed to maintain legality, by contesting the ruling of the board and suing, he can now argue he is still the boss and keep the seal till chinese justice deliberates.
- reaperducer 5y agoAllen Wu having the seal For those of us not familiar with Chinese business practices, is this an actual seal? Like someone would use to frank documents, or squish into hot wax to seal documents? Or is it a symbolic seal, like a legal document, or something else?
- engineer_22 5y agoYes, there are corporate seals in the USA as well. Sometimes it is an embosser, others an ink stamp.
- prewett 5y agoThese days it's a round plastic handle with a carved rubber bottom that pairs with a spongy red-ink filled bottom. There's a picture and an explanation at [1]. It basically functions the same way as the signature of an authorized representative of the company does in the West. Presumably it comes out of personal seals which are a fun item to get if you're in China. I never interacted with someone who used them, but it's cool. See pictures at [2] and history at [3]. "Chop" is also frequently used instead of "seal". I assume its not onomatopoedic, but that is a fair description of the "thunk" sound produced to when the seal is quickly pounded against the document on the table. [1] https://www.china-briefing.com/news/company-chops-in-china/ https://www.china-briefing.com/news/company-chops-in-china/ [2] https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/chinese-seals.htm https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/chinese-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(East_Asia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(East_Asia)
- ithkuil 5y agoIn Japan seals/stamps (hanko) are still widely used as signatures.
- ravel-bar-foo 5y agoDitto Korea. Something that shocked me is that it is common in medium-sized sole proprietorships (tech startups, small businesses, research labs) for the CEO to give their personal seal to the accountants/secretaries. It the West the equivalent would be giving away an autopen for your signature.