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Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

• tjpnz 5y ago
  Is there a list of companies who've made similar apologies in the past? When presented with a choice I would prefer to avoid them.
  • ekianjo 5y ago
    probably close to 100% of them. It will be difficult to organize a boycott. The next best thing is to rank them by order of who knelt the fastest to China.
    • throwaway2048 5y ago
      I very much doubt close to 100% of companies have issued apologies to china
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • 1_player 5y ago
        I would bet 100% of Western publicly traded companies that sell in China have issued apologies not to lose any revenue and mindshare from the Chinese market. revenue > mission statement
  • 323 5y ago
    In fashion: Nike, Versace, Coach, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Asics, Swarovski, Dior https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3039500/sorry-china-nike-versace-global-fashion-players-have-spent https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/303950...
    • tiahura 5y ago
      Marriott
    • throw10920 5y ago
      Blizzard! John Cena (although not a company)
      • johnzim 5y ago
        I think it warrants inclusion, he was clearly speaking on behalf of his 'brand' and ought to be considered in the same company as other commercial entities. Or you could construe it as an apology on behalf of whatever movie studio he was working with at the time.
  • hker 5y ago
    Check out this list on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfg1ce/list_of_companies_under_chinas_censorship_orders/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfg1ce/list_of_co... "List of companies under China's censorship orders (so far). Credit to u/lebe"
• sinoue 5y ago
  Sad to see Intel and others be so spineless.
  • jbotz 5y ago
    Corporations are spineless, both literally and figuratively.
    • Symbiote 5y ago
      Unnecessary pedantry. Read the comment as "sad to see the Intel executives and others be so spineless".
      • sophacles 5y ago
        What do you think the "figuratively" part of the statement means? I presumed it to mean exactly what you suggested. In my mind anyway - a figuratively spineless corporation is a corporations where executives and others are the spineless ones. Please enlighten me on what a figuratively spineless corporation is, if it is not that.
      • alex77456 5y ago
        It is not competitively advantageous to act in a 'spineful' manner
    • mariuz 5y ago
      Spineless corporations Reminds me of title of TV series about Mafia : La piovra "An epic crime saga of power, money, violence and corruption. the mafia controls everything through local and international networks like an octopus, anyone who tries to bring them down pays the ultimate price." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086779 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086779
• 1cvmask 5y ago
  Should we demand that companies avoid California suppliers as well because of the extensive use of prison labor: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-11/california-prison-factories-inmates-covid-19 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-11/californ... https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2020/11/11/california-wildfires-raged-incarcerated-exploited-labor-column/6249201002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2020/11/11/c... https://www.freedomunited.org/news/forced-prison-labor-in-california-continues-during-coronavirus/ https://www.freedomunited.org/news/forced-prison-labor-in-ca...
  • albertopv 5y ago
    Yes. USA prison system is really awful, even more for a first world country, richiest country in the world.
  • christkv 5y ago
    yes
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • Loic 5y ago
    Definitely! Human rights are the same for all humans.
    • jollybean 5y ago
      You do not have a 'human right' to commit crimes, which is why you go to jail in nations that have a legit Justice System. The concentration camps in China are not for people who have committed crimes, they're for people who are of a specific ethnicity, that's it.
      • Loic 5y ago
        My comment refers to the specific abuse with forced slave work conditions for the jailed population in California. Nothing more.
• AIorNot 5y ago
  Sad to see this - injustice and oppression must be fought against regardless of economic consequence https://www.polygraph.info/a/fact-check-forced-labor-uyghurs-xinjiang/31362816.html https://www.polygraph.info/a/fact-check-forced-labor-uyghurs...
• clavicat 5y ago
  >Intel joined other prominent U.S. companies Monday pledging to do more to address systemic racism in the wake of the killing of an African-American man, George Floyd, by a police officer in Minneapolis. >“Black lives matter. Period,” CEO Bob Swan wrote in a memo to employees Monday, embracing the rallying cry of contemporary civil rights activists. “While racism can look very different around the world, one thing that does not look different is that racism of any kind will not be tolerated here at Intel or in our communities.” lmfao
  • inglor_cz 5y ago
    It is the same as when Western branches of various multinational corporations redesign their logos in rainbow colors for the Pride month, but their Middle Eastern branches do not ... offending Islam or the CCP comes with enough downsides to make them think twice. I think the best default way how to view corporations is "perfectly immoral psychopathic beings always heeding the current Zeitgeist for maximum profit and cheap P.R. points among the class that locally matters". I am happy to change my mind about some of them if they prove otherwise (e.g. by turning down a massive contract for ethical reasons, or standing up to a Twitter mob sicced on by influential people), but this is my default view in absence of other evidence.
    • 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
      I believe this has happened exactly once, and it's already widely known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010–2016:_Giving_up_search_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010–2016:_Giving...
    • pxmpxm 5y ago
      The worse part, at least to me, is that that these shallow gestures presumably work, that somehow empty posturing on progressive-cause-du-jour actually does buy them goodwill in the western world. It's either that, or this entire thing as a corporate strategy is run by some HR echo chamber with minimal forethought, and any downside is farmed out to external PR crisis management teams. I'm starting to think it's the latter, given the amount of backpedalling and policy changes as of late (think google employee walkouts, publishers dealing with wrongthink books, netflix employees trying to scuttle the company's IP etc)
• andy_ppp 5y ago
  I think we should stop using China for cheap Labour in general given how hostile their government are becoming. Where possible I try to buy Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese electronics.
  • zohch 5y ago
    That there is any controversy in this statement is insane, but I would be very wary of ever making this statement non-anonymously, because I know I'm more likely than not to be cancelled for it. China has mastered the manipulation of the west's successor ideology better than those in the west that instituted it.
    • marderfarker2 5y ago
      I’ve always thought it to be the reverse, since the west has the whole world at their disposal (in terms of audience and technology penetration)
      • iszomer 5y ago
        Ever bought something you believed was Made in Japan but found out later it was actually Made in China?
        • marderfarker2 5y ago
          I don’t think inanimate objects can influence a person’s mind. However media can, especially when you see the same idea repeated everywhere.
          • iszomer 5y ago
            It can when materialistic quality is a factor in purchasing decisions. For example, I recently had to buy a new rice cooker and based on my prior experiences of owning both Japanese and Chinese brands; the former outlasted the latter by thirty years. Just because it was cheap and easily sourceable doesn't discount expected quality assurances. I'm not saying this applies to all Chinese made products but something I keep in mind for all future purchases.
• rg111 5y ago
  China has got a massive consumer market, an unmatched manufacturing ecosystem with zero labor disputes among other things, minerals, arguably the most stable (in terms of violence, unrest, strikes, etc.) regions in the world, and more. They have got anyone by their balls who remotely wants to sell anything in China. John Cena (famous wrestler, entertainer) recently apologized to Chinese people after calling Taiwan a country [0]. The companies and people who never go beyond their own selfish self-interests, will keep kowtowing to China (and KSA as well). I don't judge this. I possibly would do the same. But I am not a hypocrite. Apple used Chinese slave labor [1], Cook agreed to work with Chinese propaganda arm [2], but fired a techie for writing a satire [3]. All actors and actresses (who says nothing against China, where two or three decades ago, the whole of Hollywood was very pro-Tibet) preach freedom, self-empowerment or whatever woke thing is hot in that year, and yet choose regularly to censor and/or change content based on China's demand [4]. Intel is doing nothing new, and we will see this trend continue at least for a while now. [0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/actor-john-cena-apologizes-after-taiwan-comment-n1268526 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/actor-john-cena-apologize.... [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428899/apple-suppliers-china-uyghur-forced-labor-report https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428899/apple-suppliers-... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/apples-tim-cook-signed-275-bln-deal-with-chinese-officials-placate-china-2021-12-07/ https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/apples-tim-... [3]: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who-canceled https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-hypocrites-at-apple-who... [4]: https://www.cnet.com/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-china-and-you-probably-didnt-even-notice/ https://www.cnet.com/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-...
  • jollybean 5y ago
    Surprisingly, there are a lot of strikes, labour issues, and general unrest in China. Instead of thinking about it like a 'Orwellian State' - think of it more like an Orwellian State that could go 'off' at anytime. Note that citizens are concerned about their prosperity - as long as growth is happening and money comes in - they are content. But they are also ultra nationalist and ultra ethnocentric to the point where it's quite easy for the CCP or leadership to simply blame 'Western Imperialism / Chauvinism' for any perceived slight against China including legitimate concerns. There will not be any protests in China about Hong Kong or forced labour. It will be about corruption, property rights, jobs etc..
• FooBarWidget 5y ago
  It's interesting to see that people on both sides are angry -- for different reasons. People on western Internet are angry at Intel for having issued an apology. People on Chinese Internet are angry because they view it as a non-apology, i.e. Intel still goes ahead with the ban. I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel.
  • hrrsn 5y ago
    > I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel. Is this feasible? There's not all that many other options for x86
    • T-A 5y ago
      https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-ryzen-5-5600x-multi-threaded-workloads https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dual-chinese-zen-cpu-beat-...
    • FooBarWidget 5y ago
      I doubt it. China is not there yet w.r.t. semiconductor independence. There are people who say, buy AMD, but AMD is also subject to US laws... So what will happen instead? From what I've seen so far, China is careful with counterattacking US because they know the US is stronger. I think the govt will just issue an angry statement but do nothing concrete internationally, while continuing their domestic efforts of semiconductor development as they already have, and also continuing with restructuring Xinjiang's economy (i.e. replacing foreign customers with domestic customers, as happened with cotton)
      • limoce 5y ago
        They will choose AMD because AMD doesn't make this statement clear but Intel explicitly mentions "Xinjiang" in its annual supplier letter. I guess AMD did take this factor into consideration.
      • e9 5y ago
        Alibaba recently announced new CPU they developed based on ARM: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-server-cpu https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alibaba-unveils-128-core-s...
• lazyeye 5y ago
  • pjc50 5y ago
    > history of being woke? Define this in a way we could pattern-match against their behavior?
    • throwawaylinux 5y ago
      The word is pretty mainstream (at least in western countries) now. Check Urban Dictionary. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woke https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woke
      • katbyte 5y ago
        your going to have to clarify, there is no consensus to be found in your link: * The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue * Deluded or fake awareness. * When you look at the simplest thing and call it racist because you want black people to be victims. Other minorities don't matter. - a black conservative * "Wokeness" occurs when a white, upper-class person pretends to hold opinions they imagine a black lower-class person might hold * To be asleep and uncritically accept whatever nonsense social science professors dream up to advance Marxist goals. As with most liberal speak the meaning of the word is the opposite of the word's standard meaning. * "Being completely deranged, hysterical and seeing racism/oppression in virtually everything." * being aware of the social. and political environments regarding all demographics and socio-economic standings.
        • throwawaylinux 5y ago
          You're wrong, there is a very strong consensus. The first few entries are highly up voted. Take the first 2 as a basic definition or idea of the concept and the 3rd one as an example.
          • 5y ago
• DominikPeters 5y ago
  To me this sounds like a normal corporate non-apology. If I read the article correctly, Intel's policy to not allow suppliers to source from Xinjiang still stands, forced by Western regulation. They are just apologizing that the policy caused offence. I would prefer if Intel would outright condemn Chinese behavior in Xinjiang, but this particular event doesn't outrage me much.
  • SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    A corporate non-apology posted exclusively in the affected country, no less. I don’t know whether it’s even right to say that Intel the global company made the statement; the people running their Weibo account are presumably in China and might not have had an option.
• causi 5y ago
  [flagged]
  • joshuajill 5y ago
    [flagged]
    • dang 5y ago
      Please do not take HN threads further into generic flamewar hell. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • dang 5y ago
    Please do not take HN threads further into generic flamewar hell. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• perihelions 5y ago
  Apple lobbied the US government *against* the anti-concentration camp labor bill that Intel is apologizing for in the OP, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-uighur/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u... ("Apple is lobbying against a bill aimed at stopping forced labor in China")
  • celeduc 5y ago
    Slave labor is super profitable.
  • gentleman11 5y ago
    This is why we need the pine phone and librem 5 so badly
• Borrible 5y ago
  The highest entry on that 'Read Next' frame on the right of that website, for me is: 'Lick it up:...' that references to: https://www.reuters.com/technology/lick-it-up-japan-professor-creates-tele-taste-tv-screen-2021-12-23/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/lick-it-up-japan-professo... Do I sense some traces of humor in that news feed algorithm?
• undecisive 5y ago
  > Intel, which has 10,000 employees in China, said in its apology that it "respected the sensitivity of the issue in China." This reminds me of a recent British politics round-table interview, where a member of the ruling party told the world that we shouldn't call politicians liars - despite the current Prime Minister lying through his teeth at almost every opportunity simply because he can get away with it - because it would undermine people's faith in the political system that keeps lying to them. It seems that saying the things that need to be said about the political systems that need to be called out is not as important as getting the money (or savings) that the countries attached to those political systems can generate. Or, as a great man once sang: For china (f'china x 4) is a country that can bring us to our knees. Not sure there's a solution to this though. Power will always corrupt.
  • namdnay 5y ago
    > a member of the ruling party told the world that we shouldn't call politicians liars - despite the current Prime Minister lying through his teeth at almost every opportunity simply because he can get away with it - because it would undermine people's faith in the political system that keeps lying to them. I didn’t follow the event, but I have to agree with whoever said that. There’s nothing more toxic to democracy than people just saying “ah politicians are all liars anyway”. That’s exactly what post-truth politicians like Johnson, Trump and Putin want you to believe - it’s all a big joke anyway, so who cares?
    • sumedh 5y ago
      > want you to believe Are you claiming that politicians are not liars?
      • namdnay 5y ago
        That's exactly the kind of easy cynicism that serves no-one. Yes, everyone lies, politicians and non-politicians. "you're looking good", "our product already does this", "i was just about to do that", "it's our highest priority"... and in a job where you are constantly being asked to satisfy everyone, of course there are going to be fibs. But there are relatively honest politicians and there are absolute sociopaths like Johnson, and it's important to differentiate the two
• dazsnow 5y ago
  • undecisive 5y ago
    You're not wrong. But I think that's more a culture thing. The media - not just traditional print media - is feeling increasingly fragile since the shift away from newspapers. So while there's an appetite for it, news sites will cover any topic that needs covering. So, for example, the existence of Bolsonaro would have mostly gone under the radar had the septic spraytan not endorsed him, at which point the media felt it could start calling out the BS that was coming from there. But it isn't just the slimy swampcleaner salesman, when antisemitism scandals that mention Israel erupt, that becomes an acceptable time to talk about their bad behaviour, under the guise of "these are the legitimate criticisms that this person is / could be raising". Do Israel stop being human rights abusers when antisemitism is not in the news? Of course not. But it isn't seen as newsworthy enough unless something local has piqued our interest. When people are killed in racist attacks by american cops, BLM activism and systemic racism become part of the news cycle again. Does racism stop whenever there hasn't been a high-profile racist murder recently? Of course not. But without that hook, people looking to follow the story won't be clicking on every link. And unlike traditional newspaper, where you could buy the thing just for the crossword and the advertisers will still pay, only the individual stories and individual page loads bring revenue. And so the media can no longer afford to finance investigative journalism that might not resonate with the public. So I don't think it's that the rhetoric that has changed. News cycles are responding to what they think our attention span is, based on the numbers they see in the ad revenue. And in this specific instance, while China has had an uneasy relationships with the Uighurs since at least the 1950s, it's the secret and courtless detention and "reeducation" centres that have really got people riled up (shhh... don't mention Guantanamo) and that's only been happening since around 2017.
• viktorcode 5y ago
  [flagged]
  • _rgek 5y ago
    Genocidal policies are usually quite popular with the local majority.
  • ZoomerCretin 5y ago
    [flagged]
    • snovv_crash 5y ago
      Forced sterilization of an ethnicity is genocide, and there's no debate as to whether this is happening.
      • ZoomerCretin 5y ago
        China has a population control policy. They've exempted minorities from this policy for decades. That they are now enforcing their laws equally is not genocide.
      • dennis_system 5y ago
        [flagged]
  • kwere 5y ago
    sinocentrism is the belief in wich han culture is seen as superior and others need to assimilite or "go away". its a thousand old practice. most people seem compliacent with this view supported by the government. 92% of china is han and 56 minorities take the other 8%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_nationalism
    • g8oz 5y ago
      There has been pushback against Han supremacy in the past, sad to see those efforts have been forgotten in today's China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Races_Under_One_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Races_Under_One_Union
• elihu 5y ago
  > "Intel (INTC.O) recently published what it described as an annual letter to suppliers, dated December, that it had been 'required to ensure that its supply chain does not use any labour or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region', following restrictions imposed by 'multiple governments'." As policies go, that one seems kind of clumsy. Assuming for the sake of argument that Uighurs are being used for forced labor in China (which I'm inclined to believe), then isn't "workers in Xinjiang region are forced labor, workers outside of Xinjiang are not" a bit of an oversimplification? Presumably there is also non-forced labor happening in Xinjiang, and probably some amount of forced labor happening outside Xinjiang. I suppose sometimes simple heuristics can work well enough to get the job done and more complicated supply chain audits might be too hard. (One obvious alternative is to just stop trading with China at all, but that's a policy that's unlikely to be enacted by the U.S. or other large nations for equally obvious reasons.)
  • dash2 5y ago
    It's not that simple. If you're competing with local forced labour, your own wages will be artificially driven down. Unfairness spreads.
    • celeduc 5y ago
      Slave labour.
    • elihu 5y ago
      That's a good point.
  • ZoomerCretin 5y ago
    > isn't "workers in Xinjiang region are forced labor, workers outside of Xinjiang are not" a bit of an oversimplification? Not if you knew there was no forced labor in that region at all, and this was all just atrocity propaganda to turn opinion against China. If it's difficult for western corporations to avoid suppliers who depend on suppliers (and so on) who have factories in Xinjiang, then there will be constant stories like this which puts this ridiculous allegation back in the news and social media so we can have our two-minutes hate against the evil empire that's ~~challenging our imperialistic grip on the world~~ ""committing genocide"".
• chloerei 5y ago
  As a Chinese, I think the logic of certain Western countries is ridiculous. Because Xinjiang’s human rights situation is considered to be problematic, so Xinjiang’s companies are banned. As an analogy, can I think that the human rights situation of African Americans is terrible, so I need to ban companies that employ African Americans? These bans will only make the living conditions of minorities worse, because they may lose their jobs because of the ban. By the way, Uyghurs live and work in every province in China, especially in the catering industry. I have never heard complaints about forced labor. American propaganda makes me feel ridiculous, but it seems to be working.
  • kitsune_ 5y ago
    Is there an equivalent to the NAACP for the Uyghurs in China?
  • tgv 5y ago
    You've earned your social credits for today. Pray that they will be of value when someone speaks out against you or your group.
  • limoce 5y ago
    There's a huge gap on the opinions of Xinjiang between the Chinese side and the Western side. Don't put your words for Chinese side on HN because no one would vote for you and your comment will be eventually grayed out.
    • throw10920 5y ago
      I can't recall seeing downvoted comments on HN that were defending China while making good points, with sound logic, avoiding whataboutism and crazy comparisons, and being respectful. The problem is that almost every pro-Chinese-policy comment that I've seen here violates one or more of those things. In the specific case of the GP post, they're making a bad analogy in their first paragraph.
  • jfax 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
• joshuajill 5y ago
  Interestingly, small companies like FairPhone work to improve their suppliers' labor conditions. Intel of all the companies is in a position to do the same or more. However they choose to whitewash their brand by blaming the chinese government of their lack of care. Their hypocrisy backfired, and they let China win on all counts. Ironically they ended up helping whitewash the chinese government.
  • bogwog 5y ago
    How could Intel help improve the forced labor situation in Xinjiang? That’s an extremely sensitive political issue which money won’t solve.
    • joshuajill 5y ago
      For once they could try. They can have rules for their suppliers and factories, and enforce those. Other companies do. Even a tiny company like FairPhone does. But no, they chose for decades the cheap labor, and now they turn around and say "no more" just to defend their reputation. In any case, apparently their apologies to China will not stop them from moving away from Xinjiang working, even if just for show.
      • xiphias2 5y ago
        Why do you write ,,even''? You are talking about a product where the main feature is fairness. I'm sure it misses some features that non-fair phones have in return. It's all about what the customer cares about.
    • giancarlostoro 5y ago
      If every major company benefitting from China got together and made demands I wouldn’t be surprised if Chinas hand is forced.
      • csense 5y ago
        Any facility or employee on Chinese soil is a potential hostage of the Chinese government. "China's hand is forced" == your factories get nationalized and your employees' families get imprisoned or worse.
• hexo 5y ago
  So Intel saying "forced labour bad, mkay" is bad. After facing ban saying 'is not how we feel about it". Really? Mhm, mkay. Not sure what is worse now. Getting WW2 IBM vibes now kind of. This is like calling for global boycott. Come on Intel, we know you can do better
• Guessnotgauss 5y ago
  [dead]
• zivkovicp 5y ago
  This is one of those "damned if you, and damned if you don't" type situations. I'm sure all they really want is to maintain their margins, which makes turning the other cheek to potential human rights abuses that much more sinister... but making a commitment to higher ethical standards risks putting them out of business (Intel has been poorly managed for years already), which would make this a futile effort.
• mrweasel 5y ago
  I really don't understand China, but China also don't care to understand the west one bit. China has zero cultural understand about anything beyond its borders and basically only survives on other cultures being either extremely flexible or completely dependent on China for manufacturing (or both). We're basically just waiting for companies to pull manufacturing from China, because they can deal with the backlash at home for ever, or some western leader to snap and just tell China to "Go kill whoever you need to get rid of so we can move on".
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    We can start by not buying anything Made In China as much as possible, however I fail to ever see that happening, as most are quick to forget their morals when it hits their wallets.
    • rob_c 5y ago
      I wouldn't say people forget as a lot of people don't have the extra capital to shop for soy vegan lates every morning for breakfast. These decisions are firmly in the realm of the political economics. Either cut off the product supply through embargoes or taxes or build a competing supply chain...
    • blizdiddy 5y ago
      Yep, who needs foreign policy when we can buy different sneakers? Clearly shaming consumer habits will scale better. If we just all act without self-interest, there is really no problem!
      • pjmlp 5y ago
        Start by being the change don't wait for it to happen.
    • earthscienceman 5y ago
    • smhenderson 5y ago
• sys_64738 5y ago
  Western companies need to stop being pawns for the China Communists.
• themitigating 5y ago
  Karry Wang said he would no longer serve as brand ambassador for Intel, adding in a statement that "national interests exceed everything". That's such an insane statement. It basically says
• themitigating 5y ago
  Karry Wang said he would no longer serve as brand ambassador for Intel, adding in a statement that "national interests exceed everything". Everything?
  • kerneloftruth 5y ago
    Yes, that's the mentality. And, by "national interests", they mean "CCP interests" -- there's no distinction between "the party" and the nation.
    • formerly_proven 5y ago
      The civilization is the nation is the party.
• stevespang 5y ago
• jackjeff 5y ago
  They’d better apologize for the apology… or else…
• 737min 5y ago
  “ We apologise for the trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers..” Andy Grove, a Holocaust survivor, must be turning over in his grave.
  • norealathrowwy 5y ago
• alkonaut 5y ago
  OK intel I know I’m probably representing less revenue than China but I’m avoiding your products. A letter of apology? To the Chinese regime? Are there any companies who are giving the middle finger to the regime and paying the price? Name them so we can support them.
• bell-cot 5y ago
  Perhaps Reuters is glossing over the way in which Intel's letter phrased things, but it certainly sounds as if they were utterly clueless about the subject being politically sensitive. Vs. (say) "Per U.S. law [exact, legalistic citation], signed into law on [date] by [President], Intel is legally forced to require that [dull, narrow, legalistic description of requirement, free of any hot-buttons]." Placed amid similar citations of other new laws - some of them Chinese - which affect Intel's supply chain. Arguments about whether or not the third rail should carry 10,000 volts can be made all day. But corporate management that gets electrocuted because they were simply oblivious needs to be replaced.
• mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Wall St. does not care, so these companies can not care. Apple just gave BOE 20% of their OLED business to diversify away from Sanding and LG: Note that BOE is being propped up by the CCP to the tune of $100M a year in losses over the past decade as economic warfare against SK. Manufacturing is where today’s wars are being fought because these people know it gives them the power over those that would complain otherwise. I wouldn’t be surprised if Intel’s supply chain now has components that couldn’t be built without a lot of delays if the CCP snapped their fingers (since they have also funded the conglomeration of specialty materials companies: these new companies are cheap when all you have to do is devalue your currency (is. steal a few dollars from all your citizens)). Hopefully these conflicts stay entirely in the economic and manufacturing realm, because real war is hell.
  • ren_engineer 5y ago
    You can't expect an independent company to take on a nation, the US and other Western governments either need to admit they don't care about human rights or commit to flat out banning trade with China People talk about potential war with China without realizing China has been waging war on the West for decades, China's military doctrine counts economic warfare as equal to kinetic(traditional) warfare. These state backed companies are arms of the military being used to crush foreign nations and Western governments do nothing. Trillions of dollars in damage but they don't care because bombs didn't do the damage and many of the politicians got rich by allowing it to happen
    • quacked 5y ago
      Totally agree. In addition, billions of dollars every year are spent on various propaganda wars through advertising firms, political campaigns, and policy groups to convince people that the current state of manufacturing and nationality in the world is both inevitable and desirable. Forget about the trillions of dollars--the real casualties are social stability, self-sufficiency, and the overall individual strength of the "west". The grandchildren of the people who invented the modern supply chain are wholly incapable of rebuilding it or in most cases even understanding it. How many people involved in the "national discourse" know what a kilowatt is, or have any idea what the country imports and why?
• JohnHaugeland 5y ago
  I wish they wouldn't apologize. This was the right choice.
• rob_c 5y ago
  If they were mining rare earths there I doubt this statement would have made it past the "hey this sounds good and makes us seem friendly" stage of marketing...
• rayiner 5y ago
  In a dark way I’m enjoying this. China has these “masters of the universe” on a leash and isn’t afraid to give a good yank to bring them to heel.
  • foobiekr 5y ago
    Did you live through the late 80s when Japan had a similar psychological hold on a lot of US companies and decision makers? It may be somewhat entertaining, but it is not a good thing. That said, it will be very funny if China suffers the same sort of historical path that Japan did after the failure of the 5th gen and the bubble. Housing prices as a multiple of income are actually worse in Shanghai right now than they were at the peak of Japan, Inc.
• dang 5y ago
  All: if you want to comment on HN on a divisive topic like this, please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make sure you're commenting in the intended spirit: curious, thoughtful, respectful conversation across differences. Note, for example, this guideline—we really mean it: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Many users can't seem to resist hurling flamebait and feeding flamewars. Please don't be one of those. This is not a site for smiting enemies or being an internet warrior, regardless of how right your views are or you feel they are, and regardless of how much badness there is to denounce. None of that is what we want here, because it's repetitive, predictable, and self-reinforcing. HN threads thrive on diffs, not repetition. Diffs are what's interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
  • ribosometronome 5y ago
    There is a diff between not being a troll and being respectful of alleged human rights abuses. Suggesting that we must be respectful in the light of massive human rights violations is how those human rights violations get to take place. This is the same sort of peak Silicon Valley technocrat mindset that led to things like apologizing for not sourcing parts from forced labor in China and sites like reddit holding on to jailbait, involuntary porn/voyeur, and literal hate subreddits out of fear of taking any stance.
    • xster 5y ago
      I think he meant to not devolve to into calling everyone a tankie bot or genocide denier if I were to ask you what non-editorial non NED or weapons manufacturer funded primary data you're referring to when you talk about "massive human rights violations".
    • pokepim 5y ago
      So should we start criticizing every american company, person and entity in every thread concerning anything american since US government kills innocent civilians on an even bigger scale than Chinese government? Because you know that is exactly happening.
• ScouterRich 5y ago
  Seeing this reminds me of a link I posted recently. This youtube video features investigation into supposed concentration camps in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI8bJO-to8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI8bJO-to8I I'm posting it again because it seems like the kind of video that needs to be seen.
  • tedk-42 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing this - it's really hard to find anything this well documented from locals
  • nittanymount 5y ago
    ^ you may want to watch this video, an analysis of the video from guanguan, your own judgement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro9kyS-NgAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro9kyS-NgAY
    • elihu 5y ago
      The point of that video seems to be to dox the person who filmed the other video, probably with the intention of making his life a lot harder and less safe. That's really creepy.
  • elihu 5y ago
    That building complex at 10:50 is huge.
• diebeforei485 5y ago
  Actually doing the supply chain management work on the ground to find individual suppliers using forced labor and getting them to change their practices is too much for a small company like Intel, I suppose.
• beebeepka 5y ago
  Bombing and pillaging countries left and right for more than half a century - totally fine, we're bringing democracy to the savages. Becoming an economic threat to the empire - bad, very bad. Anything you do is bad because human rights, environment, blah blah The lack of self reflection is staggering. I expect to get flagged immediately, of course. Can't go against the narrative
• BusyLurker3K 5y ago
  "Guilty until proven innocent" is a very drastic change of policy.
• soueuls 5y ago
  I personally never understood the issues, is there any human right abuses in China? Sure. Each citizens is free to vote with their money and boycott whoever they want. But I am surely not gonna blindly follow the US on this. China is lying about human right issues, but they are right about the fact that it’s indeed an American tactics to hurt them economically. Who in their right mind would follow the US on this? We all remember Guantanamo, the fake mass destruction weapons by Powell and the thousands of innocent civilians killed during an illegitimate war. I am definitely not siding against China on this. They are lying, they are probably torturing innocent Uighur but if I had to apply the exact same logic, I would be boycotting US products and services as well (I don’t)