5 ms·

Playing fair with China just doesn't work. They'll rourt, cheat, and manipulate every aspect of the system to their advantage. It's very disappointing the syste

Playing fair with China just doesn't work. They'll rourt, cheat, and manipulate every aspect of the system to their advantage. It's very disappointing the system doesn't combat this, but as a few people here have said. If Amazon gets paid they don't care.

forgetfreeman 4y ago
It is wildly amusing to watch capitalists get their lunch eaten at capitalism by communists.
- tasubotadas 4y ago
  That's a complete misunderstanding of situation.
  - forgetfreeman 4y ago
    Except it really isn't. US-led multinationals and their investors were all dead-ass certain that they were going to devour China economically, totally ignoring the culture has a track record of swallowing invading armies and ideologies whole that spans thousands of years.
- Incipient 4y ago
  China may be communist by branding, but they're economically capitalist, and on a governmental front, mercanalist. Common ownership is not a thing, and it's all about pushing locally made and exporting as much as possible by all means necessary.
  - mpol 4y ago
    Aha, so all-eating capitalism without having healthy limits set by socialism.
  - forgetfreeman 4y ago
    I don't disagree on any particular point, I'm just old enough to remember when none of what you mention was the case, and American corporations were gleefully eyeing China as their next market expansion target. Without exception they got out-played at their own game.
    - ramchip 4y ago
      I feel at least Apple has done pretty well in China.
      - happymellon 4y ago
        Probably because they dont sell on Amazon.
        fragmede 4y ago
        Apple does sell on Amazon, though perhaps indirectly. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Apple/Apple/page/77D9E1F7-0337-4282-9DB6-B6B8FB2DC98D https://www.amazon.com/stores/Apple/Apple/page/77D9E1F7-0337... I think there is more to their success than that though.
        happymellon 4y ago
        Interesting, I don't seem to be able to see any Apple store in the Amazon UK site.
      - someguydave 4y ago
        Uhh how is that iphone Foxconn plant doing these days?
      - forgetfreeman 4y ago
        Sure, and the IP transfers required to make that happen played a huge role in modernizing the Chinese tech/fab industry. So even that represents a phyrric victory from a nationalist-industrialist perspective.
  - chrischen 4y ago
    They definitely stick their hand in the free market a lot.
- googlryas 4y ago
  It's only amusing if you don't really believe in the rule of law. If the allegations from the article are true, there was probably tortuous interference, bribery, criminal threats, as well as a whole slew of broken consumer protection laws at the very least. What you say is akin to saying it's amusing to see a chess player beaten in a game because the opponent just took all of his pieces and put them in his pocket, and bribed the judge to look the other way. What exactly is amusing about that? I really don't understand what kind of world people who make statements like this want to live in.
  - brosinante 4y ago
    It's amusing to see the (perceived) David beat the (perceived) Goliath. It's not neccesarily fair, or nice, but punching (perceiv-ably?) up is funny.
    - fastball 4y ago
      Anyone who perceives Chinese sellers as David when it comes to e-commerce hasn't been paying attention for at least a decade.
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    Most capitalists don’t believe in rule of law, only rule of “the free market”, at least when things are going their way.
    - mancerayder 4y ago
      We're all capitalists here, I suspect - I mean does anyone in this message thread - a single person - advocate for state ownership of all means of production and then centralised controlled distribution of goods and services? I didn't think so. I think the term you're looking for is laissez-faire capitalists, of which there could be a few. Most people support some degree of regulatory control. We should stop with "you're either an X or a Y". That might be true on TV or on Twitter. It is not true in real life.
- fastball 4y ago
  Everyone is a capitalist these days. Capitalism won over the world decades ago.
  - r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
    No, most people are wage labourers who work for capitalists. In the same way that most people in 12th century Britain were serfs who worked for nobles. The difference is that capitalists have managed to convince workers that they somehow occupy equal positions in the socioeconomic hierarchy.
- wil421 4y ago
  China is the land of cheap counterfeits and it started before Amazon existed.
- varispeed 4y ago
  The problem is that law enforcement doesn't work. If instances of fraud were actually investigated and properly policed, then this wouldn't have happened. If Amazon was threatened with closure if they don't fix this, you would see a change quickly.
  - TimPC 4y ago
    They don’t even need to be threatened with closure. You just need to be able to eliminate the “it wasn’t us it was our partner merchant” defence for liability on their site and the whole thing would collapse like a house of cards.
chrischen 4y ago
Ultimately Amazon is the one doing this though. They are justing using these sellers as the “right hand.”
toss1 4y ago
It is getting way past time to recognize that the Great Experiment has failed, and failed miserably. The concept was that open exchange, trade, and information flow would result in open societies. In fact, the reverse happened — it strengthened the hand of the expansionist authoritarian governments. Now, the '-isms' (communism, fascism, etc.) have all been stripped, and it is literally open war on democracies by the authoritarian states. Russia is waging open genocide in Ukraine and threatening the Baltics, Poland and Germany, China is openly violating it's agreements on Hong Kong, militarily threatening Taiwan and everyone around it's "9-dashed-line", and brutalizing it's own citizens as they protest. Iran & North Korea similarly threatening. In the economic sphere, their entire repertoire is to steal as much IP as possible and cheat their way into the markets. It is far past time to recognize that we are playing for a few quarters of better profits while they are playing to literally destroy the democracies to they can take what they want. The only proper response is to condition our economic engagement on the implementation of democracy. You want access to our markets? Fine, open your political systems, stop being a threat, and we'll trade. Until then, it's a full embargo. Aside from the overt military threats, I literally don't go several hours at a time without seeing more stories of how people in democratic countries are being routinely and systematically cheated by the Chinese, or how they are maintaining "Chinese police auxiliary stations" in democratic countries (why is this permitted?) to threaten their own diaspora. There are surely good people in every country, but that fact does not make it worth the costs of interacting with those societies.

forgetfreeman 4y ago

It is wildly amusing to watch capitalists get their lunch eaten at capitalism by communists.

tasubotadas 4y ago
That's a complete misunderstanding of situation.
- forgetfreeman 4y ago
  Except it really isn't. US-led multinationals and their investors were all dead-ass certain that they were going to devour China economically, totally ignoring the culture has a track record of swallowing invading armies and ideologies whole that spans thousands of years.
Incipient 4y ago
China may be communist by branding, but they're economically capitalist, and on a governmental front, mercanalist. Common ownership is not a thing, and it's all about pushing locally made and exporting as much as possible by all means necessary.
- mpol 4y ago
  Aha, so all-eating capitalism without having healthy limits set by socialism.
- forgetfreeman 4y ago
  I don't disagree on any particular point, I'm just old enough to remember when none of what you mention was the case, and American corporations were gleefully eyeing China as their next market expansion target. Without exception they got out-played at their own game.
  - ramchip 4y ago
    I feel at least Apple has done pretty well in China.
    - happymellon 4y ago
      Probably because they dont sell on Amazon.
      - fragmede 4y ago
        Apple does sell on Amazon, though perhaps indirectly. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Apple/Apple/page/77D9E1F7-0337-4282-9DB6-B6B8FB2DC98D https://www.amazon.com/stores/Apple/Apple/page/77D9E1F7-0337... I think there is more to their success than that though.
        happymellon 4y ago
        Interesting, I don't seem to be able to see any Apple store in the Amazon UK site.
    - someguydave 4y ago
      Uhh how is that iphone Foxconn plant doing these days?
    - forgetfreeman 4y ago
      Sure, and the IP transfers required to make that happen played a huge role in modernizing the Chinese tech/fab industry. So even that represents a phyrric victory from a nationalist-industrialist perspective.
- chrischen 4y ago
  They definitely stick their hand in the free market a lot.
googlryas 4y ago
It's only amusing if you don't really believe in the rule of law. If the allegations from the article are true, there was probably tortuous interference, bribery, criminal threats, as well as a whole slew of broken consumer protection laws at the very least. What you say is akin to saying it's amusing to see a chess player beaten in a game because the opponent just took all of his pieces and put them in his pocket, and bribed the judge to look the other way. What exactly is amusing about that? I really don't understand what kind of world people who make statements like this want to live in.
- brosinante 4y ago
  It's amusing to see the (perceived) David beat the (perceived) Goliath. It's not neccesarily fair, or nice, but punching (perceiv-ably?) up is funny.
  - fastball 4y ago
    Anyone who perceives Chinese sellers as David when it comes to e-commerce hasn't been paying attention for at least a decade.
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  Most capitalists don’t believe in rule of law, only rule of “the free market”, at least when things are going their way.
  - mancerayder 4y ago
    We're all capitalists here, I suspect - I mean does anyone in this message thread - a single person - advocate for state ownership of all means of production and then centralised controlled distribution of goods and services? I didn't think so. I think the term you're looking for is laissez-faire capitalists, of which there could be a few. Most people support some degree of regulatory control. We should stop with "you're either an X or a Y". That might be true on TV or on Twitter. It is not true in real life.
fastball 4y ago
Everyone is a capitalist these days. Capitalism won over the world decades ago.
- r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
  No, most people are wage labourers who work for capitalists. In the same way that most people in 12th century Britain were serfs who worked for nobles. The difference is that capitalists have managed to convince workers that they somehow occupy equal positions in the socioeconomic hierarchy.
wil421 4y ago
China is the land of cheap counterfeits and it started before Amazon existed.
varispeed 4y ago
The problem is that law enforcement doesn't work. If instances of fraud were actually investigated and properly policed, then this wouldn't have happened. If Amazon was threatened with closure if they don't fix this, you would see a change quickly.
- TimPC 4y ago
  They don’t even need to be threatened with closure. You just need to be able to eliminate the “it wasn’t us it was our partner merchant” defence for liability on their site and the whole thing would collapse like a house of cards.

chrischen 4y ago

Ultimately Amazon is the one doing this though. They are justing using these sellers as the “right hand.”

toss1 4y ago

It is getting way past time to recognize that the Great Experiment has failed, and failed miserably. The concept was that open exchange, trade, and information flow would result in open societies. In fact, the reverse happened — it strengthened the hand of the expansionist authoritarian governments. Now, the '-isms' (communism, fascism, etc.) have all been stripped, and it is literally open war on democracies by the authoritarian states. Russia is waging open genocide in Ukraine and threatening the Baltics, Poland and Germany, China is openly violating it's agreements on Hong Kong, militarily threatening Taiwan and everyone around it's "9-dashed-line", and brutalizing it's own citizens as they protest. Iran & North Korea similarly threatening. In the economic sphere, their entire repertoire is to steal as much IP as possible and cheat their way into the markets. It is far past time to recognize that we are playing for a few quarters of better profits while they are playing to literally destroy the democracies to they can take what they want. The only proper response is to condition our economic engagement on the implementation of democracy. You want access to our markets? Fine, open your political systems, stop being a threat, and we'll trade. Until then, it's a full embargo. Aside from the overt military threats, I literally don't go several hours at a time without seeing more stories of how people in democratic countries are being routinely and systematically cheated by the Chinese, or how they are maintaining "Chinese police auxiliary stations" in democratic countries (why is this permitted?) to threaten their own diaspora. There are surely good people in every country, but that fact does not make it worth the costs of interacting with those societies.