US companies giving in to pressure from China | Hacker News Reader

US companies giving in to pressure from China

abacusnews.com

80 pointsmaxwell46 comments

I look at it this way: change is not going to be forced on the Chinese government by US corporations. That can only come from the Chinese population (with possibly a small assist from foreign governments). So what's the best way to help their citizens with changing the government?

I believe the best way is to make them prosperous and informed; people who are hungry or worried about their job are less likely to question the political status quo. Are US corporations helping with either of those? Not much with the latter but I believe more trade helps the former, as long as it also doesn't make it easier for the government to oppress the Chinese population.

Is there much of a difference between US corporations doing business in China and the rest of us buying inexpensive goods from Chinese companies?

This thinking is common that more middle-upper class people won't put up with a dictatorial regime.

But isn't Singapore kind of a counter to that?

Singaporeans at least have the right to leave. Chinese people aren't even free to migrate internally.

Singaporean internet access is significantly freer than Chinese. Singapore has freer markets, more rule of law.

They don't have a real democracy, and there are restrictions on speech, but it's absolutely crazy to equate it with China. If China turns into Singapore as it gets richer it'll be a humanitarian miracle.

Unfortunately I share your skepticism. Not because of Singapore as a counterexample, though, but because of China-to-date. They haven't been liberalising, they have been getting less free, more nationalistic and so on. The Party has increased its control on every part of life and all levers of government. I can't see why that trend should reverse.

Yes and even if go you are chinese first. Kidnapping foreign national in a foreign land (Thailand not just 1c2s Hk) is done.

You are chinese first even if you have other passport ...

I wish all people around the world the best. But with respect to China, I'm rather concerned that rather than the Chinese population forcing change upon their government, another possible outcome is that the Chinese government forces undesirable and possibly dramatic change upon the rest of the world. To me, this outcome seems not just possible, but extremely likely unless something major changes.

Honestly, I don’t find the censorship tools or local-hosting of data to be too offensive; if the big Cloud players don’t do it, another will, with the net effect being the same. What bothers me the most is the airlines listing Taiwan as part of China. This goes against policy of the vast majority of the world, including the U.S. It’s one of many reasons (the others are not germane to the article so I will not list them here) why I refuse to buy new Chinese products. It has been quite difficult, but between second hand stores and a relatively robust domestic manufacturing base, I’ve made it work.

An excerpt, which sounds shockingly similar to GDPR compliance, listed as an example:

"APPLE, AGAIN

That wasn’t the only issue Apple faced in the country. Earlier this year, Apple moved Chinese iCloud data to a state-run company after new laws were enacted requiring foreign companies to store data locally."

The difference is that in the case of China (and Russia), requiring local data storage is intended to enable government oppression. EU countries have much better human rights records than China and Russia do.

Do you believe it is morally wrong for China and Russia to pass their own GDPR-esque legislation? And for corporations to comply with said legislation?

Motive and outcome are valid measures for deciding if something is moral

Boeing and other traditional high-skill/tech manufacturers have been giving away their to China technology for years.

CEOs/Boards/State don't care though, its all about next quarter's numbers.

Boeing doesn’t sell tech to China. They sell them planes, spare parts, they even put a finishing center in China, but no IP transfer.

McDonal Douglas did sell MD80 machining tools to China, which is what the 909 is based on. However, this is only for the body, the other stuff (avionics, jet engines) are being imported.

"Over the decades, Boeing and other American companies, including General Electric, Honeywell and Rockwell Collins, have helped China to build the broad foundation necessary for an aerospace industry. That same Chinese industry is now getting close to producing its own commercial jets that could one day take much of the profitable Chinese market back from Boeing and rival Airbus."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/23/china...

These US corporate elites are selling out US and the rest of the democratic free world in order to meet shareholder's expectations (and of course, MONEY!). And giving into a dictatorship and giving that dictatorship jobs, money, capital, knowledge, and power. That dictatorship now has imprisoned close to 1 million people in Xinjiang.

Shame on you, Sundar Pichai. At least when Google was lead by Erich Schmidt, Google pulled out of China, and didn't bend to the whims of Chinese government.

Shame on you, Tim Cook. Apple has 4.8 million jobs in China, more than double the jobs in US. https://247wallst.com/jobs/2017/03/17/apple-supports-4-8-mil... . Shame on you for not bringing jobs back when news broke out that Foxconn has created a slave labor like working condition.

Shame on you, Mark Zuckerberg, for continuing to appease the dictator in China, so that Facebook may gain a foothold there.

Shame on you, Satya Nadella, for continuing to supply censored search results in Bing. and for not taking a stand against censorship. But I guess the microsoft borgship has a lot in common with China.

Shame on you, Jeff Bezos. You become the richest man on earth, by allowing pirated, stolen, IP infriged goods from China to be sold on your platform without care, destroying small US businesses. You also partnered with Foxconn for Amazon Echo, tablet, and other hardwares. Amazon is a showcase for trade imbalance. disgusting.

> user: mobmobmob > created: 17 minutes ago

Is that why the user is green? I've always wondered?

Yes it is, but what does that have to do with the nature of the comment?

Considering the blatant lies and misinformation being spread in the comment, the fact that it's a fresh, new account makes it suspect.

Couple the two together makes it for a comment that doesn't honestly want to drive good conversation.

> Considering the blatant lies and misinformation being spread in the comment, the fact that it's a fresh, new account makes it suspect.

What blatant lies? Everything there looks true, except maybe the employment figures (the US figure apparently includes all people working in the "the iOS ecosystem", which seems totally bogus to me), but that's actually being generous to Apple.

Edit: Just to quickly fact check the other stuff:

> That dictatorship now has imprisoned close to 1 million people in Xinjiang.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/former-inm...

> Shame on you, Sundar Pichai. At least when Google was lead by Erich Schmidt, Google pulled out of China, and didn't bend to the whims of Chinese government.

Google stops cooperating with Chinese censorship in 2010: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/12/google-ch...

Censored Google being developed in 2018: https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engi...

> Shame on you, Mark Zuckerberg, for continuing to appease the dictator in China, so that Facebook may gain a foothold there.

Zuckerberg shamelessly sucking up to Xi/CCP: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1658272/zuckerberg-h...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-...

> Shame on you, Satya Nadella, for continuing to supply censored search results in Bing. and for not taking a stand against censorship.

Bing censoring Chinese search results: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/11/bing-cens...

> Shame on you, Jeff Bezos. You become the richest man on earth, by allowing pirated, stolen, IP infriged goods from China to be sold on your platform without care

Amazon's counterfeit problem: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazo...

Thank you for checking facts and sharing citations.

It was leading the discussion in a decidedly political direction, which was why I only responded with an observation about the community experience of the account.

It's not even that he's lying or citing bad data. It's the conclusions he's drawing from it that I find suspect. He seems to be closely mirroring the talking points of a certain controversial public figure. A figure who only seems to be bothered by the wholesale corporate exploitation of the working class when it benefits a foreign country.

Yes, any account less than two weeks old will have a green name

The US was not engaged with China prior to 1971, how did that work out for the United States and for China? Over the long-term, engagement with China has led to more personal freedom for the Chinese.

Trade with China has helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, while helping with the prosperity of the United States. True the corporations are reaping most of the benefits, but that's natural under a free market. We need reforms here in America to broaden the benefits of trade to all workers. Outsourcing to Asian countries existed prior to China's rise in the supply chain. Most of the stuff that is "Made in China" have major components that come from America's allies such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

Google is in a position to offer a superior search product to China. We should see this as an opportunity to advance freedom.

Are you seriously suggesting that a censored search engine is "an opportunity to advance freedom"?

Yes. The choice before Google is whether to enter the Chinese market. Staying out of China may make some people feel morally satisfied, but will not give Chinese people more information. Rather Google should be using its influence to challenge censorship from the inside after it reenters the Chinese market.

> Yes. The choice before Google is whether to enter the Chinese market. Staying out of China may make some people feel morally satisfied, but will not give Chinese people more information.

Entering the Chinese market also lends prestige to the censoring regime (e.g. "all the companies of the world submit to our demands"), and also makes those demands seem more reasonable.

> Rather Google should be using its influence to challenge censorship from the inside after it reenters the Chinese market.

The CCP doesn't care at all about Google's challenges to it. Either Google complies totally, or it's out. The CCP doesn't need Google, and they probably would rather people use Baidu anyway.

How do you think it might compare to no search engine at all? Or one controlled completely by the Communist Party?

The ideal option that we'd all love to see, of the Chinese people given full and free access to uncensored and unmonitored information, is unlikely to be on offer any time soon. Refusing to meet the Communist Party's demands has only meant that control of information by the Party goes unchallenged in any way. Search is not something so unique and powerful that only specially smart Westerners can do it. As a result, holding out for this ideal is equivalent to actively advocating for the status quo.

That's the question at hand. Do we prefer posturing in the form of a moral stand that hurts people and strengthens the Communist Party or do we accept that other options might be worth considering?

But it is also controlled by communist. A Catholic Church by name or even sanctioned by the pope is not a real church. It just showed how powerful the communist is.

Pleasing Soviet Union never help.

Many good things for most parties have come out of China's greater involvement in the world economy, this much is true.

However, there are also several plausible, non-trivial concerns that seem like they should be included in a comprehensive conversation, but are often left out. Mobmobmob mentioned a few specific ones, do you have an opinion on the severity of the risks he mentioned?

It's not just companies, it's US people too. The original HN thread on this subject (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17660872) had a truly depressing percentage of comments saying "No big deal" using some combination of whataboutism, false equivalence and simple fatalism. I seem to remember that when Google first pulled out of China the reaction among HN types was much more positive; what has happened to our morals since then?

It remembers me a book: The Best Enemy Money Can Buy, by Antony C. Sutton.

Hacker news has been overtaken by evil insect-like people that hate freedom, and goodness itself.

This statement is delusional in the context of Google offering a censored search product. People in China who mind will leave China, most don't mind according to Confucianism values, this policy is not going to change because nerds in North America disagree with it, and neither is Google.

I don't think poor people from China don't have the ability or money to leave China. The poor of any country usually have limited mobility. Most people in China are poor. Also, it's not like the world has open borders, and people can move to another country without huge efforts.

It's important to remember history a bit. Google left China[0] after it was hacked as part of Operation Aurora[1]. It had been serving a censored version of Google Search from 2006-2010.

[0] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-chin...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

I don't find it odd or wrong that companies are abiding to the law when they offer services within a certain jurisdiction.

Google pulled out because of hacking and attacks against their services, if I remember correctly.

Google pulled out because of the hacks, but remember both Page and Brin came from eastern block countries, so they had a more idealistic and personal outlook on the matter (at least at the time).

I think there are a lot more Chinese on HN now then 2010. Also, it is increasingly clear that any action to get China to open up and liberalize more can’t come from the private sector due to a successful policy of economic engagement (and some say entrapment) by the Chinese.

It's increasingly hard to justify not doing business in China for moral reasons whilst doing business in the U.S. If the moral high ground could indisputably be claimed by the U.S. then peoples' views would be different. Now it's not a big deal that Google wants to do business in China since it's doing business in the U.S.

It's not necessarily that morality has gone down in the U.S; it's that trust in the morality of America's leaders has gone down. I see this as a sign of a decline in the faith of America's institutions. Also with globalization the distinction between nation-states begins to erode. This is especially so in the case of business.

Uh, morals? What does ethics have to do with Google operating their search business in China?

I'm confused why I am supposed to be outraged. I don't have any particularly strong feelings about censorship in foreign countries - how does what the Chinese government do affect American speech? I guess censorship in general is _bad_, but it's purely an internal, domestic matter. The Chinese aren't scrubbing American textbooks of the historical record. Really, I think I've only noticed China's influence in cinema; I see more Asian lead roles in Hollywood films, but this seems more a corrective change than bad thing.

I'm not seeing how what happens to internet search in China affects Americans. Nor what ethical concerns there are.

The Chinese aren't scrubbing American textbooks of the historical record.

The Chinese government certainly would like to, though, and if they get powerful enough they will.

I believe the expected reaction is the same amount of moral outrage that would accompany the American government treating the American public the same way.

At what point does it become a moral imperative to stop doing business with a government? I assume we can all agree that US businesses should not sell more efficient gas chambers to Nazi Germany. So where does the line get drawn?

> "The Chinese aren't scrubbing American textbooks of the historical record"

However, the Chinese Communist Party is in fact coercing American websites to conform to its political preferences.

"It issued an ultimatum that expired last week, asking airlines around the world to refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites."

What if China takes over the world? What if a ton of countries that act this way start appearing and people in our country start using them as examples to follow. I feel like these things are already happening, that's why I care. When parts of the world get worse off, it eventually will get worse for all of us.

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