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Comment by coliveira | Hacker News Reader

Of course, France is an old country with very stablished rules, even more than the USA. It is normal that a new economy, like China, will have new rules more often than the US. This doesn't mean that they have an obligation to create laws to facilitate American business.

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Why does everyone just assume all the businesses talked about in the article are American? Obviously some of them were not. It seemed that they were focusing more on foreigners.

China does not have rule of law, full stop. They have a constitution that guarantees freedom of press, religion, and speech, and it is completely meaningless because they do not have rule of law. What this means is that Baidu can make most of its money on medical scams and porn while any foreign company would immediately be prosecuted for any small transgression. Whatever rules China makes up, its just for convenience, if they want to get you, they'll find something.

No one is asking for favoritism, only level playing field. Of course people would also be okay with exceptions, so long they remain exceptions and not the rule.

Even an unlevel playing field would be fine — if it were stable and not subject to the arbitrary whims of the CCP. Predictability and consistency are paramount.

You only get to the level playing field when you join the Old Boys’ Network.

On the other hand, if you have a light complexion, you can easily get a well paying English tutoring job. It often pays higher than what an engineering grad would make!

Why do you deserve level playing field? The rules always favor locals. No foreigner can just come to the US to work or try to make a fortune from scratch. You need to bring something special: capital or knowledge/skills. Why do you expect China to be different? You need to give them what they want if you want to prosper there.

> You need to bring something special: capital or knowledge/skills.

Unfortunately that is not really true. But it’s certainly a good idea!

The other thing to note when doing a compare and contrast is that China is a high savings country with no shortage of capital. Maybe in the very beginning of the reform and opening era they did but it hasn't been the case for over two decades. US on the other hand is the largest importer of capital in the world. So it can be expected that China with its thirsts for know-how and market access but not capital will behave very differently from the US, all else being equal. This is generally true for other East Asian countries as well.

> No foreigner can just come to the US to work or try to make a fortune from scratch.

plenty of politicians love to tell everyone ad nauseam about someone who came to the US and "found the American Dream". America is the freest, most open society in the world. it's what makes us different from other countries. blah blah blah. you hear this kind of idealism all the time. some people would say it's a foundational, fundamental feature of America. (Others would not.)

does anyone say that in China?

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