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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Forbidding that practice will simply mean that you won't be doing any more business in China. Which is fine with me. It's just that CEOs that see a virgin population of over a billion consumers for their widgets can't help themselves and will agree to just about anything to be able to tap that market before their competition does.

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>It's just that CEOs that see a virgin population of over a billion consumers for their widgets can't help themselves and will agree to just about anything to be able to tap that market before their competition does.

Isn't that the point of forbidding it? You can't enter the market, but neither can your competitor, so there's no FOMO.

I support reducing trade with china. The need for cheap goods comes with a long tail price tag. It needs to be discussed more. Many Chinese workers are in severe poverty and strengthening Chinese businesses seems to only fuel inequality.

Free trade with China has vastly improved Chinese workers living standards. Those rural jobs from the Cultural Revolution were actual poverty, and physically dangerous to boot.

There are democracies we could have enriched instead, rather than supporting an authoritarian regime

I agree with you that we need to be much more careful and rigorous before trading with China, but China's market-based growth since Xiaoping's reforms are the reason hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens are out of poverty now.

It is the new turn to geopolitical hegemony and debt entrapment that we should be careful of, not the incredible influx of wealth that has (wonderfully!) gone to the Chinese lower classes.

Free trade, and the US leading the world charge to open up to China, is the best thing that happened to Chinese citizens.

Things are different now that the state has such an iron grip, and its own intentions, however.

The agreement needs to be reciprocal. China should have to jump through the same hoops if it wants to do business in the US, UK, Australia, etc

And not just for doing business either, things like home ownership too. If I cannot buy a house in China (not that I'd want to pay for a Chinese house that'll last 5 years max) because I'm not Chinese then they should not be allowed buy in my country either. Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney... all have property markets destroyed by Chinese funny money.

It has to stop, but it won't due to greed. Trump is right about China

(I'm not American, don't live or work in America, and have never, or could ever, vote in an American election. Take your faux outrage elsewhere)

> The agreement needs to be reciprocal. China should have to jump through the same hoops if it wants to do business in the US, UK, Australia, etc

Then deal with the woke cries of xenophobia.

Disapproval of China is strong across the political spectrum.

I don’t think people’s outrage about political topics is fake.

If I came out I strong support the Uyghurs re-education camps, would those outraged by that be faking it simply because I have zero influence in the CCP?

this is not a issue with Chinese buyers, this is a issue with existing land owner, who would do everything to imcrease sell price. Don't say somehow it's the buyers fault. Foreign buyers don't vote in election. it's the vote and money of property owners that allowed those purchase of land with no real purpose other than investment.

My post didn't blame them entirely. They have funds they need to get out of China so they buy property abroad. Having a child who is studying abroad is one of those ways. There's little intention to actually live there, let alone integrate with the community.

The big question is how those funds were obtained. How can locals compete with buyers who can essentially print money? Funny money. Chinese banks are unauditable.

Your last paragraph can't be serious. Are you suggesting somehow China can print dollars? US lands are of course bought with US dollar, which reasonably assumed, only the Fed can print.

They don't print physical dollars, but they can export their Chinese 'wealth' abroad through shady schemes.

As for printing US dollars, North Korea is suspected of doing so: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

This is the shortsightedness of chasing short term profits for the investors rather than a more sustainable approach of not handing over the reins to a less than trustworthy partner.

I'm genuinely curious for how many companies did this short term bump in profits outweigh the long term loss by irretrievably handing over technology, business strategies, etc.

Edit for the comment below.

> legally obliged to maximise shareholder value

Fiduciary duties are not so explicitly described. A CEO must use care and be diligent when making decisions on behalf of the company and shareholders. Make choices in good faith with true belief that each choice is made with the best interests of the corporation in mind.

Hence the best interests of the corporation must be weighed between short term and long term. A CEO could argue either way that they took the decision in good faith. This is where my curiosity came from, how many of these decisions turned out to be financially successful in hindsight?

Aren't CEO's kind of legally obliged to maximise shareholder value, so they have to do the deal with the devil?

No. They are to act in the best interest of the corporation/shareholders, which with increasing clarity means not getting in bed with Chinese organizations (assuming your foresight extends beyond the end of your nose.)

hindsight is great!

A common misconception.

“Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Why do we see this thing over-and-over-and-over again? It isn't true. It never was. Stop repeating it.

Comforting to some.

It's just that CEOs that see a virgin population of over a billion consumers for their widgets can't help themselves and will agree to just about anything to be able to tap that market before their competition does.

Every CEO must realise by now that they will never get to tap that market, they will hand over their IP, they will carry the cost of establishing the product or service in the country, and then be booted out with nothing. Then a few years later a heavily capitalised Chinese company will show up and start competing with them with their own IP in their home country. It's heads China wins, tails the West loses. While our political class buries their heads in the sand, or worse, colludes in return for scoring points against domestic opponents.

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