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Comment by toomanyrichies | Hacker News Reader

Honest question- what is Google's exposure here? Both Youtube and Google (Youtube's parent company) are blocked in China; those revenue streams were cut off a long time ago. What does Google have to lose by letting Youtube keep the videos up?

I'm sure the exposure exists; I recognize that Googlers aren't stupid. I honestly am just curious what that risk is. Having lived in Shanghai for 5 years, I don't see China reversing their ban on either company anytime soon, so I'm curious what carrot and/or stick China has left.

So far, the one thing I can think of is their physical office presence in Beijing / Guangzhou / Hong Kong [0]. That risk is non-trivial- China could simply swoop in and arrest employees, either specific individuals or en masse (neither would surprise me). But are there other risks I'm missing?

0. https://about.google/intl/en_us/locations/?region=asia-pacif...

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Most people are far underestimating the Chinese influence.

1. Chinese working within Google and Youtube are just like working in Facebook [1], from Peter Thiel .

> At Facebook, I’ll give you an example. You had with the Hong Kong protest a year ago, the employees from Hong Kong were all in favor of the protests and free speech. But there were more employees at Facebook who were born in China than who were born in Hong Kong. And the Chinese nationals actually said that, you know, it was just Western arrogance. And you shouldn’t be taking Hong Kong’s side and things like that. And then the rest of the employees at Facebook sort of stayed out of it. But the internal debate felt like people were actually more anti-Hong Kong than pro-Hong Kong.

And let me just say the last sentence was an understatement. ( He is on the Broad of Facebook after all ) And there are plenty more working in Youtube and Google as moderators. ( One day we may find out what happen to Tank Man on Bing Search Engine )

2. Chinese companies abroad. Just to give you an idea. Watch a game of Euro 2020 ( or 2021 ) that is going now, count how many ads were placed by Chinese companies.

3. Chinese invested interest and asset. Google accept ads from companies that has Chinese investment. You play any mobile games? You should count how many of the current top grossing Mobile Games have Tencent of other Chinese investment, one way of another. ( Or how many of those companies have outsource work with a Chinese company or Chinese working in it )

And I could go on and on.

[1] https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2...

This is spot on. The decision is not made not (necessarily) because it benefits the company, but because more middle management actually think it’s “right”. FAANG are practically run by Chinese these days. (I am Taiwanese and hear about this kind of struggles all the time from friends working in US companies.)

Yes and it is not just in Tech as well, if you look around Fortune Global 500 the are pretty much the same. But tech is used as an example here because of its reach and HN's audience.

Exactly. Media as well. They are everywhere (which is not a problem) and always keep Chinese interest above everything wherever they go (which is the problem).

Google is actually operating in mainland China. They have offices here (Engineering, Sales etc.) in Shanghai and AFAIK they are involved in some advertisement business. They also organize events here every once in a while.

Chinese companies buy ads outside of China you know. Chinese companies are known to pull ads at the stroke of a pen from the United Front Work Department.

They should just go ahead and pull their ads, then, and see what happens. Call their bluff.

The director that makes that move is going to be fired faster than China start to think to go back to normal.

The problem from the start is the trade between USA (& Europe) and China is unbalanced. The USA is way more dependent to China than the other way around.

This was the same mistake that the USA did with Japan. Move production there, think that they are stupid and never have any control over the manufacturing.

Now it is obvious that China is not stupid, but it is too late and there is too many personal interests on growing in China. Many CEOs bonuses depend on what happens in China, meanwhile their business in the USA is guaranteed by monopolies and oligopolies. So, why bother about making USA citizens happy if they have not a choice?

This is easy to solve with political will. Instead of antagonizing China, the solution is to increase USA education, infrastructure and be able again to produce what nowadays can only be produced in China.

> Call their bluff.

tldr; China will call Google's bluff, not the other way around.

"Move production there, think that they are stupid and never have any control over the manufacturing."

It's naive to believe that those who lobbied for and benefited from moving production to China were at all concerned about manufacturing control 30 years later. Fortunes were made. The current situation didn't sneak up on anyone, it's just that the people warning about it never had any real influence.

I think it's the same way Hollywood does these things to please the CCP. John Cena being the latest example.

Google might not be currently much active in China but continuing to do these "gestures" is basically trying to please the CCP for future. These are all moves being made for many years in advance. John Cena for example didn't just learn fluent mandarin to apologize to CCP over night. He had been learning it for many years because he knows the 1.5 billion population in China is going to make them more money than whatever they have in US.

Except the CCP will favor domestic companies. When things are imported, you have to partner with a domestic Chinese firm.

They're imagining future revenue streams that won't exist. Furthermore, Chinese companies will reach parity and will compete back on the home turf.

> They're imagining future revenue streams that won't exist. Furthermore, Chinese companies will reach parity and will compete back on the home turf.

I seriously doubt that the US wouldn't be practicing protectionism themselves by that point - at least towards major rivals on the world stage.

The answer you are looking for is: 1.5 billion people and a GDP with a hockey stick curve

"The Industry feeds on biomass"

Google still has the Hong Kong version (https://www.google.com.hk/). The CCP can kick them out if they want to. Baidu will be very happy for this to happen..

Manufacturing capacity for Pixel phones?

Onshore it. The government should fund massive investment in factories, then through immigration, bring in lots of labor. Give incredible tax incentives to devices manufactured in full (no loopholes) in the US.

Increase the total population of the US.

Increase our domestic output.

Pixel production has moved at least partially to Vietnam according to some sources.

https://www.techradar.com/news/google-pixel-4a-manufacturing...

Maybe they just think it's more effort than it's worth to host controversial content. If people file complaints about the videos, they'll have to assign someone to determine if the content is credible, and have to deal with the risk of not censoring some videos that should be censored, or censoring some videos that shouldn't be censored.

The low-effort option is to just shut it all down and be opaque and hand-wavy about the reasons. Which is to say that they're betting that few people actually care enough about this stuff enough that it would cost them revenue.

Want to bet that China has hired Google or their services beyond the ones we’ve been told about previously?

> I recognize that Googlers aren't stupid.

Everyone is stupid, but on different levels.

> what is Google's exposure here?

They want in. They really want in. And they're not alone.

Google and every other company dream that, one day, the Great Firewall will come down, and they'll suddenly have a billion more customers.

They have a great financial incentive (like every other company) to ignore the Uyghur genocide and the literal concentration camps in Xinjiang.

Fast forward a few decades and they will be like IBM who sold tabluating machines to the Nazis.

But they're not getting in. Why would the CCP allow it? They support Chinese companies.

MBA thinking guides these companies.

There's no cost to suppressing coverage of the Uyghur genocide because Western boycotts are virtually nonexistent.

The upside of suppressing coverage of the Uyghur genocide can be calculated as the probability of the Chinese market opening up multiplied by the potential value of that market. As long as the probability is nonzero, this upside is huge.

How about the -shocking- possibility that google thinks 'genocide' is US/Western rhetoric to stoke tensions and keep nations under western hegemony, and they feel it's their duty to not contribute to that?

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