Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
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Contrary to what the U.S. Supreme Court would have you believe, corporations are not people and do not have morals or values. They are organizations that seek to maximize profit and grow.
Any values a corporation projects are merely reflections of whatever the dominant moral force is in a given time and place.
American corporations in the U.S. in 2022 project values of wokeness because the woke left is presently the dominant cultural force in the U.S. In 1950's America, the dominant cultural force was cultural conservatism and patriotism so naturally corporations projected conservative and patriotic values. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that a large corporation operating in China in 2022 will reflect the values of the CCP.
I'm not saying this is a good thing, but expecting a corporation to have meaningful morals in the same way a human does is like expecting your dog to do the dishes. Based on what they are, they're simply not capable of the task.
They are however made up of people who make moral decisions based on their values, including in their businesses. Plenty of corporations choose to do or not do things based on their ethics and morals. And acting as an agent of a corporation doesn't free you from moral peril when making those decisions.
I don't expect Intel the Corporation to have values, but I do expect the people within Intel who choose where they manufacture or purchase manufactured goods to have qualms about using slave labor for it, supporting a genocide in doing so.
Human behavior is remarkably different depending on whether or not I'm the sole person on stage responsible for an action or whether I'm a single anonymous vote.
This is exactly it. In a large organization, everyone can mentally offload any responsibility to someone else.
The rank and file can say "It's not my decision, the execs told me to do this".
The executives can say, "It's the board pushing me to do xyz and if I don't do it then someone else will, so I might as well just keep my job".
And the board can say, "Well, we just told the execs to maximize shareholder value, we didn't tell them to do anything unethical."
So you end up with a situation where no one feels like they bear any responsibility for the actions of an enterprise and you have a group of individuals who, as individuals, are moral but are contributing to an organization that is acting immorally in the aggregate.
I would argue that the individuals are immoral and the corporations foster conditions that reveal this fundamental immorality that is usually hidden. We only act moral if there's a consequence detrimental to ourselves.
Hence people act immorally in the name of survival.
The irony of this is that all corporations and all decisions and actions taken by corporations are made by people. If anything corporations are the most clear and unmistakable reflection of what it truly means to be human without the masks we wear in daily life.
Other than that, yeah I get what you're saying.
Corporations ARE amoral entities; reacting to consumer sentiment that often shifts based on cultural or political trends. Their aim is to make a profit for shareholders and other stakeholders. During the times of "cultural conservatism and patriotism" it was enough to say "made in America", albeit unnecessary, since globalization's effects were not an issue. Company leadership being labelled as communist sympethizers may have stoked fears and anger. Being a former supporter of the Nazi party or the KKK (morally objectionable sentiments) meant little. So, was it corporations that were immoral or the lack of outrage from the majority conservative patriots that could explain this difference better?
The threat of termination is what causes someone "typical" to act "atypically." Survival instincts kick in, and anything goes.
Or you could be right. The CEO in such a position refuses to act immorally and is than fired by the shareholders for not hitting performance metrics. They then hire another and another... until they find a CEO willing to throw away his morality to hit those performance numbers.
Do the shareholders care? No.
Please see these comments [0]. But essentially, Intel is in a medium and long term losing position in CCP China regardless of whether it glosses over slave concentration camps. It seems to have chosen to value CCP China supply chains. It will face a capricious CCP that will disrupt those supply chains sooner or later. It will face the creation of a CCP China national chip champion with a monopoly on local sales.
This will be bad for business. It is of course still bad to play semantic public relations games with slave concentration camps.
Had it maintained a moral position against Xinjiang slave concentration camps, it would have been pushed to look for alternative supply chains. This in turn would have put Intel in a better position to whether storms created by CCP when using trade policies as foreign policy instruments.
Good business and some basic moral decency go together. It is so sad for humanity to believe otherwise.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29897071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29897791
So is the position of Intel that slave labour in concentration camps is an acceptable means of production?
To what extent are Intel chips designed and manufactured in China? Presumably, they are primarily designed in the USA and manufactured in Taiwan. And Intel is opening chip factories to boost production in the USA [0].
Why would Intel not take a position against Xinjiang slave concentration camps if presumably most of the supply chain does not depend on it? Would it be that much "trouble"? Or has some unrelated "trouble" been created for Intel that was not discussed in the article?
[0] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-...
Supply chains are broad and it's not hard to have goods that pass through or originate in those regions even if all your parts are produced outside that and you have no direct partnerships there.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/2-charts-show-how-much-the-w...
Pie charts gone wrong. You think there's meaningful information in there, but there isn't.
No, most institutions don't publish what their production capacity is. There is an article claiming that TSMC makes "92% of world's most sophisticated chips". Define most sophisticated. You can't just throw in revenue graphs and pretend they show anything of value, just because north america measures success solely in revenue and growth.
The burden of proof is not on me, it's for you to substantiate your claims.
EDIT: Interesting to see people bring in random graphs from CNBC. Things that would not even be considered investment advice and present it as scientific evidence without any sort of due diligence on their. Sad that this is the kind of discourse that we have to have.
Things are not automatically true, valid, or contextual just because a big media corporation published them.
You are suggesting that the majority of low quality chips are manufactured outside of Taiwan. You have not defined your operational definitions for chip quality. You do not even have evidence on the quantity of chips.
In the absence of any data that would contradict this, we can reasonably assume revenue figures are a sensible proxy for quantity of chips.
Why would they? Corporations have two choices now. Bend the knee and stay in the good graces of a government that controls access to the largest consumer market in the world, or take a moral stance and win meaningless social brownie points. There's not even a decision to be made.
But, let's presume that it is. CCP simply does not allow genuine access to sell goods or services. There is a reason why Google and Facebook and so many other dominant companies are practically non existent in China.
So the benefit of access to a supposed largest consumer market that is heavily restricted to foreigners seems largely inconsequential. Is this a wrong interpretation?
On the other hand, what Google and Facebook did can be done just as well by others.
Actually, maybe China is indeed able to produce decent Intel-compatible processors. Not sure.
As far as chips in particular, CCP is pushing hard to make chips locally [1]. So again, just a matter of time before Intel gets replaced in China.
Is the Intel leadership being incredibly short-sighted besides of course being devoid of ethical common sense?
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-24/how-xi-an...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/25/china-pushes-to-design-its-o...
Look at e.g. Google. Yes, they've had some trouble sticking to their decision over the years, but they have so far. Corporations staying out do exist.
Intel has fabs all over the world, including many in the US and some in China[1]. Whenever people talk about chip manufacturing they seem to only think about high-end cutting edge processes, when in fact the majority of quantity of chips produced are at non-cutting edge fabs that are spread all over the world and made by many companies that you haven't heard of, but also Intel.
However this was never about Intel manufacturing chips in Xianjing, it was about the long long tail of supply chain that goes into these ships from mines through to chemical supply companies up to industrial machinery supply and everything in between.
[1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000...
Xinjiang has some silica mines [0] which may go into silicon production. Presumably, that is a critical material for Intel. Can it be sourced elsewhere? Is that the leverage the CCP has over Intel?
[0] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3139062/u...
There are 2 choices, clear out everything and everyone associated with Intel out of PRC or comply.
It's just Chinese politics, and a very large market. It was a huge mistake to use the term 'Xinjiang', one that other companies like Apple are careful to avoid.
This is the very definition of a straw man argument.
Very few people actually cares about what really do happen in Xinjiang, hopefully this relatively balanced reporting by Associated Press can shed some light:
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-ch...
Effective action may require collective action. But individually, most people care. Yet, collectively, they cannot seem to do anything meaningful. You are making a statement that is the definition of an ecological fallacy [0]
The article you pointed out is hardly balanced. The access of journalists is heavily restricted. Naturally, any information that comes out from a standard news outlet with government sanctioned offices like Associated Press will sound like government propaganda. CCP will not let AP have access to any information that counters the narrative of the propaganda.
For a different take on things, and an outlet that does journalism differently without official representation with CCP, have a look at this piece from VICE [1].
When they exist. We know they exist in the US (private prisons), but there are no reliable sources that confirm they still exist in China.
[0]https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/brea...
It is used to reduce the force of any criticism of CCP. Human rights are universal and know no national borders [1].
That being said, thanks for qualifying the often repeated statement in this thread about US prisons. Surely, more needs to be done. That does not mean we need to be silent about Xinjiang slave concentration camps.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29893724 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29893855
Whether you dismiss them is up to you, but the fact remains that numerous sources have reported on the existence of Chinese Concentration Camps.
Are you really suggesting keeping criminals who have had a trial and been found guilty by a jury of their peers is at all the same as a genocidal racial based campaign to remove an ethnic minority?
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps
[2] - https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/02/asia/xinjiang-china-...
[3] - https://www.rand.org/blog/rand-review/2021/04/chinas-disappe...
[4] - https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses
[5] - https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-repression-uyghurs-x...
Maybe their position is that they have not established as a fact that there is slave labour in concentration camps in Xinjiang? Have you considered that as an alternative possibility?
From the article:
> The letter now reads that the company prohibits "any human trafficked or involuntary labour such as forced, debt bonded, prison, indentured, or slave labour throughout your extended supply chains."
That automatically covers Xinjiang is there is slave labour there, in additional to all other instances of slave labour, no? That sounds like a better wording than the original.
Here is a recent article [0] on rape and forced sterilization of Uyghur women.
[0] https://nypost.com/2021/12/18/uyghur-women-recall-horrors-of...
"The year after she was arrested off the street, still in China, she was summoned to a police station and told that she needed to complete her training. "
if it's the same as prison rape in the US then what prison is she in? Further, prison rape is a crime.
"Her story is, tragically, not uncommon for members of the minority Uyghur religion, with Turkish roots, in President XI Jinping’s China. Since around 2016, they have been pulled off the street and sent to reeducation camps — where reports have surfaced about people being tortured, raped and even killed. They are sent there under the auspices of learning a trade and having their patriotism reinforced."
your attempt at equating this with the crime of prison rape in the US is reprehensible.
Even worse though, there are indications that this behavior is institutionally supported and desired in China. After all, if the local governors make rules to force non-Uyghur men to sleep in the bed of Uyghur women (even married ones) and offer forced sterilization otherwise, perhaps - just perhaps - you are peddling a false equivalence.
By the way, the latter meets the definition of genocide. In case you care.
I don't know how someone can compare these things with a straight face.
This is just whataboutism. You can care about both these issues, it's allowed.
Not an english speaker, so is Is "slave" correctly used here or is more like a "metaphor"?, In my mind a slave is someone you own, you can sell or kill. Someone you keep in prison is called different and people kept in prison for political reasons have also different label, religions/race imprisonment might also have a different label.
It varies a lot place to place and era to era what exactly is a slave and what isn't. Servants? Serfs? Even in a single era and a single place, as soon as one of the laws changes, things are not the same. Like in China, after the Unification, Chin Han called his administers what Westerners call "servants" or "slaves". I think this is a Western thing. Really, a better translation would be they were his "perkins," a Chilean word that basically means "someone who does what someone else says." But it doesn't have a definition, don't think in terms of definitions, think in terms of the relationship between words. That's the thing, the West is big on titles, I suppose the East is to a degree, but it's really meaningless. I wonder what they call Emperor Augustus in Chinese, what else it means. Ultimately, it's not what your title is, it's what you can do. Same with slaves, the word is just a word, the question is what will you have to do.
[1] The desert island version of a text is what you remember without being able to search for it online, or review your notes, nothing. Like if it were you and I, dear reader, on a desert island, the Bible is what we remember, that's it.
Traditionally if it's a prison the term is prison labor.
In a concentration camp you'd have forced labor. That is probably the language that would be used by groups actually working in this space.
Modern slavery is a fact [0]. China is not the only country concerned. But it does not mean that it does not apply to China or that we are forbidden from using the term when describing Xinjiang.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
"Slave labor" is a phrase used in English to express morally unacceptable working conditions where the workers have little to no power, as if they were slaves. It's commonly understood that those workers are not slaves in the legal sense.
There are also what are called "wage slaves" who can quit in theory but can't afford to.
Literally owning a person or having the right to kill them are kind of an extreme form of slavery. I think situations could be considered slavery even in situations where those don't apply.
There are some situations that are like slavery but they're kind of corner cases that society handles differently. Soldiers generally aren't allowed to quit in the middle of a war. H1B visa workers in the U.S. have more severe repercussions if they quit a job than ordinary workers; they can be kicked out of the country. I don't know what the legal status of forced labor in the U.S. prison system is, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those situations are effectively slavery. The people who employ undocumented workers can use the threat of reporting the workers to the authorities as leverage to get them to do what they say and not complain.
Don't ever forget that the part of the US constitution banning slavery has an explicit carve-out for this.
This is not what is meant by slave in this context. It is not a feeling. Modern slavery is a fact [0]. Xinjiang concentration camps count as modern slavery. Of course, China is not the only country concerned. But it does not mean that we should not point it out in China.
There are some comments that this should be described as something else - perhaps forced labor. Uyghurs in Xinjiang are deprived not only of their labor rights but also every other right from reproductive to cultural and everything in between.
Slaves essentially have no rights. Uyghurs essentially have no rights. So no, forced labor is not the right term.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
It's atrocity propaganda exaggerate by useful idiots, even if out of genuine ignorance. The perpetuator of the original allegation, Zenz, used the label of "coerced labor", which goes through the euphemism treadmill to become forced labor by state department and now slave labor by the even less informed, because that's how propaganda snowballs.
Labour transfer programs in XJ, like elsewhere in PRC are employment programs. Yes there's pressure by recruiters to fill roster. Or it could be part of parole / work release programs. And there may be exploitation, but that's statistically inevitable for a social program that employs 10s of millions from every region of PRC over decades. Also consider these programs are typically well compensated compared to west due to economic disparity of developed and underdeveloped regions in PRC. And they're contracts with limited duration measured in months.
Analogue example is work program that recruits from rural town /rust belt with zero prospects and average income of 20k and paying them 45k to do manufacturing in a more well developed state for a year. Or apply that to work/release for an inmate incarcerated on low level drug charges. Some of these placements are exploitative because capitalism. In aggregate the programs alleviate poverty and promote development. That's the tier of exploitation being misconstrued as slave labour with the XJ propaganda push.
You are calling people idiots. Please be respectful. This is not in the spirit and guidelines of hacker news.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
>In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically used by the cause's leaders.
Wikipedia mentioning a thing and citing the same propaganda does not make it so. Forced labor in laogai sure. Claiming XJ is a parallel laogai program when it's part of Rural Labour Transfer Program is misinformation. It's a paid work program with contracted terms. It's far removed from Laogai slave labour on the spectrum of slave-voluntary work. It's also one of the interventions that aligns with poverty / development strategies around the world versus actual cultural genocide / security state shenanigans going on. But it gets disproportionately maligned regardless.
E: over comment limit, it's not splitting hairs, it's accepted jargon/term. But apologies if it offends, the same way calling/insinuating POVs from PRC perspectives are wumao. Which you have been doing throughout this entire thread. As for sources, I've dropped the relevant subject matter for those interested to research on their own. The fact people can comfortably allege XJ is slave labour based on western sources and have no passing familiarity with context of transfer programs in PRC for poverty alleviation reflects how staggering gap in understanding is.
You still have not specified your sources of facts. So it does not seem to be worthwhile to engage in a genuine constructive conversation on your points.
I'm still puzzled how/why some of these comments on here are down-voted; e.g. the comment pointing to wikipedia articles and asking for better discourse.
We've seen this kind of thing many times before. Rule with an iron fist; if caught, deflect, lie, blame it on low-level leadership, corruption, or just statistics.
This is why the entire PoW/force labour accusation is entirely stupid.
Undereducated/underqualified Uyghurs with poor mandarin skills are frankly shit workers that's a massive hassle to exploit for economic efficiencies. There's a reason XPCC had a hard time developing XJ. On top of onerous security, movement, reeducation and other requirements, the amount of money poured into these labour transfer programs for Uyghur worker opportunities are much better spent on Han/other integrated minorities. It doesn't pass the most basic of smell test except by useful idiots who don't know the economics behind labour transfer programs, that again, affects 10s of millions from every province (45M across country in just 2000s). There are 100s of millions poor rural Chinese idle workers with prerequisite language skills that could fill theses roles easier and cheaper. XJ labour transfer is an expensive privilege - these programs are publicized by CCP loudly as wank for poverty alleviation, which is what they are considering the amount of subsidies required to rationalize giving XJ these programs in the first place. It takes extreme ignorance and brainwashing to misconstrue it as PoW slave camps for capitalism. Which is what you'll find on wikipedia citing propaganda sources that some people post like it's impartial while claiming anyone who disagrees is a wumao.
The US casts a blanket assumption that ALL products from the region are produced by slave labor unless proven otherwise. That’s backwards.
And meanwhile US government and corporations have no problem buying products produced by US prison slave labor, or overseas child labor.
Let’s ask the UN what they think about China’s response to terrorism in Xinjiang after investigating.
> Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers. Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded. The past three consecutive years has seen not a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang and people there enjoy a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment and security.
> What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the media. We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang.
"We commend China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights by adhering to the people-centered development philosophy and protecting and promoting human rights through development. We also appreciate China’s contributions to the international human rights cause."
And you're suggesting that we're supposed to take this seriously?
Are Intel execs given objective reports by independent journalists who are given access to all areas and are free to write an report as they want on it? Until then, Intel execs should assume that any rumor of wrongdoing in the province is true. It's as simple as that.
One simply doesn't get the benefit of "no wrongdoing until proven" without a free media.
They could start there.
If you want to petition for better prisons, please do so. Please do not detract from the campaign of ethnic cleaning the rest of us are talking about.
1. USA failed (again)
2. They committed world's largest genocide since WW2
3. For no good reason
This is an absolutely terrible outcome from PR point of view, so it's natural for US to try to prevent China from being successful in doing that. And pretending that temporarily imprisoning people is somehow more evil than killing them seems to be working, even here on HN.
I would also ignore or mildly chuckle at any government that thinks they can force me to have an opinion. Ignore for small market, mildly chuckle at big market.
If they want me to color an island on a map the same color as another landmass, or make a statement about my extended supply chain, I will do so and not pretend like it's any different just because some of my friends happen to respect one country slightly more all because they repeated a creepy chant every day as children in grade school.
There are two dimensions to that revised statement. If it had not been accompanied by an apology, then it could be taken as clarification of a genuine position.
As it stands, it is a contradictory mish mash of public relations that suggests there are no slave concentration camps in Xinjiang while saying generally Intel is against slave labour.
A clarification of the Intel position is in order. More to the point, Intel should be asked whether it deems Xinjiang to have slave concentration camps. What made it explicitly specify Xinjiang as an example of slave labour? Does removing Xinjiang reference mean that Intel now believes there are no slave concentration camps?
Hence, the clarification question about Intel's position is in earnest. But, it was just a succinct form of all these follow up questions. Sorry if that was unclear.
It is entirely possible that the US Congress was just too late on their grandstanding, yet their addition to the US law requires companies to say in/accurate things anyway.
So which is true? A Congress operating on outdated information just because they have a laundry list of fairly inconsequential laws to pass for their constituents who also have outdated information, or the Associated Press reporting up to date things with their own limitations on gathering information in Xinjiang.
I don't think it matters, same for Intel who just is in a place to respond.
Apologizing is the way to maintain standing in China, whether the statement is accurate or inaccurate. The Chinese constitution is being leveraged in a clear way that explains the behavior of everyone that has to make a strange-to-us apology. Specifically, if you read it, is the part about treating China as inseparable and not doing anything that would undermine that idea. It allows for broad interpretations on every action on every facet of life. Think about it like a super-interstate commerce clause, but maintaining status in that society is not that confusing to me.
The corporation and the management have no actual opinion and I don't require they do. They're apathetic and respond to regulation. They responded, and then responded better. Everyone else now knows how to respond better, in order to avoid the PR issue.
If you think this fiasco requires them to make an opinion, for you, its not going to happen, and hopefully the above explains why.
You presumably want capable management as leadership of a corporation. The issue is whether Intel really needed to apologize.
Most chips are not manufactured in China. Foreign access to Chinese market is heavily restricted by CCP. There does not seem to be much to gain from apologizing for calling out slave concentration camps.
When considering this latest Xinjiang issue, as well as growing competition from Arm and the lack of a meaningful response from Intel, from a purely financial perspective, you can question the leadership of Intel.
If you are holding some Intel stock, it is probably time to revisit that position regardless of your views about corporations and ethics. Incompetence in public relations statements does not mean there is not general incompetence that can adversely affect the bottom line.
This also moves Intel's problem to their first shareholder letter. Basically they should have never said it if it didn't apply to them. Then they chose to apologize to maintain standing in China for who knows what reason.
Whats clear to me is that they realize it is basically inconsequential in the US and their other markets, while it is consequential in the China market. It's easy calculus. Sure some people want it to be consequential but nothing is going to happen, a few patriotic fellows are going to put them on the same mental list they have Lebron James on and you'll just hear about it at a party or in a bar a few times. That's the definition of inconsequential to me.
Yes, in the short term, there are consequences in China for Intel in terms of speaking out against slave concentration camps. Medium and long term, CCP will champion a national chip that will replace Intel. No amount of CCP praising or glossing over slave concentration camps will prevent this outcome for Intel.
So choosing to bend the knee for CCP will not net a gain in a longer time horizon. And with the rise of ARM, Intel is no longer the only chip on the block.
The Intel leadership may think things are inconsequential outside of China. But, this might push them to not consider alternative supply chains. With increasing trade wars, and the CCP looking to be very aggressive with trade policies as a foreign policy instrument, it is probably a good idea to divest from China supply chains.
Yet, Intel seems to really value their China supply chain. So it is reasonable to expect them to face the adverse consequences in the future. This can be very swift just like the sidelining of Jack Ma and AliBaba as well other Chinese tech giants.
In other words, just because you do not see the consequences now, it does not mean that there will not be heavy consequences later. You can have some basic human empathy for Uyghurs in slave concentration camps. Or you can evaluate the competence of Intel leadership in a cold manner. Either way, things seem to point to a sell order for Intel stock if you trade.
You read correctly. That is exactly their position.
Not that they are fans of slave labour or of what is happening to the Uyghur people, per se. Just that in the scheme of things - as long the sales channels remain open and unimpeded - they consider it perfectly acceptable to do business in countries where genocide is happening right there, in plain view, for all to see. And will even go so far as to obsequiously apologize to the authorities in these countries for showing event the slightest hint of a suggestion that they felt otherwise.
Very much like back in ... certain countries at certain times that we're not supposed to make comparisons to.
No one was perfect at all times from day 1, but we should try to hold our partners, and by implication ourselves, to higher standards now that we have agreed to put the aforementioned actions at the extreme left side of the bad-to-good scale.
(I know you jest.)
> Imputing altruistic morals to profit-seeking entities and then continually being surprised and offended when companies act shady puts employees in a pointlessly weak position.[1]
The discussion whether it's true or not is less important at this point than the fact that Governments is responsible for making sure that there are rules to be followed. The main problem here is that most governments themselves are also run by the same profit-seeking entities/people. The whole situation right now is based on the fact that everyone moved their production to china with complete disregard for everything but short term gain.
Amazons Bezos is in fact not wrong when he says that he's not going to pay tax out of some altruistic ideas, but that it is in fact up to governments to make proper legislation. It's just that governments are busy doing nothing but talking for the most part(or at least have learned to do nothing over the past decades). I actually had a social democrat party member tell me a couple years ago, that the politicians have a really hard job travelling around talking, and having to read consultant written legislation. This is in effect not that different from tech ceo's scheduling 4 hours of meetings every day and calling it work.
Most people don't actually want to change the status quo, they just want to put blame on someone.
It would be very important to have some movement to avoid and boycott products made with slave labour from prisions, including the hundreds of thousands of slave labour from US prisions. This would be an important movement to end remaining slavery.
> Intel not take a position against Xinjiang
Because PRC position is coerced labour doesn't exist. It's decades old rural labour transfer programs + vocational training that pays multitudes more than regional norms and competitive with national wages is being portrayed as slave labour by US propaganda. If you want to make money in PRC, comport with PRC position or at least figure out messaging to pave over contradictions and save face. Ergo, US companies are forced to comply with US laws and holds no position on which narrative is correct.
It still means they are against slave labor, including those in Xinjiang, but not blindly banning anything from the region.
> “Intel’s cowardice is yet another predictable consequence of economic reliance on China,” Rubio said in a statement on Monday. “Instead of humiliating apologies and self-censorship, companies should move their supply chains to countries that do not use slave labour or commit genocide.”
So is it known whether any companies in Intel's supply chain uses US prison labor? Certainly Intel operates in a state which uses prison labor to fight its escalating wildfire issues, and is in that sense a beneficiary of prison labor.
I don't mean to create a the appearance of a false equivalence; these are different situations. But if the effect of the rewrite is to call out the broader classes of transgression rather than single out a specific instance, premised on the idea that human rights should in fact be universal and some standards must be consistently upheld everywhere ... then surely we must look at the ongoing practices in our own country.
That logic makes no sense
The premise of this article is that Intel was intimidated out of mentioning Xinjiang and instead opted to list categories of practices to be excluded from its supply chain. Why is it not appropriate to discuss the ways Intel and other US companies are already beneficiaries of some of those practices?
"Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence" - Ovid
Maybe not quite "happy to embrace" people of a certain political persuasion were doing a heck of a lot to not get in the way of it because eliminating those jobs reduced the wealth of people who opposed them and made those people more receptive to what they were peddling.
But because they reap some minor, incidental payoff from a policy they did not choose, you're going to claim that means they were in favor of it??
On the one hand, the polls largely confirm that most Americans are mercantilists at heart. The Ipsos poll shows that 69% of Americans believe that outsourcing hurts the country -- and only 17% think it helps the economy. --https://foreignpolicy.com/2004/06/09/public-opinion-about-of...
I don't understand where you get your certainty from. I've hardly ever seen offshoring referred to positively, the attitudes towards globalization itself are lukewarm at best, politicians ride into office on rhetoric of tariffs and bringing back jobs, but you just know, because some economists claimed stock yields would be 30% lower in the short-term if the US doesn't massively export its hard-won technological and manufacturing know-how, that all this outsourcing was driven by popular sentiment, and that people will revolt against any attempts to stop or reverse it? Based on what? Widespread pro-outsourcing protests and grassroots activism?
As for rebuilding manufacturing - it wouldn't need to be rebuilt if it hadn't been exported in the first place. What kind of argument is that? "We did something unpopular, but undoing it would be painful, and pain is unpopular, therefore what we did was popular"?
That is an academic argument at best. Just because someone buys a Vanguard index fund with several thousand companies in it does not imply they enthusiastically approve of everything those several thousand companies are doing. This is one reason (among many) why we have laws and regulations. It is simply not practical for you and I as individuals to conduct in-depth research into each and every thing we buy.
Thanks for clarifying you don't condone Chinese labour exploitation, though.
So just to be clear, how many low-wage workers have to kill themselves before we say it matters?
"When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract".
Having said that, someone at Intel, owners or managers, are way off track here and in need of severe consequences. They picked the wrong side.
And a court isn't going to second-guess the management if they judge the cost savings of using slave labour don't outweigh the potential for reputational damage.
As such, management are free to act either way.
I think there should be far more shareholder involvement in general. We are far too acquiescent as a group.
If you polled every direct and indirect INTC holder (you may be one, unknowingly) about slavery and concentration camps, you’d walk away with a near 100% mandate for taking all measures against it.
There's such a thing as activist investors, and they seem to be gaining influence lately. From what I read in the newspaper, they're behind a lot of the changes that are starting to happen at certain multi-national oil companies.
I strongly believe we need more voter participation here.
It's not a one-way street.
Management can do things, and if the shareholders don't like it, they can sell their shares in protest.
Happens all the time.
A company is a group of people coming together for a purpose. Management can't destory the group in pursuit of their own values. A ship's captain can't risk the ship because of their own values.
They haven't even asked what the shareholders want. They don't think they need to, because they believe that everyone will naturally share their belief that money is their highest priority.
They have a duty to act in the best interest of the shareholder. Generally that means not having reduced revenue. This is what most people accept. If shareholders want them to do something different they can let them know.
I think this is the fundamental disagreement we have, and it's probably too big of a conversation for a comment thread. In my philosophy of determining "best interest", revenue is an important consideration, but not the only one and not the most important one. There is certainly no legal duty to increase revenue or stock price or anything like that.
Under which law? Plenty of corporate boards do things their shareholders don't like every day.
Good question, who are Intel shareholders?
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/intc/instituti...
Generally these people barely know they're shareholders, they receive none of the paperwork needed to vote at the AGM, they have a slice several orders of magnitude too small to exert any influence, and they have no way of identifying or contacting other shareholders to take any sort of coordinated action.
Anyone who expects X to be done by shareholders is going to be disappointed.
It's the general problem of public ownership of means of production.
Public companies don't work. Stock market provides heck a lot of wrong incentives.
Fun in theory but too bad only Americans tolerate those PE multiples. So, look out below!
If no one wants to do that then what is all these kvetch about "capitalism" and "greed" corrupting companies and our values when it is the people who do not care. Certainly not enough to pay up for the shares.
in my case I was waiting for disgruntled shareholders to sell because an aggregate stance was not taken by management or other shareholders, and then when sold it goes to people more or less apathetic.
in your case you want people to buy the shares at any price but likely a premium, in order to exercise a goal, which I frankly think is absurd.
so guess the market has priced everything in well enough, as an aggregate opinion on its own.
If the American consumers of Intel chips -- the people and government actors -- are unhappy with Intel's stance then they can also not buy their chips. This is basically what the Chinese are doing (without owning shares). Now granted the Chinese people have little say in it but the government is ostencibly acting on their behalf. Even if China was a democractic country and the CCP could not ban Intel outright then the government or the people could say that they would not buy Intel chips.
So if Americans did the same to uphold their own belifes then Intel would suffer here and that would reduce the stock price, which would make it easier for people who want to take them to take the progressive position to buy the stock and force them to reverse their position.
The key take away is that there is no scenario in which both sides actuall care about the issue and Intel stock doesn't drop.
Since it doesn't it means that Americans do not care about it as much as the Chinese, or do not know how to express their displeasure :)
If A cares enough about an issue and is willing to deal with the consequences and B does not then A wins and B loses.
Everyons is willing to commit something for a cause they care about. It could be as little as taking time to convince others by writing an article or a tweet, or as much as being able to commit violence for it and deal with the consequences.
One aspect of life, from negotiations to geopolitics to convince your opponent that A) you would be willing to pay a higher price than they are for your position B) you CAN pay that price.
In case of Intel v China, CCP has something to lose by banning Intel but they've demonstrated or at least convinced them and most other companies that they're willing to pay that price and CAN pay it (by the virtue of being the CCP and having absolute authority). A nation with less resources may not be able to convince a mega corp in order to get concessions.
So in this case if Americans care more about this issue they have to convince the Chinese that they're willing AND able to pay a higher price than they are.
Too early to conclude this. These tensions present not only a reputational risk for Intel, but financial ones as well, particularly if tensions escalate. Managers might not care, but there is precedence for shareholders taking a longer view [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/business/exxon-mobil-engi...
Management absolutely has a say.
Its pretty clear what happened, Intel doesn't have an aggregate stance on anything, US legal saw the new US federal law regarding Xinjiang and wanted it included in US securities regulatory risk statements and also needed that in circulars. That happened, then reality set in that there are consequences - something lawmakers are shielded from - and at that point Intel took a look at the circumstance holistically and reworded it.
Companies are going to have to hire geopolitical experts to play cross cultural word games now that they are being saddled with it the consequences.
> In the autumn of 1905 he founded, together with Krassin, the newspaper New Life; the necessary money being given by millionaires, who thereby helped weave the rope from which many of them should hang later on.
Maybe you're just suggesting capitalism isn't capable of "solving" the wrongdoings of communism? If so I would agree. A society that accepts the evils of communism is a difficult thing to solve externally.
And they are big enough to be able to influence other big countries and foreign corporations to the point that they are now setting directions of where things are going.
Case and point Holywood and self censorship in movies to pander to chinese market
They are not saying comunism is good or bad, just stating reality of what is happening
This is a very direct example of a communist government controlling the messaging of a company, which is antithetical to capitalism.
As I understand it, this is happening because Chinese corporations are coerced by the communist regime such that Intel would lose business if they didn't follow the rules coming thru their Chinese partner corporations. Intel is still very much capable of freely choosing to obey those demands or not, which makes them capitalists, but the Chinese corporations being coerced into doing PR for the CCP is not capitalism.
China is interesting in that they seem to take a more data-orientated decision making process when it comes to determining areas where free-market like behaviors would increase efficiency while keeping strategic capabilities under public funding (despite the efficiency losses).
I think most other governments manage this balance poorly, in recent decades mostly tending to over-privatize things like utilities and infrastructure.
If China manages to continue on it's path of market regulation and paying attention to health of competition etc (it's recent work on giving the SAMR teeth) they are going to be in a very strong position in the coming decades while others play catchup after the privatisation overcorrection.
People seem to forget that free markets -require- strong regulation. The tending towards deregulation in US markets has lead to a serious degradation of market competitiveness and thus freedom.
My hope is the success of China will drive Western economies to do better so that we can say that democracy is at least as good as autocracy but preferably better. But to do that we need to stop throwing stones from glass houses and actually get down to the business of matching them.
That's exactly what bothers me about our western democracies, I fail to see why critical things like education, medicine, food and infrastructure(including internet-access) should be privatized. These things should belong to the people. Private companies can feel free to produce and sell other things, but they should, in my opinion, keep their hands from certain things.
> they are going to be in a very strong position in the coming decades
No doubt. What I currently wonder, is how afraid of this I should be. I'm not from the US so I don't really get emotional when thinking about the US getting weaker, compared to China. And although the US do things I find to be absolutely not okay, China seems even less compatible with my values.
> People seem to forget that free markets -require- strong regulation
Yes!
> But to do that we need to stop throwing stones from glass houses and actually get down to the business of matching them.
Totally. All I hear currently are politicians and other high-profile people constantly whining about China, while simultaneously manufacturing everything over there and profiting from their cheap labour. That's also something I find comical about the US - Publicy they denounce China, are constantly fighting in a trade war with each other. But so many things are then imported from China, just think about what Silicon Valley would do if China decides to keep their resources for themselves, or to just block the US.
Of course China would probably also have troubes, if the US would then in turn block them. But all I am trying to say is, that I hate the hypocrisy of this so called trade-war.
And now, to try to prove that I am not a shill for either side,
Tiananmen Square was a tragedy, what's happening with Hong Kong and Taiwan is a bit depressing, Xi Jinping and Winnie Pooh look very similar and what they do to Uyghurs is evil.
The US should face more consequences for their oil-wars which they label as "bringing freedom and democracy", patriot act and guantanamo bay are sickening, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange should be freed and given awards, your political "two-party" system is very outdated and overall the US has a really over-blown ego for all the issues it has. Healthcare, social security, wealth-gaps etc.
Maybe this was a bit unnecessary, but I notice that you can't say anything not 100% Anti-China without raising suspicion of being a state-sponsored troll or whatever. Maybe I could be labeled as a russian troll, but believe me, I could rant about their government as well.
Before I forget, last disclaimer: I am mostly criticizing these countries governments and elites, I have 0 issues with ordinary american or chinese citizens as a whole.
Just because state officials aren't directly managing day to day operations does not mean that company isn't owned by the state, because in China, that company is always owned by the state.
What is this nuance you seem to be referencing but not explaining?
You can believe in whatever you like, it doesn't change the reality and facts.
Its not my opinion, china is a capitalist country run by communist (with Xi totalitarian) government.
The companies adhere to market laws/regulations and operate like any other capitalist western corporations.
Of note is the fact that as corporation gets to certain size their board must hire certain number of party official who will oversee the business operations.
Those people ensure the company is heading in the broad direction set by the party. If they dont, party will bring out the knives and it doesnt matter if you are jack ma or not.
Roughly speaking one can view the difference between China and the U.S. as follows. In China corporations serve CCCP interests and in the U.S. government serves corporate (highest bidder) interests.
I should not have said “other countries” in my original post. There are, currently, no other countries than China and the U.S. in terms of scale and influence.
One might perhaps reasonably compare the EU, which I would suggest is somewhere between the US and China on the where the control lies.
Huh? In the US large corporations commonly write the laws that get passed. They literally do dictate policy.
I don't realize how vain the America is (I assume). Losing advantage in aero and semiconductor tech means destruction of the world? really?.
Intel is doing the exact same thing to help Xinjiang as the government which is absolutely nothing. Yet somehow anti-capitalists will only focus on the former. Governments do tend to virtue signal more, but that's because they don't face any negative repercussions for doing so.
Designed by Intel in California™
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...
I bet if you gave most prisoners a choice, they would rather work too.
Intel wants a multi-billion dollar grant/bailout from Uncle Sam. Make onshoring of manufacturing a condition of receiving such funds.
Furthermore, I posted a tax advantage system in a sibling thread that would help encourage other companies to do the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29892031
Remove taxes from positive externalities. Attach conditions to bailouts/grants. Use money to force the outcomes you want.
Soon even that will be outsourced to China. It will be replaced by:
Financed by Intel in California™ or Marketed by Intel in California™
Expecting moral courage from a big corporation is probably an exercise in inevitable disappointment though.
I agree about the fact that it is. But why do we accept that? Corporations are made up of people. We certainly do expect people – even groups of people – to exhibit moral courage. Of course, they do sometimes disappoint us, but the expectations remain reasonable in a good society.
Diffusion of liability. It's basically the whole point of a corporation. If you break evil acts down into small unrecognizable chunks that can be turned into a job description and hired for, you're able to run what would otherwise be a detestable business to any single individual person.
And corporations aren't free to break the law, even though that diffusion of liability should be at play in that case, too.
You'll notice there are no courageous well known film makers tackling the humanitarian abuses in China. It's a career killer.
And yet the most popular film in China in 2021 is The Battle at Lake Changjin which depicts the Chinese fighting American soldiers and winning. It's also the highest grossing film in Chinese history and the second highest grossing film world-wide in 2021. It's also the highest grossing non-english film of 2021.
America has lost the narrative and the Chinese have gained it without question. Our free market economy and desire for continued access to the Chinese market is destroying our freedom of expression and has left what used to be a community of courageous filmmakers shining light in important issues cowering in a corner.
I don't think it would come to that at any rate, at least not in an all out war sense
By CCP propagandists and agency leaders trying to retain or increase their funding, sure lol. China has nowhere close to the supply chain, materiel, experience, or quality tech necessary to challenge the US in direct conflict. They have virtually no original military R&D. It's just poorly reverse engineered tech from incomplete stolen plans. Remember China has an interest in trying to convey how "good" its military tech is on the global stage. The US does not. Any time you find out about some "new" scary Chinese military capability, just remember it's decades old stolen garbage from a nation that is better off holding its cards close to its chest.
You mean the country that manufacturers virtually everything Americans buy can’t handle supply chain logistics?
> Remember China has an interest in trying to convey how "good" its military tech is on the global stage. The US does not.
You seriously don’t think the US has an interest in impressing the rest of the world with its military might? Why do you imagine we keep building aircraft carriers?
Yes, there's a massive difference in military logistics and shipping the latest knock off kitchen appliance via a third party. Global economic sanctions on China would be far more detrimental to China than the US. There's plenty of alternatives.
>You seriously don’t think the US has an interest in impressing the rest of the world with its military might? Why do you imagine we keep building aircraft carriers?
You're right, we should just declassify everything the second a contract is awarded and it enters development.
I'm talking about new R&D, not aircraft carriers. The US is very slow to unveil military capabilities on the global stage. Meanwhile China unveils their F-35 copy the second they can to try to "beat" the US.
Shrug. All evidence is that the Chinese have managed to create plenty of military tech. Stolen IP or not.
> You're right, we should just declassify everything the second an contract is awarded and it enters development.
This is a hell of a non sequitur.
They really haven't. There's no original R&D. It's just rushed, terrible copies.
Yes, there's a massive difference in military logistics and shipping the latest knock off kitchen appliance.
> This is a hell of a non sequitur.
I don't think this means what you think it means. Most of China's military capabilities presented on the global stage are rushed to the public eye as soon as possible. That's the point. The US has no interest in doing this because of adversarial nations like China. They have no need to prove they're ahead of the game or unveil what they're capable of, it's just accepted that they are and have private capabilities that far exceed what is publicly known (because that's the case).
A few years ago China demonstrated the first hit of a moving target by a ballistic missile, which works out to have been in hypersonic flight during terminal guidance.
A few years later, the Russians are now demonstrating routine strikes of moving targets using hypersonic cruise missiles, which demonstrates that they managed to fix the issue.
A few days ago, some data came out on how exactly they managed to do this - not only did the Chinese managed to get active radar working through hypersonic flight at lower altitudes, they also apparently managed to get optical/infrared sensors working by redirecting airflow and injecting chilled air in order to disrupt plasma formation.
Meanwhile, the US is still trying to figure out sustained hypersonic flight (and failing most tests), while the Chinese and Russians have long since moved on to making guidance more reliable.
If you read various publications from the US Navy, they claim that hypersonic missiles will be defeated by killchain disruption (ie, jamming and staying far enough away). This entire strategy is predicated on the assumption that optical guidance of a missile in hypersonic flight is impossible. Now that the Chinese seem to have demonstrated it, there is no feasible defence.
So while they're not better than the West at building jet engines, they clearly are ahead in multiple technologies, and they are clearly trying to use these novel technologies to seize an advantage without needing to catch up on everything that came before.
Another scenario where this has been done. If the US was indeed somehow able to get legions of 5th generation aircraft close enough to disrupt Chinese operations, conventional doctrine would be to make your own, better, fighter aircraft, and duke it out.
Now the Chinese don't want to do that. It would be expensive, and the US already has a lead. So instead of developing stealthier and better fighters with technology it would take years to achieve, they instead made a fighter that is moreso stealthy from the frontal aspect, but much more superior kinematically - the J-20 flies much higher and faster than the F-35. From this kinematic advantage, it is designed to impart an advantage to an already much better missile, which is then designed to strike EW/AWACS aircraft from afar (300+km) without being detected until it's much too late. And by all accounts this would work.
Once that is done, they are in a position where they have the most advanced air defences on the planet, and in mind-boggling numbers. From there on, the combined advantage from both air defences and competent air forces means that it will be very difficult for anyone else to operate. So by focusing on other technologies, where they have gained an advantage, they can exploit their unique situation (operating near their borders) to nullify US technological advantages in other fields.
Beyond that, the US does have an interest in trying to convey it's military strength. Their are US Generals on public record stating that they are trying to portray US military technology as scarily as possible to intimidate foreign actors and to boost sales.
All in all, this kind of reasoning is stupid, wrong, and is probably exactly what the Chinese would love to hear.
He won't say shit about china though. He has a car plant there.
The difference between them and Soviet Russia is people. There are a billion and a half Chinese people. There was less than 300 million people in Soviet Russia. You don't need tourism or immigration when you have a billion+ people with now a healthy middle class.
How long is that going to last? Populations fluctuate. They shot themselves in the foot with their one-child policy.
India is also quite populous, but doesn't seem to exert the same kind of influence.
Xi has great ambitions outside China, whereas our attentions have turned inward. With us seeing the adversary as being within our own ranks, he has a distracted and weakened opponent.
does "America has lost the narrative and the Chinese have gained it without question" this mean till now it was america who was defining what the rest of the world saw and remembered, making history for "everyone" not just for themselves. remember rambo and the mujahideen? america has for long used its power to influence narrative across the world. asl a random person on the street anywhere in the world about iran and "anti-israel muslims, evil" would be the answer 7/10. why was that? because american hollywood has made boogeyman out of american military enemies.
now china is doing the same so why is this a big deal? why can't americans live with this?
uh, "destroying our freedom of expression " more like free market with power and tested capability to use as a propaganda tool because "hey. we support freedom of expression so anything we say is correct".
i am not criticizing you personally. just saying americans should come down a step from their self proclaimed high horse of world saviors and be like the rest of the folk.
Yes, America has enjoyed its massive worldwide influence over the past few decades and it has definitely gotten away with abusing it's power at times. Much of it was because the flow of information wasn't as free back than as it is today, but it was also because America, for all its faults, really did at least try and do a lot of good as a "self-appointed world leader".
My opinions aren't exactly unbiased having grown up in South Korea (recipient of lots of good will from the US), but the situation isn't simply that America has lost its edge over China and is complaining - it's more that Chinese government is really aggressive in promoting their agenda and are much more willing to sacrifice certain ideals (freedom of expression, etc) to get there. I can say this as a person who have attended a secret Christian worship meeting in China: Say what you will about the US, but it's not China.
i remember a time when religious folks used to feverently talk against "communism" as if it was a plague and all those dried up once ussr collapsed. turns out usa was funding anti-ussr sentiments in my hometown because why not.
sure. i do not enjoy "freedom of expression", living in a similar place like china.
i get your point. china is pushing their agenda aggressively but the way i have seen it in the last 40 odd years, 20 with the whole "war on terror" and "wmd" and even "gaddafi" and "arab spring", i find america just as dirty. you may not like it but remember, gaddafi wanted to trade in gold and not in american dollars and he was killed for that. same for saddam.
i personally believe having seen some action, no country, india, china, usa, france is willing to uphold "freedom of expression" if it threatens its interests, business interests. thats a simple fact. unless you face that
But I would contest this notion that China is a free market. This is not people voting with their wallets and the government often threatens direct economic retaliation against companies for even minor "infractions" of speech, like listing Taiwan as a country in a dropdown box. International companies do not have a level playing field in China, if they can legally operate there at all (e.g. joint venture requirements). Hell, even domestic companies need to watch where they step if they get too big like Jack Ma.
visa is complaining to usa demanding that india not give preferential treatment to their own card network because india knows usa can unilaterally kill a country's card infrastructure by simply telling visa/mastercard to stop their services. that is abuse of power and not "free market".
>like listing Taiwan as a country in a dropdown box.
uh, doesn't usa like sanction companies from working with iran? is that not violating level playing field? or the anti-bds? https://news.yahoo.com/muslim-group-sues-block-no-boycott-is... https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/23/us-states-use-anti-boyco... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
come on. usa is same as china, if not the same level but cut from the same cloth. saying otherwise is false
I hadn't really followed anti-BDS laws (not a thing in my state). Looks like they get slapped down pretty easily by the courts for violating free speech.
funny you mention nuclear tech. the iran deal was supposed to prevent that and it was usa who shot that down, not iran and you blame them for trying?
you may not know this but the reason for sanctions on iran is to specifically install a government that is kind to israel because israel lobbies for that in us congress and they have installed the whole "oppose israel=support holocaust=hitler bad". they could not do arab spring there so more sanctions.
I actually found a copy of the film and watched it over a month ago. While there were no subtitles for English, based on the production quality, I don't think it's a form of entertainment that would pass for "great" in the west or many other countries. Not that it's poor quality, but there are aspects of it that were cheap-ish. I'm talking explosions and artillery impacts that clearly look like squibs going off on cue, which is something most mainstream entertainment has either moved beyond or done a better job of making look realistic. The acting in some parts appeared over the top, while on the other hand they clearly struggled to find good White actors who could speak English and wanted to appear in this film.
To be fair, I the film appears to be of decent effort and wasn't the sort of disaster I was expecting it to be.
If you're a Chinese citizen and your dear leaders want you to see this film, are you not going to see it? And if you're in another country like Russia, wouldn't The Battle at Lake Changjin be at least a neat curiosity in that there's finally a film where the Americans aren't just the good guys?
Even then, should we not also suspect some form of shenanigans? I don't have evidence for it, but the CCP isn't really known for being not corrupted. They certainly have an interest in making sure its population is on board with a conflict with the United States.
All that to say that I think we should keep these things in perspective. There was a time when a film being the highest grossing meant something. Does it still mean the same thing in the streaming era? Does it mean the same thing in China as it does in the US?
My wife is Chinese, and my son is half-Chinese, born in the USA. I want my son to grow up feeling American, not like an outsider. I don't want movies depicting China invading the USA, teaching his young and impressionable classmates that "Asian = evil invader". I don't want guys that look like him getting gunned down on TV by guys that look like Chris Hemsworth. As you said, the stories we tell shape our national psyche.
I agree the jingoistic CCP-controlled Chinese media does not depict Americans or whites with respect and tact. That's a problem. But it doesn't make it OK for the American media to do the same.
I believe the comment you are replying to is addressing the latter.
"Any kid can conquer Libya just give him a fighter plane." - Dead Kennedys, "Rambozo the Clown"
Jello Biafra was powerfully anti-racism, which is what this thread is about. He punched up.
At some point, a realization and acceptance that yeah, something along the lines of what's being shown happened but it's probably a bit spiced up cause it's a movie is needed. Either that or my original point i.e. make movies about Aliens exclusively. (Until their existence is proven anyways).
And every group of "bad guys" is a little different. The enemy governments of Nazis, Japanese, Soviets, and British Imperialists are gone, those conflicts are over, and those countries are now American allies; the mafia and cartel movies tend to glorify those lifestyles; the European bad guys never faced as much racism in the USA as the Asian ones; etc.
I don't want to be the fun police... But the USA (unlike most countries) advertised itself as a multiracial immigrant country in the past 50 years, and a lot of multiracial immigrants signed on, so I guess we should be tasteful when making movies about shooting their relatives.
(2) There is certainly a middle ground between avoiding cliche bad-guy-china-vs-good-guy-america and, say, Intel removing any references to Xinjiang from its shareholder report. Or all of Hollywood carrying water for the CCP, perhaps most humorously (in a depressing way) illustrated in how they will edit movies to display the south china sea / other disputed territories in precisely the way China wants
The problem is that it's a zero sum game and who wins is just as important as moral correctness. If China is able to turn the narrative against the US and enable authoritarian regimes and censor US companies and tech, what does it matter if we're the "good guys"? If we lose a war of culture, will our children see ourselves as doing the "right thing"? History books are are written by the winners, after all.
Contemporary Chinese ideas would see your point of view as weak, just to put that in perspective.
International relations is a dirty world and the power struggle is real.
“As a result of the episode's criticism of its practices, the Chinese government banned the series entirely in the country”
We can try to convince ourselves this isn't the case, but I don't exactly see progressive programmers giving up their massive Big Tech salaries as protest. No, they're happy to support whatever corporate campaign sounds good to them while ignoring that the machines they build on are built with slave labor, or that their company willingly censors and bends the knee with countries where LGBT rights don't exist and women can't go out on their own. To me, it is the same kind of thing as the Chinese situation. People will do all sorts of stunts for their team, and never take an L for an external actor because why should they?
The best thing you can do is sit back and watch everyone argue (the best show that's live 24/7), while you enjoy a beer. Best case scenario you sell both sides something that they enjoy, so that you can enjoy your life.
Yet there are no movies being made where the US triumphs over China.
Similar to how the British Empire introduced opium to the Chinese in the 1800s to extract silver and trade, the US/West is taking moral Ls to just use the Chinese once again. In turn, the Chinese do their version of this in S. China Sea and Africa.
If played right, there's a possibility of making the opposing side implode, so its no surprise all sides engage in the game. Supply chain issues, wars, pandemics - these suck but they're nothing new to human history.
Ignore the noise you hear on twitter, and elsewhere. Very similar to work settings, where the public channels are all fabulous and cheery to keep the workers going but the cold, tough decisions are made in private channels or offline.
One difference is that nowadays China gained enough political and economic power to be part of the world leaders. So companies doing business there care about not offending their audience.
Take a look how movies in the 80s depict enemies: Latin America (all narcos or corrupt), Russia or Eastern Europe (cold and ruthless KBG agents), China (mafias that love occultism or rare rituals). Besides the occasional killer, it’s rare to find a big Hollywood production that offends the US or Western Europe audience. Producers will not risk to put tons of money in a script that may be offensive or politically uncomfortable.
This could, and probably will, happen in a number of ways. They are blatantly expansionist; asserting control over HK was a mildly toxic event, but a move into Taiwan would be beyond reproach. They have a growing population that is overwhelmingly lower-class, by western standards. They hold a Tremendous amount of foreign-denominated debt (~$1.3T USD just from the USG) (holding a mortgage gives the bank power over you; holding sovereign debt gives the sovereign power over you), while issuing most of their debt internally, with very poor bookkeeping practices. They have very few notable Allies, and none won out of an emotion beside fear. The US has positioned itself for the next decades to aggressively improve at-home manufacturing & infrastructure.
These are just public statements by American executives; they mean nothing, and they don't represent the exertion any Real Power. No one is lying to themselves about China; but the shit hasn't hit the fan yet. Until it does, western companies extract and export Tremendous value from China, effectively weakening their natural resource reserves and domestic corporations while increasing their reliance on western technology. When that changes, western economies will take a hit; but China will be decimated.
China doesn't export any real culture (their top grossing film was a poorly made war propaganda film? lol Disney can puke out the sixteenth spiderman movie and make more. and No Way Home hasn't been released in China yet). They don't meaningfully export technology or intellectual property (ok: Tik Tok). One thing they do export: their children, to western universities. And you talk to many of these kids who have grown up in the west, and they don't want to leave. They buy houses here, build families, drink with their white, black, and brown friends, work in American companies... It's Just Better Here.
And sure; they export Influence; its the echoes of an untapped market with really cheap manufacturing. My western value systems says Intel should be more harsh with China; that they shouldn't mince words. But simultaneously, when speaking about global power dynamics: Why? Profiting from slave labor is horrible, but that's exactly what Intel is doing: Profiting. I wish they wouldn't, but doing so doesn't meaningfully make China stronger. If anything, it further striates their already overwhelmingly lower-class population; unrest can't just happen in authoritarian countries, it tends to.
And while all-out war is unlikely; if that happens, everyone will be decimated. We can drum all we want, but global military tech has react the status of Perfect Killing Machine. War, in the past, was a tool countries used to assert influence and escape dire economic situations. The tools have changed; you can't assert influence if there's no one left to have influence over, and your dire economic situation will just be made worse after coastal population center bombardment and grain field irradiation. We'll just kill each other off, and most war is rational somewhere in the reasoning matrix.
How comes it's not cancelled by the Twitter mob yet?
The subject of the cancellation doesn't have to use Twitter. The consumers should - which is perfectly the case here.
Instead, the conversation was constantly being derailed in a concerted manner. [0]
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
These perceptions are notoriously unreliable because they're driven not by evidence (someone else having a different view from you does not count as evidence), but rather by the passions of the perceiver. Basically, people who feel strongly on a topic can't imagine that someone who feels the opposite could possibly be in good faith, so they make up stories about manipulation, astroturf, shillage, spies, foreign agents, bots, and/or trolls, to explain what feels inexplicable. It's an extremely common dynamic on the internet, and it's also extremely poisonous, so we don't want it here.
For tons of past explanation, see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
That's not to say there's no such thing as real abuse—just that there needs to be something objective to go on before making any such claims, and people on the internet having different opinions than you does not come close to clearing that bar. On the contrary. I've written many detailed explanations about this, some of which are listed at https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod, if anyone wants to read more.
So, if it wasn't for federal government regulation, Intel would be OK with slave labor.
What kind of sick people are running things at Intel?
And they think that is a good thing...
Ah, no. They think that will give them more money. Nothing to do with goodness.
We need to divest our manufacturing from China.
Perhaps by exposing such practices and nagging hypocrytical companies we can make divestment happen sooner?
Twitter mobs could be used for good once.
Make a policy like,
"""
Companies that onshore will pay the following taxes
for the next 25 years if they follow our onshoring
program:
company profits: 0% tax rate
CEO capital gains: 1% tax rate
shareholder capital gains: 2% tax rate
Also, companies can transfer international profits
back to the US at a rate of up to $10B a year with
no taxation.
"""
Don't punish China and make them angry. Reward US manufacturing activities handsomely.
Call your legislators and ask for this. They'll be into the tax thing.
An interesting side effect: companies that manufacture in the US will be worth significantly more. They can use their valuation to make continued investments: loans, acquisitions, hiring, etc.
Perhaps a new trade agreement could be made amongst key trading partners? China would probably get mad, but if China is able to keep foreign firms out or put them at a disadvantage, then we should be able to provide benefits to our own domestic firms.
There need to be motivations for companies to do more on our own soil.
I parse it as: "We need war with China".
Because soldiers don't cross borders goods cross.
Perhaps it was the exception that proves the rule.
It was a cute phrase but I see how it might lead to missunderstandings. Thanks for pointing that out. As for whether that more elaborate position applies to the Russian-Ukranian situation. Yes it does
The Russians have not declared war on Ukraine. They are engaging in a purely illegal invasion. Ukraine has not declared war on Russia and has not attempt any occupation of Russian territory.
Not gonna happen until you get rid of consumerism. People want to buy cheap shit, it gives their lives meaning.
You need to play by chinese rules or they close their market to you.
Big corporations are now addicted to this opium and cant simply go back to not selling to chinese markets.
I would like to see recognition from American shareholders that not only is expanding to China bad for the product but it also undermines our cultural values vis a vis problematic manufacturing.
There is Vietnam, Africa etc.
We can still have our IoT toasters, just manufactures elsewhere.
But you need your iPhone 13 Max (I know, Apple, not Intel) to virtue signal on Twitter though. It's much easier to just complain about Western colonialism or something.
You would need the Wall St, corporate globalists, and their backers on board with that, which is impossible given that they own all of the dominant American politicians and institutions