Trade is really a matter for the government, and the US (sadly) adheres to the One China Policy. This just reflects the official policy, and having the companies pick this fight instead of the country is hypocritical.
We have free speech in the US. Freedom means choice, so there's still an obligation to act morally. China is more than willing to manipulate cultural messages with money, so we need some kind of cultural counter to that.
For instance, see how China manipulated the NBA and Activision Blizzard during the Hong Kong protests.
Compared to a country where companies literally buy congressman, and freely manipulate public opinion for the highest bidder?
These false equivalence’s are really tiring. China’s control of public speech and media is on a wholly different plane.
It’s not even remotely comparable to manipulation in the West.
I mean, some people believe there are no public elections in China, so…
Can a US citizen go on media, or organize a public protest, in which they call Joe Biden or Donald Trump, bad people, with bad policies? Yes, US citizens can publicly call for the highest level politicians in the land to lose their jobs, and with no real repercussions.
People on social media can scream "Let's Go Brandon" or meme like crazy about Biden. But Weibo, Wechat, Bilibili, Douyin, frequently censor even the most milquetoast sarcastic remarks about the CCP or Xi, including the infamous Baozi and Panda blocks.
Can a famous Chinese public individual/celebrity/intellectual, in China, tell a huge crowd and media, that I think the CCP are horrible and that Xi Jinping needs to be booted from power?
Stop trying to draw false equivalencies.
> I mean, some people believe there are no public elections in China, so…
Sure, where the CCP select and approve the candidates, control the election progress, and there is no free media coverage or transparency free of state control. Practically no real international election monitors. And no direct nationwide elections. Rather, a many levels of indirection process, effectively controlled by a President for life. Let's see what happens at Beidaihe and the 20th national congress in November. Think anything will change? I don't.
There's practical no competing, transparent system in these so called 'democratic elections' making them in effort, a Potemkin village with the veneer of popular will, but in fact, nothing of the sort. There are about 50 individuals in the US congress worth more than $10 million, and not a single one who is a billionaire. Trump was the only billionaire to have office. Meanwhile, there are 100+ CCP members in the Congress who are billionaires.
Does this look like a system chosen by public debate, awareness, and discussion?
For all of the flaws in the Western systems, and there are a vast number, it is really tiring seeing tankies try to say "everything's the same" with zero nuance, as if none of it matters.
See, there's your problem: when you realise facts don't match your beliefs, you start "are we really" instead of reconsidering those beliefs.
>Besides the fact that most of the country is firewalled off from foreign media
Foreign media is easily accessible in China using VPN. Meanwhile, Chinese (or non-western in general) media is pretty much entirely unknown in US. It's largely because of language barrier, but not only that.
>and besides the fact that only one political party is allowed
Only until you realise that party is something entirely different from what we in the West call parties. But even if it was similar, it wouldn't be much worse than the American system, where you have two parties that are very closely related and sponsored by the same corporations.
>and besides the fact that political prisoners are routinely jailed for nothing more than denying a government narrative
In US people are routinely killed on the street for nothing more than being black. Seriously though, do you really believe there's no political discourse in China?
>and I don't mean held for a day or two like in the West, but jailed for years
In US you can get jailed for years for literally nothing, simply because it's less risky to give up and go to jail for a shorter sentence than prove your innocence, and prosecutors abuse this all the time. Or for any minor infraction because the three strikes law, which was literally created to get as many people into jails as possible. And let's not forget the forced labor.
>Yes, US citizens can publicly call for the highest level politicians in the land to lose their jobs, and with no real repercussions.
... to those politicians. That's the point: in US you are allowed to say whatever you want, because it doesn't matter; the election system is already rigged, everyone knows that it's not the majority choice that wins elections, and nobody cares - because nobody can do anything about it. Compare this to China, where government officials can actually get convicted and jailed. Chinese prime minister responsible for Tienanmen spent the rest of his life in house arrest. American officials responsible for Kent State shootings, or for the bombing a city block, killing a number of random kids and shooting at survivors, which name escapes me - nobody got prosecuted.
>But Weibo, Wechat, Bilibili, Douyin, frequently censor even the most milquetoast sarcastic remarks about the CCP or Xi
[citation needed]
>Can a famous Chinese public individual/celebrity/intellectual, in China, tell a huge crowd and media, that I think the CCP are horrible and that Xi Jinping needs to be booted from power?
Can a famous US public individual, in US, tell a huge crowd and media that they believe US supreme court and Senate need to be booted from power?
>Sure, where the CCP select and approve the candidates, control the election progress
Exactly like in US; the party nominates various public officials who oversee the elections, not to mention gerrymandering.
>And no direct nationwide elections.
Just like US presidential elections. Although I'm not sure if in China it's legal to corrupt electors; in US it is and it has already happened in the past.
>Think anything will change? I don't.
So, here's the thing: things do change, all the time. If you actually read anything about Chinese political system, you'd noticed that the "old" communist party, the one which stood for Cultural Revolution, has been delegalised. China wouldn't be able to develop order of magnitude faster than US without changes to law. Meanwhile in US you can still land in prison for life just because you're out of luck.
>There's practical no competing, transparent system in these so called 'democratic elections' making them in effort
And here we go again, Americans believing there is no political discourse in other countries, and at the same pretending with straight face that the US is a functional democracy.
>Meanwhile, there are 100+ CCP members in the Congress who are billionaires.
Thank you, that's interesting. Source?
>For all of the flaws in the Western systems, and there are a vast number, it is really tiring seeing tankies try to say "everything's the same" with zero nuance, as if none of it matters.
See, here's the thing: I do understand your point; it was my point of view for the past two decades. Until I realised it just doesn't match observable reality. What you are describing is just prejudice; a colonial mindset based on a combination of racism and ignorance, which is what American exceptionalism boils down to.
Also, we're not talking about "Western systems"; there are many western countries that are proper democracies. But US is not one of them. It's a pseudo-democracy, like China, except it serves corporations, not people. That's why the quality of life in US is dropping, while in China it's skyrocketing. Ever wondered why Americans get so surprised whenever some Chinese oligarch gets into trouble? Or how comes an American court can let a convicted pedophile free because "he wouldn't feel good in a jail", assuming of course he's wealthy enough?
Example: * china is firewalled off * you: oh but there’s VPN.
you are really impacting the quality of the discussion, I would love to understand why you’re dining this though. Bored or do you have an agenda?
I mean, the fact that you're not making sense should be obvious even to you, as you can't provide even a single argument to support your "point of view".
Also, you're sentences do not make sense. "Why you are doing this" => what is "this", you forgot to define it.
Meanwhile, China is a country where people live in fear of publicly expressing their opinion, this is well documented. 10s on the web finds this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press_in_Chin...
> Also, you're sentences do not make sense. "Why you are doing this"
That’s your sentence, I just quoted it.
>China is a country where people live in fear of publicly expressing their opinion
Just like the US - you don’t have any protections against an employer firing you for something you said in your free time, because it “goes against company values”.
You’re also mistaking freedom of press with freedom of speech, but again, that’s a minor mistake in this context.
But most of all: you still hadn’t shown any actual data to back your ideas.
It's a valid point to think autocracy is better than corruption.
I disagree on the level of corruption in the US I think, as far as I understood you. I do not deny there is corruption though.
I would be interested in knowing the level of corruption in China but I think the autocratic grip on the press is too strong to have any valuable data.
First, I'm not convinced that US is less autocratic than China. European countries of course are, but US is not a functioning democracy anymore; it's corporations who decides how the Congress will vote, not citizens.
Second - I think we might be using a different definition of "corruption". In US many mechanisms that would normally be considered corruption are legal, and thus aren't technically a corruption.
And yeah, would be great to have more reliable numbers for China. I don't think that's due to the "grip"; rather, it's a cultural thing: Chinese don't seem to value openness same way we do. At the same time, China is absurdly huge; I'm not sure we can have reliable numbers for all of the geographical Europe, and China is twice that.
>Foreign media is easily accessible in China using VPN
VPNs not sanctioned by the government (most of them) are officially against the law. It might be easy, but piracy is also easy. That doesn't mean there's no issue with expensive media.
> do you really believe there's no political discourse in China
There is no public political discourse. There is private dinner table discourse. And Chinese people know very well not to criticize the CCP on WeChat or Weibo.
> the election system is already rigged,
No it isn't, that's conspiratorial nonsense.
> Compare this to China, where government officials can actually get convicted and jailed.
Lots of US politicians have been convicted. You just aren't aware of it. A small sample: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_and_loc...
> But Weibo, Wechat, Bilibili, Douyin, frequently censor even the most milquetoast sarcastic remarks about the CCP or Xi [citation needed]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Two-Chinese-video-producers-...
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-censors-letter-n-in-cr...
And many more.
> Can a famous US public individual, in US, tell a huge crowd and media that they believe US supreme court and Senate need to be booted from power?
Yes. It's been done many many times.
> Exactly like in US; the party nominates various public officials who oversee the elections, not to mention gerrymandering.
No, not like in the US. In the US, opposing parties appoint opposing monitors. So when people are monitoring the count, you have Democrats and Republicans inspecting ballots together. It is not a single party, it is a competitive adversarial system.
>Thank you, that's interesting. Source?
https://asiatimes.com/2017/03/100-billionaires-among-chinas-...
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/china-counts-over-10...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-na...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/china-parliament...
>See, here's the thing: I do understand your point; it was my point of view for the past two decades. Until I realised it just doesn't match observable reality. What you are describing is just prejudice; a colonial mindset based on a combination of racism and ignorance, which is what American exceptionalism boils down to.
Are you Chinese or have you lived in China for an extended period of time? I've been married to a Chinese citizen for 20 years, my extended family is all Chinese, my two children are half Chinese, I speak Mandarin (HSK4-5) and read Hanzi, and I have lived in China, traveled to almost every province, including weeks in Xinjiang. I regularly read Chinese media (Weibo, Xinhua, Bilibili, etc).
I take issue with you attempting to call me a racist, especially since if anything, I have a deep admiration for Chinese culture (which Mao actively tried to destroy BTW)
The problem I see with your viewpoint is that there is no nuance. Anything corrupt is equal, it's all a wash. So whatever specific problems the Chinese system has, you can't criticize them, because your system's problems (which are different in scope and kind) are just as bad. Ergo, if you criticize China you're just ignorant and a racist.
But what if you're capable of criticizing both? I grew up in the ghetto in Baltimore. I lived sandwiched between two crackhouses. My sister died of heroin addiction. My brother in jail. I escaped, became a successful entrepreneur, engineer, and traveled the world.
I have been a life long critic of the US system, of the neo-liberal corpocracy. But I have strong ethics and values around coercion, corruption, and censorship, and I'm not going to just sit by and give the Chinese government a free pass on what I view as a bad autocratic regime. And I can hold that position unironically, while being opposed to US foreign policy adventures, and US corporate lobbying influence that sandbags social democratic problems.
They are two different problems, not the same. And I can tell you from living behind the great firewall, and having grown up in the US ghetto, which problem I'd rather deal with.
What I find ironic, is from your other posts, you apparently support Ukraine in the Ukraine<->Russia conflict, but China actually supports Russia, and Chinese state media parrots endlessly the 'denazification' model in Mainland China, and you see Chinese citizens on Tiktok, Weibo, parroting these claims, that Ukraine is full of nazis.
But nah, having a government in complete control of the national media and what's allowed to be said on tech platforms isn't a problem, right?
To me, if you want to be morally consistent, you have to strongly criticize both systems. You're attempting to deflect and distort criticism of China by making it into a competition/comparison with the US system.
>I have been a life long critic of the US system, of the neo-liberal corpocracy.
Okay, we're similar in that regard then. However, I don't think we can pretend that US isn't trying to manufacture consent for another war. I also don't think we should ignore the fact that western media present a very single-sided view.
>> Can a famous US public individual, in US, tell a huge crowd and media that they believe US supreme court and Senate need to be booted from power?
>Yes. It's been done many many times.
And for some of those people it ended badly - from being shunned to finding themselves killed in interesting circumstances. (Okay, perhaps not claiming literally those specific two things.)
>What I find ironic, is from your other posts, you apparently support Ukraine in the Ukraine<->Russia conflict, but China actually supports Russia
China and Russia have a common enemy, but the war made them split ways. China has pulled out from all the strategic investments, and is quite religiously following the sanctions. Even Huawei exited the Russian market.
>Chinese state media parrots endlessly the 'denazification' model in Mainland China, and you see Chinese citizens on Tiktok, Weibo, parroting these claims, that Ukraine is full of nazis.
And how's that different from Fox News?
We make decisions to curtail free speech everyday so how's this different?
Yes. Yes they can.
For that matter, I've received written correspondence from people while doing genealogical research with the return address listed as "Mobile, Alabama, Occupied CSA". There are definitely cultural norms that come into play here, but in that particular case - it was from an officer of a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and contained photocopies of Confederate military records - I was amused by it. I kept the envelope and included it in my own archives.
Now even if it is allowed, suppose this was a Federal government procurement. Will Feds buy something with such flags? Nope. Once that happens, it can be easily demagogued.
Actually, probably. If the item meets the specs and the price, that's what matters.
Just as there is no shortage of federal buildings, and even military installations named after Confederate things.
This HN discussion illustrates how bringing up Confederate themes, you can really tell when someone isn't an American.
Do you know of any counter examples where a company was able to make a successful bid with a product that had good fit, but an inconvenient non-functional addon like that?
The Confederate flag is a bit weird because there's enough of the population that apparently doesn't see it that way, so some stores will even display products that have it. (Personally I find it to be an awful symbol and wouldn't stick around if I saw it displayed).
An example that is more like what you've described is something like a Nazi swastika -- technically you can sell something with a swastika on it (I'm 99.9% sure) but almost no stores would be willing to put it on the shelves, certainly no major chains or whatever.
No we don't. China may act peeved that foreign companies are virtue signalling, but they'd secretly relish at the opportunity of finding an excuse to boycott or ban these foreign products, so that their wealth stays circulating in their domestic economy. Look at what happened to Nike and H&M after they voiced concerns about Xinjiang. The CPC organized consumer boycotts of these companies, but happily allowed factories to continue to sell their goods to sell to them. China itself recognizes that it only makes sense to virtue signal when it is economical to do so.
The NBA and Blizzard made the correct decision to kowtow to China, economically as well as morally. Getting them kicked out of China does not help Hong Kong, but would threaten to free world as the balance of trade would make us even more beholden to China. In a complicated, globalized world, marginal thinking is the only option.
A global company that wastes resources engaging in hysterically overblown State Department propaganda is a company that compromises the credibility of its leadership to make intelligent strategic decisions.
We're out of the unipolar era, and companies that are stuck it in it will get outpaced.
If Apple had somehow managed to make iPhones in Vietnam instead of Shenzhen, would they really be facing the premium tier competition from Huawei they face in the EU?
Let some other company fight the battle over what to put on the label.
For one thing they have close business relationships with people in both china and Taiwan. They have employees in both countries. Vendors. Human relationships. Those might get kinda awkward if they picked this battle.
And what do they gain picking this battle? A few internet points?
It’s just not worth it.
When they started to support Taiwan in 1945, Chiang Kai-shek was a nationalist who imposed the martial law on Taiwan for 40 years (until the end of the 1980s!), waiting to strike back and regain "full control of China" (that's how One China principle was born, RPC has nothing to do with it! it was even in the ROC Constitution until 1992!)
Nixon changed everything when he visited mainland China and talked to Mao in 1972, that lead to the US-China trade agreement of 1979.
Until 1972 US had an agreement with Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan "temporary" government was the only recognized China, they were bound to protect it in case of attack, they supported his claims of reunification under his ruling and the UN seat for China was that of Taiwan, even though 99% of the people of China lived on mainland.
USA has been very ambiguous since then, on one side they acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China and does not challenge that position, on the other they are formally Taiwan allied, but there's no more an US embassy in Taipei and no Taiwanese embassy in Washington.
They even moved their "One China" capital from Taipei to Beijing.
Reminder: indigenous people of Taiwan are only 2% of the original population, the rest is 97% Han Chinese, so one China is quite an accurate description.
They only differ about the alliances they made, but the mythological example of freedom for Asian countries that Taiwan should be, is just a myth
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/na... (2016, long before the actual crisis)
Also, 2021 referendum on pork ban from USA shows that to keep having the support of USA, the ruling political party in Taiwan has to to satisfy their demands, even when it (potentially) poses a risk for the entire Taiwanese population.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-16/pork-refe...
USA are not there as mere observers, but as strongly interested party, with deep economical interests.
And to exploit cheap labor, that made the fortune of Apple with their iPhone.
The truth is that until not long ago, Taiwan had access to better weapons thanks to the USA that compensated for the smaller army. Their technological superiority combined with the threat of US navy showing up at the border kept China at bay and forced them to think twice before trying to retake Taiwan.
Now that's not true anymore.
How terrible of them to adhere to the policy Taiwanese themselves prefer!
EDIT: To clarify, from what I remember the public opinion on Taiwan independence has been steadily shifting and now it’s the majority’s preference compared to becoming another province of China. At the same time the vast majority of Taiwanese prefer the option “let’s keep things as they are now”, if that option is available in the poll. Taiwan does have some special ties with continental China, particularly in economy and travel; it’s more like EU than two entirely unrelated countries.
Second, US's One China policy is only a word play. It acknowledges China's position regarding Taiwan but doesn't actually agree or disagree to it. That's why it still provide defense for Taiwan.
Third, your comment about public opinion is a complete nonsense. Taiwan is a democratic nation. If the majority prefers being a province of China, it would have already voted to do so. And the only reason people choose to "keep things as they are now" is to avoid provoking a war with China.
Second - yeah, your point being?
Third - yes, it is a democratic nation, and the prevalent majority of that democratic nation wants to keep things as they are, as evidenced by polls[1]. This nation doesn’t want war. Compare this with the standard modus operandi of US. Sometimes they are the good guys, sometime they kill a million people in Middle East, but it’s always about a war somewhere far away from US.
1. Notice how different this is from Ukraine. Ever wondered why there are so many… persons equating China and Russia?
Either that or... are you talking about Taiwan and West Taiwan?
Mind that Taiwanese politics is not something I know a lot about, so I'm happy to be corrected.