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Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

wsj.com

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Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#91

Post by gnicholas »

antiviral wrote: post #16

Here is a snippet of the article, which I am posting under the Fair Use Act (I think you should all consider a subscription): "Silicon Valley startup Pilot AI Labs Inc. signed a Chinese-backed venture-capital firm as its first big investor. By last summer, Pilot AI wanted it gone. The U.S. startup hoped to sell more of its artificial-intelligence software to the U.S. government after working with the Pentagon, accord…

FYI, there is no Fair Use Act (other than a failed attempt to amend the copyright law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_USE_Act).

The principle of fair use is just part of copyright law, and there's no need to explicitly invoke it when availing yourself of it.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#92

Post by kamfc »

r00fus wrote: post #25
1-6 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of it is hype though? Tencent invested $150 million into Reddit but all I read on FP are Hong Kong demonstrations and Tank Man.

The idea is that successful message control will be subtle to imperceptible at first, but through successive actions it will just become commonplace to "not diss China". If Reddit is the "forum of the internet" then it won't matter if it slowly erodes into a Fox News like media presence. It will exert the gravity over other forums through its "reasonability" on non-sensitive topics. Kind of like how most modern polit…

The shift can influence on easy a admin/mod will ban certain thread and comments if content "diss China". Again, like how the action of Israel is rarely (never) mentioned by politician.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#93

Post by citilife »

The reverse is also happening and is a way bigger deal.

Resources are also being pulled out of China, as U.S. companies have spent the last several decades plowing tens (if not hundreds) of billions into China a year. It'll be a fairly large windfall coming out of China as well. To India, Mexico, Taiwan, the United States, etc.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#96

Post by maerF0x0 »

Anecdata time: In 2012 Canada allowed the sale of Nexen (an oil company) to CNOOC. CNOOC management promised they would keep the staff in Canada, the management local etc.

Fast forward 7 years later and it's a ghost town, they cite "business need" but somehow all the jobs have moved abroad and the only thing remaining in Alberta is a resource pump sending all the value abroad.

This comment is not intended to be about racially Chinese people, but the constantly malicious and negative behavior of the communist government in China.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#98

Post by learc83 »

fmajid wrote: post #78

I'd be more concerned about Chinese financing of Hollywood. Nearly every big-budget production these days has Chinese co-producers. This leads to farcical episodes like the remake of Red Dawn featuring feeble North Korea as the villain rather than China as originally envisioned.

Russia was the villain in the original movie and China was on the US side (but were only briefly mentioned). Or do you mean "as originally envisioned for the remake"?

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#99

Post by fragmede »

dcolkitt wrote: post #30
surge wrote: post #6

Chinese investment means increased pressure on tech oligopolies* to increase censorship of media critical of China. They've been branching out to increase soft influence, keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation. Then there's what is currently going on in Hong Kong. Chinese investor cash is effectively Chinese government investment. It's not a good thing. *edit

Not that this isn't a valid concern, but is there really any evidence that this is happening in Silicon Valley? Hong Kong's a different matter because of just how comparatively dominating and close by the mainland Chinese market is compared to the tiny city state. But in the US tech sector, the Chinese market is at best an after-thought. We're also living through probably the strongest seller's market in history when…

(I don't have access to the actual article due to WSJ paywall.)

> Tencent tried to force an Internet startup to censor their content

I assume you are referring to Tencent's recent investment in popular social media site Reddit, during their $300mm series D, at a $3B valuation, so they've already taken the money, whether they will laugh across across sand hill road is another question.

There is not yet direct evidence, of such censorship having yet occurred, but once it does happen, could any outsiders prove censorship beyond a shadow of a doubt? Give it time, first, for corporate censorship to become normalized on the English areas of the site, before pro-Hong Kong viewpoints become demonized, and Chinese mainland views propagate. Like, honestly, weird memes of shirtless Putin on horseback.

This is coming around especially as censorship in the US is also slowly becoming normalized. Try saying the phrase global climate change/warming as a government scientist. And then watch the people that try to justify it.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#100

Post by wrong_variable »

scarface74 wrote: post #40

Which is amazingly hypocritical coming from the same administration that just passed a tax cut that will get us deeper in debt with much of that debt being held by the Chinese government.

Which can be wiped out by printing money in QE4.
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