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

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

#171
post #127

Could somebody explain to me the vicious American hate for China from a totally uninformed viewpoint? Any links to read why I should also dislike China?

From a very broad moral perspective, their human rights violations are legion[1] including large open air internment camps for ethnic/religious minorities like the Uyghur[2], political imprisonment[3], alleged organ harvesting of prisoners[4], supporting North Korea ... From a purely tech perspective, state-sponsored hacking[5] and IP theft[6] are common. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China [2] ht…

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

#172
post #127

Could somebody explain to me the vicious American hate for China from a totally uninformed viewpoint? Any links to read why I should also dislike China?

From a very broad moral perspective, their human rights violations are legion[1] including large open air internment camps for ethnic/religious minorities like the Uyghur[2], political imprisonment[3], alleged organ harvesting of prisoners[4], supporting North Korea ... From a purely tech perspective, state-sponsored hacking[5] and IP theft[6] are common. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China [2] ht…

Come on if human right were really an issue for the US, Saudi Arabia which oppress half of its population, which is an absolute monarchy (you know the medieval version), which has absolutely no respect of basic human rights would not be one of the best US allies.

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

#173
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but I've pitched to a crossover fund from China and they were super seedy. On top of having a questionable website and other investments, one of the red flags was they wanted their engineers to review our source code before/without signing any NDAs or commitments.

You were surprised that China has red flags? (Thank you, I'll be here all week)

Where are you next week? This is a show I'll travel to follow.

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saudi Arabia would exist with or without American support At the same level? I have my doubts. If they weren't a close ally of the US, terrorist financing/leading stings would be going much further. Would they be able to do their thing in Yemen without US support? Or would they be a pariah on the world stage because of their acts, which are hard to tell apart from those of ISIS/ISIL? Not that I'm a big fan of the I…

Totally second that. Saudi arabia has been pumping money in India to radicalize muslims with active encouragement from USA. Attempts to stop this fund has always invoked American ire. India's strategic efforts to buy Oil from Iran instead of Barbaria have been hurt by United States. Without american help Saudi Barbaria would be a wasteland. America not just tolerate Barbaria but every actively helps them on internati…

> Saudi arabia has been pumping money in India to radicalize muslims with active encouragement from USA

Active encouragement? Or more like, America can't dictate foreign policy of every country in the world nor control what every wealthy Saudi sheikh does in his spare time.

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

#176
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…

https://www.pcgamer.com/tencent-imposes-new-regulations-on-s...

"Tencent imposes new regulations on streamers in China"

Yes, these regulations are currently China-specific, but (1) that's bad enough itself, (2) Companies may apply censorship worldwide as a an engineering-simplification measure.

> they'd get laughed in the face as the founders just walked next door to the next VC firm on Sand Hill Road.

Money talks, and Tencent and other Chinese companies have a lot. Once they've bought their stake, they can't be simply laughed off.

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

#177
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A reddit user from Hong Kong was recently banned from the /r/pics/ subreddit for posting about their support for the Hong Kong protests against https://www.reddit.com/r/chinareddits/comments/bz177v/got_ba... Tencent recently invested in Reddit. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/reddit-users-revolt-o...

Speaking of Reddit, a citizen of Hong Kong had a post this morning make it to the front page giving out a bit of info about the protest. Nearly half the comments were purged by the mods. Reddit had gone down hell in the last few years, but this was something else.

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

#178
post #24
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

To be fair we've all been using foreign aid, armament sales and all the rest for exactly the same reasons.

"We" is the US Government.

And people governed by the recipients of that aid are rightly suspicious of the strings attached.

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brit here. Reviewing source code before a purchase is pretty normal. I've personally done this for multiple companies that the enterprise I work for has purchased. In all cases it was a 1-day review, while supervised by someone from the company being purchased. It seems perfectly reasonable to get an idea of the state of what you are planning to purchase.

Without NDA?

No, there was of course an NDA :)

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

#180
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

Is this very different from Americans though ? Americans have forced all nations to treat Iran as a terrorist state when it is very friendly to rest of the world compared to Saudi. Saudi Barbaria exists only because of Americans. Can we say with certainty that American money isn't coming to other countries with strings attached ?

Iran funds Hezbollah, thus unless we want to claim Hezbollah is not a terrorist group, then it follows that Iran is a terrorist state, even if through a Hezbollah proxy.
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