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

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271–280 of 311 posts

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

#271

I always laugh whenever I remember how Zuckerberg was pandering to the Chinese, like insisting to poorly speak Mandarin on some QA panel with Chinese students and such. The times they are a-changin!

yeh a lot of people did this and none it worked. Now china has no allies in business

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

#272

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?

You're being downvoted heavily (not surprising for a site with a strong US/Western audience), but here's what I think: China is emerging geopolitical rival (balance) to the US (and the West in general). Mainstream US media is great at amplifying US govt propaganda and publishing hit pieces on US rivals (see media portrayals of Soviet Union during the Cold war as an example: https://www.e-ir.info/2013/10/26/the-role-o…

Found you comment at the bottom of the comment section. Feels like the only safe place here. I've been noticing that the past few years there has been a sharp uptick in vitriolic statements about China.

There was a great look at American 'propaganda' in one of the China in Africa podcast where they were debating whether Voice of America is American propaganda. I think their specific debate was about the term collateral debt in relation to the infrastructure projects China has undertaken in Africa and the agreements that support them. It really helped me see that while the term is still sharply defined when speaking about "other" nation's propaganda, American's have a very difficult time extracting ideas which were put out by the American government and picked up as talking points by the media.

I don't know if propaganda is still the correct term anymore, but it at least feels like group think, which worries me.

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

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh.. no, not really. Not to anyone watching China beyond what appears in the mainstream headlines. Things have been on a strong downtrend since 2012 and alarms have been ringing loud since around 2014. Edit: Anyone writing a business plan including sensitive technology sales to the US government should DEFINITELY have seen this coming in 2016. Edit2: Also, candidate Trump had loudly been yelling about China for ove…

> Things have been on a strong downtrend since 2012 and alarms have been ringing loud since around 2014. Can you elaborate?

The short version: that's when Xi Jinping took power and started very quickly undoing all kinds of moves toward moderation and reform that had been undertaken by the previous few leaders.

He ramped up control over the population, consolidated power for himself and cracked down on dissidents/party criticism.

The 2014 bit is more subjective, but going from memory that's when I started to regularly see semi-mainstream technology, business and politics publications focusing on problems/concerns with China.

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

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of IP rights doesn't really exist in Chinese business culture. Your source code or any other proprietary technology is fair game. I know startup founders that have raised Chinese money and not regretted it, but it's important that it be "dumb money", i.e. they give you cash and go away while you write an occasional investor update and grow the business. Active Chinese investors (i.e. anything where you gi…

> You want to be in a position where if your investors ask you for something you can just ignore them. What reasonable investor would put themselves in that position? They're just going to give their money away and not have any say in what happens?

I mean yes that’s pretty much how 90% of deals in the valley happen?

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all things the USA has done in its past, and currently holds 2.3 million in prison with prison slavery legalized. Some of those are just "alleged" too.

Another equivocator. I can't think of a lazier argument.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

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

#276
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...

The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is similar.

Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic terrorism gets banned.

Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page.

Not surprising, since there are 3 mods who moderate both r/worldnews & r/india

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

#277
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

That includes Hacker News, by the way. Now that "YCombinator China" is a thing, sooner or later YC is going to start getting gentle insinuations that they really ought to tone down the criticism of China on that forum site they run, if they want to keep doing business there. Then the insinuations will get not-so-gentle, and at that point either YC China or Hacker News will get the bullet.

Paul Graham (owner of Hacker News) has stood up to bullies before https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/israeli-vc-un-invites-y... If he didn't cave in to Israeli pressure he won't cave in to Chinese either.

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

#278
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Aren't all Reddit subs driven by their own moderators? Or are there core subs that are Reddit-moderated? I had a lawyer friend who liked to post in a legal advice sub, moderated by someone in law enforcement, who banned him for posting information about your rights if you're arrested.

The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is similar.

Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic terrorism gets banned.

Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page.

Reddit should make atleast the 'Official Country' subreddits from obvious bias/influence.

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

#279

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.

Why is it ok for US companies to plow billions into China, but not for Chinese companies to plow billions into the US? Seems like a double-standard.

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

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is no different than what Hollywood already does. E.g. demonizing conservative values as antithetical to a stable government (abortion, gay and lesbian rights, income discrepancy). I recall Hillary Clinton being interviewed by Terry Gross, where she was essentially charged with bigotry in reversing positions on gay marriage. Public sentiment changes in one way as a result of social and media influences, and it's…

> All film and media is propagandistic in some way. Just because you swing the needle in a different direction doesn't change that fact. To add to that, one of America's biggest exports is it's culture - see "Military Recruitment and Hollywood" https://youtu.be/N5xfBtD6rLY

America will not only send its soldiers to burn your country to the ground, years later they will also make a Hollywood movie about how bad those soldiers felt about it, and how much they suffered.
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