With all this Huawei witch-hunting unfolding, the only thing comes to my mind is: What if Americans would apply the same scrutiny to its own companies, but then I realize most big-corps lobby their way around.
Who Owns Huawei?
201–210 of 334 posts
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Russia a theft of a company comes immediately after the initial start-up phase is over and company starts to post profits. Immediately noticed by tax office, groups of lawyers zero in and simply take it away from the owner. I was told about such an example from one high-profile Russian who escaped to keep his company alive. US entrepreneurs in China had similar experience; once company took off, they had to "share…
> once company took off, they had to "share the technology" with some state companies that then produced the same thing cheaper and knocked the original company out. Without knowing the details, this sounds more efficient and potentially fairer for the society. It allows for information and innovation to flow in the industry, rather than a single company making absurd amount of money only because they can keep it sec…
In general, this tends to kill innovation as nobody bothers starting anything new (no rewards, instead punishment for success).
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#203The most informative comment I’ve heard about Chinese business is that one needs to take the western conception of state / military / corporation and chuck them out the window. In essence these are all descriptive functions of the same entity in China, and any apparent separation is just that—apparent. I know some may reply that, for example, Lockheed effectively lives at this nexus also. It’s a good argument, and pr…
The concept of state and corporation should be separate to protect freedom is really a US phenomenon or ideal.
In East Asia, the Japanese model, that later adopted by both South Korea and China, relies on the exact opposite. The government directly involves in guiding and shaping the economy. And they are smart in doing so, with the corporations being their vehicles to implement its policy and they are ones to picking the winners. So it is not like Planned Economy like the Soviets did, instead they are trying to embrace and take advantage of the market to better advance its objectives. Instead, here in US, corporations are more sensitive and faster than the government to propose new economic initiatives, while government just sits aside as the shepherd to prevent disasters.
If you ever being able to read material from CJK countries, the government in general has a much bigger power and responsibility, and when problem happens, the societies' instinct is to push the government to act on it.
But Huawei might be still a special case among of these. It is a weird company though, which doesn't need to respond to its share holders and yet participating actively in open and competitive markets.
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. What's being floated in this thread is an absurd premise. By that premise, Norway controls Microsoft and Apple because they own part of the companies via their sovereign fund. Microsoft by itself of course is worth as much as Norway's entire fund. Snapchat is a publicly traded company, of which institutional money representing primarily US investors controls the dominant position in the company. Reddit is minorit…
The fact that your well reasoned comment is downvoted shows how bad the Chinese hysteria has gotten.
Oh, give it time! Wait for the Chinese economy to be 2x the American one.
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#205I find the other extreme, as in the USA, more dangerous. Therefore the question "Who owns the US government?" could be asked too. Someone could look into example of Boeing and the FAA. The more we learn about 737-Max and 787 Dreamliner certification the more it's obvious that Boeing is running the FAA. Another example is the FDA. Good example here is Monsanto. While it was under US ownership everything was fine. Once…
FDA,not FAA
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
To some extent has been true for every big country that has successfully become a first world country after the WWII devastation. After the WWII Japan, South Korea, and Germany all had trade policies where the government coordinated closely with big export sector companies. Japan was famous for copying everything. Japanese businessmen toured western factories as potential customers with cameras, went home and build t…
Do you have any further information on how this was done in Germany? It’s nit something I’ve heard much about before, and is contrary to what I imagined.
One example is that Volkswagen used to be state-owned until 1960. Afterwards, the federal state of Lower Saxony still kept a stake of slightly more than 20%, which combined with the requirement for 80% shareholder agreement effectively granted them a veto. That only changed in 2013 after it was found to violate EU regulations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Act
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#207As usual with China we are focused on the wrong issue and asking the wrong questions. Who owns Huawei is irrelevant, who ultimately controls Huawei is the issue, but it’s a simple answer, the Chinese Government. I was in China on business, we were meeting the one of the largest and most successful tech companies in China. We were meeting with the Chairman/CEO and his team. Everyone was introduced except one man, ever…
The scary thing about Chinese approach is that it seems actually working.
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#208The most informative comment I’ve heard about Chinese business is that one needs to take the western conception of state / military / corporation and chuck them out the window. In essence these are all descriptive functions of the same entity in China, and any apparent separation is just that—apparent. I know some may reply that, for example, Lockheed effectively lives at this nexus also. It’s a good argument, and pr…
To some extent has been true for every big country that has successfully become a first world country after the WWII devastation. After the WWII Japan, South Korea, and Germany all had trade policies where the government coordinated closely with big export sector companies. Japan was famous for copying everything. Japanese businessmen toured western factories as potential customers with cameras, went home and build t…
Well the Japanese might have copied the product, but they surly built a better more efficient factory than the one that served as inspiration.
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to elaborate on the unity of the different elements of Chinese society you mention. Chinese institutions are all unified under a single structure, and that structure is the Communist (in name only) Party. Party members are embedded in every single important facet of society. Education, the military, the government, the private sector, it's all linked and unified by the party. Now, we can compare this structu…
You're assuming the centralized "neocortex" model (i.e. communism/socialism) is more effective than the distributed model (i.e. marketplace/capitalism/crowd sourced). Who knows, at this point, but the next decade will be very interesting to watch.
The problems of the centralized model is that it is in fact implemented in a distributed setting: there are breakdowns of nodes, there are broken messages, and there may be adversaries who take advantages of their positions.
Re: Who Owns Huawei?
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I think you are used to Western Companies where the default is private ownership. All major Chinese companies began as state owned enterprises, and it is usually necessary to get investment from one to get a charter. So ostensibly private companies have a big state investment. Plus a trade union committee implies a government structure.
> All major Chinese companies began as state owned enterprises Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Ctrip, JD.com and dozens of other major Chinese Internet companies did not begin as state owned enterprises. They were all born during the prime years of Deng's philosophy holding sway over how the Chinese Government implemented economic policy. At one point Yahoo and Softbank owned about 80% of Alibaba as an example. The state ha…
Yes, Alibaba started with investments from Softbank and Goldman Sachs.
It really is a private startup story like those in the Silicon Valley.