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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#151

Post by brobinson »

7u5432throw wrote: post #95
degenerate wrote: post #6

The degree that China goes to censor things reminds me of kindergarten. Pull the shades down, and kids won't want to go outside? Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness?

Petty would be China requesting Apple to hide the Japanese or American flag. Taiwan is the result of a civil war. No one says Americans are petty when they try to remove Confederate flags or when Germany bans the Nazi flag.

The ROC is the successor state to the Qing Dynasty. It acquired Taiwan when the Japanese surrendered it at the end of WW2.

The PRC is the result of the civil war. The ROC never stopped existing nor did it start to exist as the result of the civil war.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#153

Post by CharlesColeman »

adamnemecek wrote: post #60

I really wonder about the information flow here. Does Xi Jinping call Tim Cook directly?

> I really wonder about the information flow here. Does Xi Jinping call Tim Cook directly?

I doubt it. The PRC is far more important to Apple than Apple is to the PRC. If I had to guess, I'd say the government didn't talk to Apple at all, but Apple has a department whose tasks is to proactively ensure their products do not offend Chinese government sensitivities.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#154

Post by friendlybus »

est31 wrote: post #88
thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is showing the ability to control one of the world's largest, and most advanced companies. It isn't petty–it is scary. The U.S. and others have sold their soul to the devil for $299 flat screen tvs.

Currently, most of China's power comes from its economy. There is barely any military presence outside of the mainland, and only a few years ago they opened their first outpost. So it's not surprising that Apple is conforming to their requests. And they are not the only ones. A while back, German carmaker Daimler made an instagram post with a Dalai Lama quote [1]. They ended up apologizing for "hurting the feelings o…

China has military control over the south China sea and a lot of the oil imports to SEA countries. Assuming the US pulls out, Japan, south Korea, Australia will all face strategic challenge from China over the next few decades.

The US refuses to see China as a strategic threat, and only as a economic challenge. Australia is looking into getting 16-32 submarines ordered right now, to cover for future defense outcomes. Aus and the SEA middle powers are having talks about obtaining nukes simply to prevent them being used against the countries.

China is projected to grow to be double the size of the US's econony. China is willing to spend those benefits in the south China sea and on BRI. Make no mistake about the military of China. It is a concern. This is as big as power politics get.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#155

Post by hangonhn »

thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #85
blotter_paper wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if the US hadn't sold their soul already? :/ I'm not trying to downplay the horrors of China, but let's not act like the US had clean hands before importing bulk electronics.

I'm not sure the average American benefited as directly to the atrocites of the past. The U.S. simply cannot change course without a serious alteration of the the ethos of the country.

"I'm not sure the average American benefited as directly to the atrocites of the past. "

We live on a continent taken from a people by violence, betrayal, and disease -- some of it intentionally spread through government policies. Sorry, the average American are direct beneficiaries of the atrocities of the past. Some of us don't know or chose to ignore it.

Update: I didn't say this to justify terrible things people are doing. We can't play this game of "only the most moral of us can criticize". Something is immoral in and of itself, it doesn't matter who calls it out.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#156

Post by mytailorisrich »

dheera wrote: post #123

It's worth noting that the ROC flag (== Taiwan flag) was the flag flown all over the mainland before 1949. It's a part of mainland history as well. I'm not supporting any political stance here, but just saying that it's a bit weird to ban a symbol that was part of the mainland's history as well, and on its own, carries more historical significance than just Taiwan independence.

Indeed, this flag has little, if anything, to do with "Taiwan independence".

But according to the PRC the ROC no longer exists (that's what they mean by "Taiwan is part of China" and I'm guessing that they see the flag used by people opposing the (PRC) government, so the standard procedure is to ban it.

I'm curious, though, if this comes from a specific demand or if, for example Apple has moved to releasing the same version of iOS in HK and the mainland (I'm guessing that the flag isn't in the mainland's version of iOS here, but I don't know for a fact).

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#157

Post by blotter_paper »

diminoten wrote: post #112
thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the average American benefited as directly to the atrocites of the past. The U.S. simply cannot change course without a serious alteration of the the ethos of the country.

Oh we definitely have, everyone benefitted massively from the "manifest destiny" attitude behind the many atrocities committed against the native Americans. It's also not our fault , infar as we didn't literally pull any triggers. We're probably still complicit to some degree, however, by our general lack of support for reparation actions.

We all pay taxes that buy triggers and pay to have them pulled. You can argue this is compelled, but I personally have more respect for those who refuse to pay taxes and face the wrath of the US government than I have for my own cowardly position of paying taxes and continuing to complain about the horrors committed using that money.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#158

Post by erk__ »

dirtyid wrote: post #139
peterkelly wrote: post #40

This reminds me of the story about how the first release of Windows 95 was banned in India because 8 pixels of the map shown in the timezone selection control panel were colored in such a way that suggested parts of Kashmir were part of Pakistan. https://www.cnet.com/news/how-eight-pixels-cost-microsoft-mi... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42...

Related to the original discussion, I wonder if there's a story behind how Taiwan got a emoji flag in the first place. Unicode Consortium referenced ISO 3166 for eligibility. Taiwan and a few other disputed regions didn't the cut until 3166-2 revision. The maintenance agency consists of representative from only western agencies. Interesting politics.

I beleive that the unicode consortium have chosen not to say much about witch flags are there pretty much for this reason. They don't want unicode to get mixed in with international politics.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#159

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #96
learc83 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TPP was designed to contain China. China wasn't a part of it.

If that's true then I'm wrong, but I'll need a reference on that. My understanding has been that the TPP was about opening China to further outsourcing of white collar work by regularizing IP law on paper (which the Chinese would just ignore of course). This would have allowed more paralegal, contract writing, engineering, and even things like radiology (X-ray and scan interpretation) to be outsourced, further guttin…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#160

Post by diminoten »

blotter_paper wrote: post #157
diminoten wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh we definitely have, everyone benefitted massively from the "manifest destiny" attitude behind the many atrocities committed against the native Americans. It's also not our fault , infar as we didn't literally pull any triggers. We're probably still complicit to some degree, however, by our general lack of support for reparation actions.

We all pay taxes that buy triggers and pay to have them pulled. You can argue this is compelled, but I personally have more respect for those who refuse to pay taxes and face the wrath of the US government than I have for my own cowardly position of paying taxes and continuing to complain about the horrors committed using that money.

The Good Place actually deals with this, "you can't be good and participate in society anymore because of globalization" idea pretty well IMO.
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