China

A company is only going to move their production to another country where production is cheaper if they know their consumers will continue consuming despite where said production is taking place. So I disagree, trading with China is NOT beneficial to everyone; we are simply feeding the dragon.

You work at a multibillion-dollar company, yet live in a state with an (comparatively) uneducated population. That's far from average.

One idea would be to run workshops for children/or families teaching them how to repair their devices, and which devices to get if they want them to last (think upgradability, battery-replacement, similar). If we're wanting to lessen China's power over the working class, making people capable of maintaining electronics in the same way they can maintain cars will go a long way. Bonus points if you teach them how to reinstall operating systems without bricking their systems.

Another idea would be to use your programming ability to create software to help people: think getting past censorship, keeping communications secure, similar. China and Hong Kong both are more or less tech wonderlands, solving the UX issues that stop anyone from throwing a single-board computer (think Orange/Raspberry Pi) online and using it to communicate over the open web and store data without fear of it being compromised in some way by doing nothing more than flashing an OS image and booting would mean that almost everyone would gain, but especially people in those countries.

> Note: if you are interested in conducting an independent review of the factuality of the claims expressed in this article, please contact me.

Since the author reads HN, I'll assume this comment counts.

> The Chief Executive of Hong Kong (Carrie Lam) is elected directly by the mainland Chinese government, and the people have no representation in the election whatsoever.

The Chief Executive is elected by the Election Committee. While that includes some members representing China's National People's Congress, the majority is made up of a carefully gerrymandered selection of company representatives and professional associations, similar to the Legislature Council. https://www.elections.gov.hk/ecss2016/eng/figures.html

Also, if you intend to e.g. prevent Chinese developers from using your products, I'd advise against it. Foreign code hosting platforms are a major way for Chinese developers to organize where they can't be reached by the government.

"The United States would be unable to buy $155B worth of electronics, which we already have domestic manufacturing capabilities for4

4: https://www.lg.com/us/press-release/lg-electronics-to-build-...

4: http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/Global-Int...

This is a truly perplexing argument, especially the sourcing to "make" the argument. Ones an article about a single factory that LG opened for washing machines in the US, the other that Intel has chip manufacturing plants in the US. This does not make the argument that America has the resources, both human and raw materials, to pull off a China manufacturing pull-out.

A lot of the article, especially the parts on who gets rich off this arrangement and the human rights components are very much on point. But making it out like a China manufacturing break would just be simply accomplished because LG makes some washing machines here is pretty ridiculous. It would be very difficult, and it would require a lot of government assistance & policy encouragements to develop people, acquire access to rare earth minerals, and lay out vast sums of upstart capital to get factories built. It would take time. Making it out like it's a simple fix is convenient and simple, but like most complex things that are made out to be simple & convenient, it's just flat-out wrong.

What are the alternatives of not kinetic or economic? Sanctions of government officials? Cyber warfare?