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drewdevault.com

431–440 of 497 posts

Re: China

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps my comment was a bit dismissive, but I think the general point stands: academic economists don’t live in the places that have been economically ruined by offshoring jobs. University professors are white-collar professionals and don’t live in run-down, economically-dead towns. It’s easy to draw abstract analyses from afar, but without actual hands-on experience, you end up with unexpected side effects - like t…

Your comment seems very anti-intellectual, which is surprising to find on HN. Academics do not need to live in a place in order to study it rigorously. Not being blasé, but the rust-belt is the trade-off for globalization. The US asked the rest of the world to open up their markets for American goods and services and promised to do the same.

Indeed academics do not need to live in a place to study it, but they need to live there to feel it.

Re: China

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1% of the US population is something like 3 million people; let's say about 2 million adults. Do you really think that there are 2 million adults in the US who have "a higher amount of wealth than sovereign countries" and that the US should go and execute 2-3 million of its citizens?

[flagged]

Actually, the number of German citizens (or ex-German-citizens, given that German Jews were stripped of citizenship) executed by the Third Reich was "only" about 200,000-300,000 [1], which was about 0.3-0.4% of the population (~70 million). So sort of in the ballpark of "1%", but not even close to 2-3 million, given the much smaller population.

Lots more killing of non-German citizens, of course...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War...

Re: China

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trying to troll but genuinely interested in figuring out the boundaries of these proposed boycotts. What is the difference between "accept investments from China" and allowing Chinese citizens to pay for your service? This article does not call on US companies to stop selling to China. There seems to be a baseline assumption that creating (from the US point of view) trade deficit will destroy freedom and tha…

>I am not trying to troll but genuinely interested in figuring out the boundaries of these proposed boycotts. No problem, I'm grateful for your comments. The difference is subtle but important. First of all, the Chinese users of my service or a minority of a minority. Their participation has little to no effect on the direction of the site. Their $5/mo subscription fee is not going to move mountains. The kinds of inv…

Then the principle would be that it is okay to do business with China if you don't kowtow. That works well for selling to China but it can only work for buying if there is a distributor outside of China which would just encourage buying direct from China. A general boycott doesn't work with the kowtow principle because an individual or company in China isn't in a position to be able to state their opinion of the government.

Re: China

#434
post #87

Liberal societies, such as the Bay Area (where I live), it’s impossible to criticize anyone without having the doubt of “offending” someone. When it comes to China, I can’t go out in the lunch room and openly criticize CCP because you know, I could “offend” a Chinese National. This needs to stop. I see this behavior on HN, which is frustrating, counterproductive, anti-free speech and extremely left-winged. Another pr…

You're being downvoted for expressing a contrarian viewpoint. This kind of censorship isn't even targeting hate speech, and it drives me crazy. Why downvote them?

Hi, thanks for the words, I just wanted to get it out, upvotes or downvotes don't bother me.

I also understand that this may not apply to other people's experience in the Silicon Valley, thererfore I said that your mileage may vary.

The bigger question is - Why should we allow Chinese nationals in America (even more so in Australia) to supress free speech and promote CCP ideals? Its one thing to do it inside China, a whole another level to spread it across the world as immigrants.

Re: China

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should continue to let them buy US companies despite the reverse not being allowed? We should continue to let their companies operate freely in our markets despite the reverse not being allowed? We must maintain this double standard because the CCP might make propaganda out of it?

Given the number of times 'national security' has been the reason for barring Chinese companies from operating in the US or anywhere else, I don't think what you describe is true any more

That is a fairly recent development, while the opposite has been status quo for multiple decades.

Re: China

#436
post #387
post #129

I don't think that the cheaper goods that China gave the world only benefited the %1, and actually has helped a lot people in america and the world. I also don't think that the economic miracle that has happened in China is a bad thing, and they could of been more singaporean/south korean authoritarian vs. genocidal authoritarian to achieve it. I really want china to become another Japan or Korea eventually. I do agr…

> I don't think that the cheaper goods that China gave the world only benefited the %1 I look at this from the perspective of the rust-belt. It doesn't really help that you can buy a Chinese-made couch for only $500 if you've long since lost your job at the furniture factory.

The rust belt is only one part of the american economy, and China is not the only explanation of their fall. The Canadian maritime use to be a fairly wealthy region, until the fish ran out. Now it's been like the rust belt for a long time and one of the poorest regions of canada.

Other parts have become ascendant, such as our software & service industries. The american auto industry also killed themselves, mostly because peaceful Japanese competitors out competed them.

Re: China

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nevermind that there are constant reforms and improvements to Chinese legal system, the anticorruption drive for instance which the west dismiss as power consolidation but subsequent analysis has concluded to be a broadly genuine effort This is certainly possible, and I of course applaud anti-corruption policies. We have something of a corruption problem here in the US you may have heard about. The mistrust comes f…

This all boils down: > Here you are justifying China's violation of human rights because they're a developing nation. ... > So let's be honest, you're setting an impossible standard so you don't have to take responsibility. Again, I'm not absolving China of their failures and abuses. But I also recognize that currently, China is operating within hegemonic standards set by 70 years of US leadership. That is, the privi…

I'll take your reluctance to defend other misdeeds committed by the CCP that I've listed as an admission that they are, indeed, indefensible. Let's finally move on to this last bit of whataboutism you're clutching.

> XJ specifically maps onto hysteric over reaction to post 9/11 attacks.

The Uighurs predate the CCP by hundreds of years. They are indigenous to their area of Xinjiang. They've resisted CCP rule--which has been imposed on them unwillingly--and because the CCP hasn't provided a political solution, some have resorted to violence (you might recognize this dynamic from what's happening in Hong Kong right now).

The 9/11 attacks had many motivations (Osama bin Laden made them all clear). But "you've annexed our homeland and are systematically erasing our religion and culture" was not one of them.

So there is no comparison between the CCP's actions against the Uighurs and the US's actions towards Muslims. The only thing they share, at all, is that the victims are Muslims. The Uighurs aren't immigrants. That's their land. It's a facile comparison, and reflexive whataboutism from a regime so used to playing this card it doesn't even think about it anymore.

If you're interested in a truer comparison, look to the US's treatment of Native Americans. Unfortunately that comparison isn't favorable to the CCP at all, because while we certainly committed atrocities when we invaded their homes hundreds of years ago, and while the reservation system has serious flaws, it's absolutely not "re-education" camps holding millions of people outside any rule of law or oversight whatsoever.

> Economic development IS human rights.

If the CCP is interested in economic development at all costs, why does it have such extreme income inequality? Let me quote the first paragraph from the Wikipedia article "Income inequality in China":

> China’s current mainly market economy features a high degree of income inequality. According to the Asian Development Bank Institute, “before China implemented reform and open-door policies in 1978, its income distribution pattern was characterized as egalitarianism in all aspects.”[1] At this time, the Gini coefficient for rural – urban inequality was only 0.16. As of 2012, the official Gini coefficient in China was 0.474, although that number has been disputed by scholars who “suggest China’s inequality is actually far greater.”[2] A study published in the PNAS estimated that China’s Gini coefficient increased from 0.30 to 0.55 between 1980 and 2002.

What's actually happening is a relatively small number of CCP elites are exploiting the people of China for their own enrichment. They use the politics of fascism to secure their hold on power, they use their extremely sophisticated and wide-reaching surveillance state to curb dissent, and they leverage their economic might to gag nations around the world.

> So if Americans wants to have a credible podium to compel others to reduce their scope of atrocity, then they must also reduce their own.

I 100% agree with this. I'm not arguing that the CCP should listen to the US though, and I'm not arguing that the US should be listened to. I'm arguing that the CCP is a violator of human rights on a scale close to some of the worst in history, and the world should do something about it.

> Not everyone has the luxury of affluence to fulfill everything freedom right now. Sometimes they must choose, moral calculus is not easy when every decision are bad trolley problems.

I 100% agree with this too. The problem I have with the CCP is that they argue that they absolutely must violate human rights on staggering scales in order to raise the quality of life for their citizens. This is, I hope obviously, a false choice. China's GDP has no relationship to putting a million Uighurs in camps. Actually that probably cost a lot of money, just like the political unrest in Hong Kong will cost a lot of money as the recession deepens and businesses leave.

But if the CCP refuses to see it this way, I'm comfortable playing on this field. Like OP, I call on everyone everywhere to make it known that if you violate human rights anywhere near the level that the CCP does, your economy will not grow. We should expel these regimes from world governing and trade bodies. We should not engage with them economically. Any diplomatic relations must be predicated on their respect for rule of law and human rights.

> All the Asian tigers that the west hoped China would emulate sprung from established authoritarian regimes who grew their economies via protectionism policies until the people reached a level of wealth that made pursuing other freedoms attractive.

Not for nothing, but this is a real bad comparison. First of all, almost every nation started out in some way as an authoritarian nation. So if your argument is that you need to spend some time in a fascist incubator before your people can be free, that's pretty dark.

Second, the Asian tigers are Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. It's true that South Korea has a history (again like almost every nation) of authoritarian rule. It's also true that the KMT in Taiwan imposed martial law for decades but has recently blossomed into a vibrant democracy. But Singapore is not a free country, and Hong Kong isn't a country--much less a democracy--at all.

(To be clear, Singapore has made great strides and I'm obviously not in charge of who's free and who's not. I'm going off indexes like Freedom in the World and the Press Freedom Index).

I'm sure people in the US thought free market principles would liberalize the CCP. I've brought that up elsewhere, even in this thread. That was very wrong, and it's important for us to realize that while economic development is, as you say, necessary to ensure human rights, it's far from sufficient.

> Most developed western country that requires immigration to support their future is being destabilized by massive demographic and social changes, read non white immigration influx no small fault to US ME policy, leading to nativism and populism that's springing up in liberal societies around the world. No one has a solution to this, US is not offering a credible alternative.

Let me introduce you to a place called New York City, one of the most (if not the most) diverse, densely populated places on the planet. We have literally provided a blueprint and a working model for how to build a thriving, multicultural, hyperproductive city.

Or feel free to look at other western cities like Amsterdam, Paris, London, Toronto, Los Angeles, Sydney, etc. etc. etc. Of course there are problems, and we need to work seriously to address them. But to my knowledge, we've yet to disappear a million people into a secret camp.

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To be frank, it's clear what the CCP's values are. If you look at the economic development of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities, their investments in growing their influence in the world, their policies to try and change the demographics and politics of states like Xinjiang (migration incentives for Han Chinese to move there) and Hong Kong (housing subsidies, etc.), their aggression in the South China Sea, their development of weapons to threaten their neighbors like Taiwan, their development of a sprawling propaganda and surveillance apparatus, their investment in stealing intellectual property, it's clear what kind of regime we're dealing with. If they were at all interested in multiculturalism, human rights, democracy, the rule of law, healthy political dialogue and dissent, religious freedom, or any other liberal values, they'd invest. They can build an insane metropolis in less than a decade, but they won't build a just court system. They aspire to build a national park system to rival that in the US in a fraction of the time, but they can't countenance rival political parties.

It's not because these things are hard. The CCP is obviously capable of doing hard things. It's because these things would be threats to their power.

Re: China

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have someone I work with who quite literally mocks people for voting for a 3rd party and actually tries to "shame" them for it, usually using a line like "which means he is voting to keep the incumbent in" (usually with more colorful words about the incumbent and the voter). Voting 3rd party exercises your right to say you don't like either of the other 2 candidates. I will not argue which candidate it will help, b…

> Voting 3rd party exercises your right to say you don't like either of the other 2 candidates You can say whatever you want, but no one is listening. Voter turnout is so low that the signal of voting 3rd-party is completely lost in the noise of passive non-voting. 3rd-party votes might feel good, but pragmatically (and what is voting except a pragmatic attempt to advance your preferred policy), they are useless. I e…

Pragmatically every vote is useless. The chances that the election outcome will come down to your single vote are infinitesimal. Every individual vote is a protest vote lost in the noise. So anyone reading this should feel perfectly free to vote their conscience.

Re: China

#439
post #8

There are a lot of jobs dependent on trade with China (our company was affected by the Huawei ban, for example), and the fantasy that you can just cut-over to US manufacturing without huge transition job losses is unrealistic. And if the US wants to get serious about the use of trade sanctions against human rights violations, there are a lot of places closer to home that it could look at. Not to mention the laws agai…

and people don't realise that china becomes manufacturing powerhouse not because of low costs. there're are many places in southeast asian alone which are much more cheaper in every aspect. What china has and other places dont have is, highly efficient logistics, very pragmatic kpi driven and arguably more efficient and definitely more business friendly local government policy makers and administration, end to end supply chain for almost every industry, well educated, very disciplined and hardworking workforce, and a unique culture that promotes perseverance, resilience, discipline and self improvement

Re: China

#440
"I call for a worldwide boycott of Chinese products, and of companies".

Yeah throw away every piece of electronic you have including Apple products.

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