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U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#211

Post by dang »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #199
dang wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reverted it, but then reverted my reversion. The submitted title is marginally less baity, so I'm thinking ilamont did a good job of following the guideline: " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hmm, perhaps the URL title would be better? > Attorney General Barr Takes Aim at Hollywood, Disney For Censoring Films to Appease China

Good point, but then the tech cos are left out. I've squeezed Hollywood in instead.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#212

Post by vmception »

T-A wrote: post #164
vmception wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's exactly what I am referring to, they do teach marxist ideals but they don't teach the contradictions to their populace while their free trade zones and market based reforms grow and grow and are wildly popular this is very easy to integrate into, compared to not having 7 special economic zones and administrative regions, and massive metropolitan areas supporting those zones.

> market based reforms grow and grow https://www.ft.com/content/3e37af94-17f8-11e9-b191-175523b59...

if “the people’s Congress” wants to shut off all markets as handicap non-state owned enterprises, they have the power and ideology to do so

there is no assurance of private enterprise there

regardless, it is possible to operate in the here and now and stash resources and titles in the caymans as fast as you can

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#213

Post by yorwba »

stx wrote: post #207
bllguo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so painful to discuss China online. The claim I was responding to - that you called "correct", if you needed the reminder - was that most Chinese citizens are being systematically disappeared, tortured, and killed. It is not correct. Let's not get emotional or move the goalposts? What you are saying is factual (though you may be surprised to what lengths you can go to re: speech). I challenge you to find where I…

The original poster that you responded to and that I was saying was correct never said "most Chinese citizens are being systematically disappeared, tortured, and killed". I think you moved the goal post.

>> But at least for some periods in history, most citizens of most Western countries were not systematically disenfranchised, monitored, disappeared, tortured, and killed. Yes, living in America while being Black, Hispanic, Arab (that's me), Muslim (ditto), etc. there's still a lot of anxiety, discrimination, and even danger. But it's incredibly naive to think the people of China are not orders of magnitude more oppressed and in constant fear for their livelihoods, lives, and loved ones.

If "most citizens of most Western countries were not systematically disenfranchised, monitored, disappeared, tortured, and killed" is meant to be contrastive with China (otherwise what's the point?) then the implication is that most citizens of China do suffer from that and thus "in constant fear for their livelihoods, lives, and loved ones".

Of course if you think that's terribly hyperbolic and not a charitable interpretation of the original poster's statement, then there's no actual disagreement.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#214

Post by mjburgess »

jimclegg wrote: post #209
Aunche wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encouraging the adoption of democracy is never a true goal to any geopolitical decision. It's only used to deflect criticism from naysayers. The US has used the same justification to bomb nations and install fascist dictators. "You oppose going to war with Iraq? So you hate democracy then?"

Exporting our broken form of governing, which is rife with corruption, mismanagement, unresponsive to the majority of the population, and defaults to redirecting money from the poorest to the richest, is the goal of western monopoly capital. Basically "Our broken system allowed capital to rob 400 million people, let's utilize it in robbing 1.4 billion Chinese people next..." Any idea that the American and European el…

I'd invite you to look at https://ourworldindata.org/, and in particular the effects of capitalist and democratic reforms on the health, wealth and happiness of nations.

Every claim you make here has no basis in fact. And is mostly just symptomatic of a partisan political disagreement in a western democracy.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#215

Post by Fjolsvith »

ineedasername wrote: post #195
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, there's a difference between, say, a fast food chain that tries to get a foot hold in China and a technology company that helps provide tools used to limit rights of free speech etc. However, this is a matter of degree, not kind. I disagree. Giving bad people money in exchange for hamburgers is different in kind than giving them the tools they need to continue doing bad things. Hamburgers are a commodity they c…

It's not buying hamburgers that's the problem. It's the company itself giving China a bit of control over itself even outside the borders of China. It allows China to impose it's authoritarian actions outside of China.

The behavior either way makes me think of dealings with mafia/gangs.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#216

Post by Fjolsvith »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #118

There is so much to unpack here that it's difficult to even get started. The US government has encouraged companies to work with China for decades. I remember it being big news when GM opened a joint venture in China in 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM The Clinton administration pushed hard to increase trade with China and make it easier for American companies to outsource manufacturing. https://en.wikiped…

There's broader context to all this. The central banks knew that their system would break down eventually due to inflation, and so one way to extend its life was to offshore manufacturing to make products cheaper and more affordable on a weaker dollar.

To keep everything from imploding on America, manufacturing had to be wrested from China at the same time the Federal Reserve was shut down.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#217

Post by boomboomsubban »

smegger001 wrote: post #200
boomboomsubban wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China's case, "spreading democracy" just meant "remove from Soviet sphere." We broadly used the same term at the same time to open trade with China and fight the Vietnam War.

the sino-soviet split happened long before we started off shoring to china

I didn't mention off shoring? Not sure what your point is.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#218

Post by baddox »

ineedasername wrote: post #194
baddox wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, this is a matter of degree, not kind. But it sounds like you think that the bad things about China (you specified limiting free speech) differ not in degree but in kind from bad things about other countries. Is that the case?

I wasn't at all making a comment on bad things done by other countries. The topic of "bad things that countries do" is a bit too broad to tackle in a single comment.

I meant that presumably you don’t advocate a total refusal of all economic participation with most other countries like you are recommending with China.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#219

Post by pwillia7 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #41
pwillia7 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What motive would a company (of sufficient size) have to signal virtue if not in pursuit of profits? Companies without an all powerful strongman on top are amoral, and primarily in the U.S. are only concerned with their shareholders as opposed to all stake holders in the chain's long term value and health. https://www.inc.com/maureen-kline/why-debate-over-stakeholde...

It depends on the company - Disney needs to signal virtue because virtue is part of their brand and everyone knows who they are, Thomson Reuters is not that well known and only need to signal virtue to their valuable employees who might not want to stay at some place they found too scummy (but who knows, money is a great persuader), Monsanto - I don't know, I somehow feel virtue is not on-brand where they're concerne…

But all of these reasons can be summarized as a pursuit of profit. While the surface reasons may differ the ultimate place they end up is the same.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#220

Post by pwillia7 »

scarface74 wrote: post #47
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the company - Disney needs to signal virtue because virtue is part of their brand and everyone knows who they are, Thomson Reuters is not that well known and only need to signal virtue to their valuable employees who might not want to stay at some place they found too scummy (but who knows, money is a great persuader), Monsanto - I don't know, I somehow feel virtue is not on-brand where they're concerne…

Yet Disney celebrated Pride month even though they had to know that it would cause criticism from the “Focus on the Family” crowd. https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2020/06/recognize-pri...

I think you could argue this is also about money. Disney parks have already won nearly every family in America. Most families would like to take their kids to Disney. Pride month probably only minorly affects that. Now how will Disney Parks keep showing a healthy growth rate? Well, they'll need to tap into new markets. What kind of tactics can they use to lure those new markets to the parks?

I just don't believe altruism or pure evil exists in these large orgs. I'm sure there are exceptions to prove the rule, but it's rare you'll see an action by a large corporation that can't be explained by money and growth.

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