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Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

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Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#81

I'm amazed the world isn't taking more action on China. Its quite sad really, 20 years ago, any one of the headlines from this year would have prompted sanctions and denunciations...

> I'm amazed the world isn't taking more action on China. Its quite sad really, 20 years ago, any one of the headlines from this year would have prompted sanctions and denunciations...

Why would world politicians take any actions against China when so many of them do have a finger in the honeypot themselves?

Invalidate stock shares* of all companies who made untold billions on China, and you will see that a huge double digit of Western politicians will go broke overnight.

The one sole reason the West was so eager to jump on the China train unlike any other broke harebrained communist country was because China went from the start to openly bribing Western elites.

The reason why China is not Iraq now is that.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#82
post #56

I fault companies like Apple for doing business with companies who do these things. But I'm not sure if anything changes if local governments aren't interested in stopping it (or actually support it) either. Markets don't care about human rights... and if the local government supports this (in this case China, but other places too). I don't see how this ever changes.

It changes by holding companies like Apple accountable. They are the largest company in the world for goodness sake. Their audits when so little as a picture of a manual gets leaked are incredibly thorough, yet when it comes to literal slavery they're unable to reign it in? If we were to hold executives liable for acting as slavers then it would be miraculous how quickly corporate leadership would suddenly be interested in the well being of their fellow man.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#83

Apple will just claim its suppliers fault. That is why companies outsource everything. That way there is plausible deniability.

It's the issue with using China manufacturing at all, although, even if Apple moved production to the US, chances are they'd still be facing forced labor allegations since they'd still need to get shipments from China for parts that can't be made in the US.

And then they'd actually have a foot to stand on in terms of defending their position.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#84
post #66
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating slavery with forced labour belittles the gravity and awfulness of what actual slavery is (or was). Forced labour takes different forms, which includes forced paid work and by some definitions penal work. Slavery is when a person is treated as a property of another person. Being a slave may or may not involve forced labour. In addition, calling Uyghur work “slavery” in fact undermines the cause, allowing CCP…

> Equating slavery with forced labour belittles the gravity and awfulness of what actual slavery is (or was). It makes no difference, both are the same in being the most exemplary form of class warfare, and are equally terrible. Trying to draw a line in between them is a very petty attempt to claim that one is somehow less worse, or even somehow more legitimate than other.

Knowing the details of the current situation and differentiating it from previous forms of slavery does matter, but, as you say, it's by no means the most important thing we should be focusing on and discussing in the comments.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#85
post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

being sold at a slave market in the middle east, is quite different from being forced to work or being put in a detainment camp. a slave in this context has no human value. its owning a human being, not simply forcing them to work. it can even be hereditary. its practiced daily since a certain religious figure did it and granted his followers the same "right". (to own another human being)

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#86

I'm amazed the world isn't taking more action on China. Its quite sad really, 20 years ago, any one of the headlines from this year would have prompted sanctions and denunciations...

China has reached it's Hiroshima moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj_mEiMvPMI

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#88
post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

The good news is all macro trends portend to factories leaving faster out of China. And less trade with China.

- Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries in 2020 https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi.... Consciously or subconsciously, consumers will favor goods made not in China

- US President-elect Joe Biden affirms his anti-China position. On Monday, he slammed China once again for “abuses” on trade, technology and human rights and said America can best pursue its goals relative to Beijing, when it is “flanked” by like-minded partners and allies. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/biden-slams-chines.... This should help confirm multinational COO's decisions to leave China faster.

- China keeps attacking other countries, and further isolating itself. From stopping coal trade with Australia, and causing blackouts for its own cities https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/world/australia/china-coa..., to engaging in border war with india, to antagonizing US, Canada and UK.

- Chinese suppliers engaging in more and more thievery and sabotage against its own global partners, as reported at chinalawblog. Western companies are reporting Chinese suppliers are brazenly not delivering on goods paid for.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said the company has confirmed that Lens Technology has not received any labor transfers of Uighur workers from Xinjiang. He said Apple earlier this year ensured that none of its other suppliers are using Uighur labor transferred from Xinjiang. >“Apple has zero tolerance for forced labor,” Rosenstock said. “Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment…

They have a zero tolerance in their particular factories, but is China just shuffling workers around to make sure they don't send the slaves to Apple factories? Apple is still making products in Hitler's Germany because the prices are too good to say no. Just because they aren't using the concentration camp labor doesn't mean they aren't complicit in the crimes. They're in the same boat as Fanta from my perspective.…

Don’t trivialize nazi concentration camps by comparing them to some re-education camps. I highly doubt the number of deaths that occurred in these camps is anywhere close to the deaths that Apple‘s home country caused in its own war on terror, including torture and war crimes. With police brutality and the highest incarceration rate in the world, how can a company that values human lives do business in the US?
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