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

washingtonpost.com

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

#681

Post by sellyme »

Alupis wrote: post #671
sellyme wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've lost sight of the original context of this thread. Here's the top comment: > As long as companies Apple are not legally responsible for their supply chain in front of developed countries’ courts nothing will change. Of course Americans can and should decry Chinese slave labour camps, but you've just finished explaining why the American slave labour issue is a lot easier to address and deal with, so if…

The context of the thread is perfectly clear. Some people believe as long as the US underpays prisoners convicted of crimes, the CCP gets carte blanche to imprison a million people because of their religion, and force them into labor camps. Or did I misread this entire thread? And making companies like Apple legally responsible for their supply chain labor will do nothing to stem the flurry of actual slave labor camp…

> Or did I misread this entire thread?

Yes. In fact most of the people you've responded to very explicitly said the exact opposite of what you've interpreted.

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

#682

Post by rtx »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #509
fsflover wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite strange given what they have been doing with repair: http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-airpods-repair-recycling-imposs... https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-sues-canadian-recyc... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18144489

Apple has official repair locations all over the planet and they stock parts long after products are discontinued. Yes it kinda sucks that they killed third party repair but having an official location with official parts is actually more useful than being able to do it yourself but not being able to get parts. For my pixel 2, while there were no technical restrictions preventing me from replacing the broken camera,…

I recently went for an iPad repair, they asked me to do a replacement instead of repair.

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

#683

Post by eunos »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #465
Dumblydorr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We "let" them get too big? They are an ancient society who have had millions of inhabitants for centuries. They were already big, huge in fact. In the wake of Mao, however, they have a one party communist system that exterminated it's intellectual and critical class decades ago. Hard to see what could've been done during the Cold War, we tried the domino theory which was a colossal failure in Korea and Vietnam and La…

We let them get too big economically. We let them into the western world trading economy under the hope that they would normalize into a western-like democracy with liberal ideals. That has obviously failed.

As an Asian, this is a reason that I start to become disillusioned with "the world community". Their missionary zeal has not diminished. It just transformed from religion into political ideology.

There are alternatives outside of so called "western-like democracy with liberal ideals".

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

#684

Post by dirtyid »

theon144 wrote: post #531
eznzt wrote: post #13

Why should I believe what the "Tech Transparency Project" (funded by Open Society Foundations) says over what Apple and China say? Honest question.

Honest question in return, why should I distrust it? The claims seem to be roughly in line with many other reports about the Xinjiang region, China's government and worker conditions in the tech sector. Is there something you are implying?

Other reports funded by those aligned with US foreign interests. If it conforms to Chinese government behaviour then these are extremely public and predominantly well compensated rural labour transfer programs occuring in other provinces that alleviates poverty for 10s of millions every year. If it's anything like Chinese tech (it's not) then they would be extremely well compensated and overworked relative to rest of society. In Mike Pompeo's words: We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole. That should be the default assumption when treating these analysis, especially when they contradict each other i.e. Zenz estimates of millions detained is based off fanciful estimate of 1,200 camps... GIS analysis found only ~300, but the same analysis that essentially debunks Zenz will still blindly reaffirm his claims.

It's manufactured consent. The implication is reality is worse than CCP purports but better than US funded analysis alleges, especially considering ongoing geopolitical tensions. Per leaked XJ internal documents, these are indoctorination and vocational training camps designed to secularize and alleviate poverty. Abuse will happen when operating at large scales, but CCP "political work" and demographic engineering has always operated on carrot and stick. It's more or less a proven model that works more often than it doesn't. There's a reason why the current narrative tries to insinuate it's only stick, and has to operate on fabrications, cherry picked data, repeated testimonies from the same handful of people. It's Pompeo / state department's prerogative to lie, cheat, steal for US interests. People should understand this, except those for whose interest depends upon them not to.

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

#685

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mike_h wrote: post #627
Alupis wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is talking about something very specific. Muslims being forced into labor camps against their will. The US has it's share of problems - nobody sane would deny that. But, what the US does do that the CCP does not is allow the open discourse of it's problems, and to change it's policies if people agree. Even the very numbers that come from the CCP regarding their prison population are extremely suspect - th…

I think you're being earnest so I'll dive into this thread for a few more minutes before I go back to work. Because I'm being earnest too: If the West wants to influence internal China policy, it needs either a clear moral high ground for Chinese citizens to refer to, or clear economic upper hand. It doesn't have the latter right now (maybe never will again), and as this thread demonstrates, it doesn't have the forme…

This is laojiao, not laogai, these people haven’t been convicted of any crimes and this is administrative punishment for unharmonious but not criminal behavior and thoughts.

The west is held responsible for Chinese behavior by the Chinese themselves. Notice how China was criticizing the west for taking advantage of recycling contracts in China with terms that were too good to be true, and eventually were found to basically be dumping in China. Likewise, as you say, this is our responsible as well: we must make sure that we operating with Chinese businesses with acceptable labor practices.

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

#686

Post by Alupis »

sellyme wrote: post #681
Alupis wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context of the thread is perfectly clear. Some people believe as long as the US underpays prisoners convicted of crimes, the CCP gets carte blanche to imprison a million people because of their religion, and force them into labor camps. Or did I misread this entire thread? And making companies like Apple legally responsible for their supply chain labor will do nothing to stem the flurry of actual slave labor camp…

> Or did I misread this entire thread? Yes. In fact most of the people you've responded to very explicitly said the exact opposite of what you've interpreted.

Where is that? Can you quote them?

We seem to have read different threads apparently...

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

#687

Post by delecti »

drocer88 wrote: post #479
delecti wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's sadly a pretty long history of the international community ignoring atrocities as long as they're contained within a country. The answer to "why won't we recognize ?" is usually "because the victims were from the same country as the perpetrators".

Tibet, Mongolia and Turkestan, though occupied by past and current Chinese governments, are different countries than China.

If all of the military in a place belongs to one country, it's hard to argue that place isn't part of that country.

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

#688

Post by logicchains »

Alupis wrote: post #660
mike_h wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being earnest so I'll dive into this thread for a few more minutes before I go back to work. Because I'm being earnest too: If the West wants to influence internal China policy, it needs either a clear moral high ground for Chinese citizens to refer to, or clear economic upper hand. It doesn't have the latter right now (maybe never will again), and as this thread demonstrates, it doesn't have the forme…

Bottom line: China has forced a million Muslims into slave labor camps simply because they are Muslim... But you want to focus on how the US doesn't pay enough for voluntary prison labor. Am I missing something here?

I suppose the Chinese response would be "America has forced hundreds of thousand of black people into prison slave labor just because they're black".

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

#689

Post by bstar77 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #320
bstar77 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, but tell me where I can buy an ethically sourced phone? I develop for iOS, Android and Desktop systems. Each of these devices have thousands of components from different vendors that I have to support. The parent article is talking about some glass.

https://www.fairphone.com/en/ probably, https://www.pine64.org/ maybe. Knowing something exists is the biggest step towards finding it.

These phones can't do much to address a glass supplier that is mean to their workers. These are just more environmentally sustainable phones.

I'm all in on putting pressure on Apple and others to clean up their supply chain, but it can't just be Apple that's held to this standard. Right now it is.

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

#690

Post by akritrime »

threeseed wrote: post #540
akritrime wrote: post #214

Recently, Apple's supplier, Wistron faced revolt after treating workers unfairly here in India. And India is not really the most shining example of protecting our workers from unfair and harsh working conditions. So, if such treatments don't fly here, I don't think they will fly anywhere else. The kind of labor expectation that these companies have after their stints in China is ethically incompatible with most other…

Note that immediately after this become public, Apple put Wistron on probation refusing to award them any more work and requiring them to resolve the issues. Governments really need to do the heavy lifting though because apart from refusing to hand over money/work they are very limited in what they can do.

Hmm, I was not putting the blame on Apple here, rather Wistron. While indirectly, Apple may be responsible for Wistron's behavior, most of the fault lies with Wistron and how they are used to treat their employees as disposable, while chasing higher margins.
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