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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

#791

Post by onethought »

esarbe wrote: post #744
onethought wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean it as whataboutism. I meant it as we should look at it as a global issue. Very easy to throw stones at the .

I think that there's an issue in how industrial nations abuse the lack of protection for workers in developing nations and how this usually results in profit extraction and massive human rights violations. It would be nice to be able to force companies to take responsibility for crimes happening in their supply chain. I think this is the only way to prevent willful blindness. Otherwise the profit motive of the whole…

China Per person GDP: $9,770.85 USD US Per Person GDP: $62,794.59 USD

China isn't a developing nation? So they should just be happy with 1/6 of the wealth US Residents get and stop now?

What Crime is happening in their supply chain? Prison Labour is not illegal in the US or China. US constitution specifically allows it... How do we force Apple to take responsibility for this? There is solid proof of Labour camps, Prison Camps, Reeducation Camps, and persecution of the Uighurs, even the Chinese "tyrannical dictatorship" don't dispute it. It is fairly common knowledge among Chinese citizens as well. What will probably surprise you, is it has much wider support from the Chinese people than you'd expect. Now this could be that the context of "why" they are persecuted is not well known outside of china. It could also be that Chinese citizens are not comfortable objecting to it from fear of speaking out against their government. But it's not as clear cut of "wrongdoing" that this article nor this discussion makes out.

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

#792

Post by echelon »

ogre_codes wrote: post #774
echelon wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You seem to think you can damn everyone who buys Apple for their participation in abuses, even as you enjoy products which are likely far deeper into this bullshit. All you've done is point out your own biases and willingness to dive deep into hypocrisy. There is a big problem with forced labor. Apple is one of the few companies who is remotely transparent about their supply chain. As much manufacturing as Apple does…

Still with the deflection.

Apple is lobbying to protect their access to slave labor. (Reference in my previous post.) How is that in any way ignorable? Why bring up anything else? Why defend them when they're saying one thing and doing another?

Apple fans never condemn their company. They always hurdle accusations at everyone and anything else they can to protect their fruit god. Just like you're doing now.

Say it: "Apple uses and has benefitted from slave labor. I believe this is wrong and should change."

If you can't say that, I have more than proven my point.

It doesn't matter what other companies are doing. They're all bad. But Apple has the least excuse of them all, because they're the richest and most powerful.

Not that you care, but I cut consumption out of my life. My phone is old and I save and invest most of my income.

If my media company gets off the ground, I'd love to make a movie about Tiananmen.

I love the Chinese people (I studied Mandarin in college), but I refuse to support their regime. Businesses that kowtow should not be supported. Businesses that benefit from slave labor and Chinese market access have a lot to answer for.

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

#793

Post by mgh2 »

JoshTko wrote: post #230
downrightmike wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are kept in camps, monitored constantly, have no privacy, are searched constantly and on top of that, they are forced to work or go to detention. That is slavery. There's also the problem with them getting gutted for the organ transplants that China's own doctors have reported to be 4 times higher than they should be for the population size. So it is work, or go to detention and possibly get gutted.

What sources are you getting the organ transplants information from?

Direct testimony from a doctor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZXRobpNsHA&ab_channel=NTD

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

#794

Post by tatersolid »

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,…

> Yes it kinda sucks that they killed third party repair...

Just had the screen on a 2018 iPad replaced by a third party. Worked out fine.

Is 3rd-party repair “killed” only for the latest Apple devices by virtue of some new hardware attestation stuff?

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

#795

Post by dillondoyle »

onethought wrote: post #704
dillondoyle wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single China thread on HN turns into a false equivalence 'no the US has far worse history / false whataboutism' A couple Trump political appointees attempted to do that. The system worked and the US didn't jail the NYTimes and the press for reporting the facts. Their stupidly half assed political crap didn't work and they lost the election. I wouldn't call Xi incompetent but instead scarily so. The power of Tru…

You are right, but it's because people are generally not willing to enter a proper debate on the issues in China. Take the Uigher issue, it is ALWAYS reported with a lack of context. No mention of the bombings, the mass killing events, the huge domestic terrorism issue it has caused China for the last 20 years. Instead we just get reports of China "randomly" persecuting these people for seemingly no reason. When you…

There are plenty of terrorist attacks in the US too, from the wiki below China does have a few years with big numbers but the US page doesn't include a bunch of mass shootings by far right white MAGA and single white men wackos.

And despite those numbers the US isn't rounding up millions of our own citizens into 're-education camps.' I'm sure the 'whatabout' is the stupid wars in the middle east which are undoubtedly horrible and should fairly be condemned (and definitely are). But the US is not waging an ethnic genocide on our own citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Terrorist_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...

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

#796

Post by zm262 »

someelephant wrote: post #338
zm262 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this kind of news paints the wrong picture, or more likely to believe in this kind of thing. The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (…

If you could trade some of your certainty for empathy both you and the `unemployables` would be much better off.

China is a society that traditionally (from its culture and also political ideology) values "the collective value" more than the individual value. It has always been the case, which is important to understand the mindset of the government and the Chinese society in general. The "unemploytables" constitute a "problem" to society, which must be solved. This is not much different than prostitution is a "problem" for most countries. If you follow Xi Jinping's rule and his propaganda (which I doubt), his big agenda for 2020 is to "eradicate" poverty, this makes it easier to understand what is really going on in Xin Jiang. Xin Jiang happens to be a place where both poverty and radicalism are intermingled, so their approach could be different than say, Gui Zhou province (where it's mostly poverty). But this year I've read so much from CCTV (CCP's media) that they lifted people from poverty by giving them "a means of living".

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

#797

Post by zm262 »

insulanus wrote: post #380
insulanus wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I translated your comment. > The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the market salary. Yes t…

zm262, I improvedthe grammar in your comment. > The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the m…

Thanks, that lays the idea better than I can. But some of it was misunderstood, or perhaps I used the wrong words. Most of what you said is truthful to my original comment.

Let me share a bit more from my experience living in China for 20 years. In China, taking street people (mostly beggars or orphans who were used by gangs as pick-pockets or whatnot) into custody is systematic for as long as I can remember. (There's news that this system is to be abolished in 2021 by a new law amendment.) It's systematic as there are full-time employees who job is to do this. It is considered "help" by the general society (but there could be abuses by bad actors for sure), the system has good intentions. Because they are not criminals, it's not exactly like prison but it is true that they are taken by force to go through a "program" where they need to listen to propaganda, be educated or trained for a certain skills (mostly factory jobs such as making toys, shoes etc.) and be forced to work at a given place for a certain period. The system is not perfect, it is outright offensive to "individual freedom" (where you are "free" to be just like the US homeless drug addicts). But it is net positive for the society by sacrificing some of these people who are unwilling to go through it.

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

#798

Post by mgh2 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #460
mgh2 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious one, the search engine... due to its accuracy and speed. No wonder their monopoly lawsuit.

>The obvious one, the search engine... due to its accuracy and speed. No wonder their monopoly lawsuit. As a general rule, I don't use the search engine. And not just because of Google's market power. It's also because the quality of search results have dropped enormously. At this point, other search engines are at least as good, IMHO.

Can you give me an alternative? Duckduckgo does not cut it.

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

#799

Post by zm262 »

zm262 wrote: post #797
insulanus wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

zm262, I improvedthe grammar in your comment. > The more likely case is that, there are a bunch of people who are unemployable having no skills or lack motivations to work or happen to be in miserable conditions (like the homeless in US) were forced (yes) to enter this kind of "de-radicalization camps", monitored (yes) and _given_ an opportunity to get employment (like an internship for students) and get _paid_ the m…

Thanks, that lays the idea better than I can. But some of it was misunderstood, or perhaps I used the wrong words. Most of what you said is truthful to my original comment. Let me share a bit more from my experience living in China for 20 years. In China, taking street people (mostly beggars or orphans who were used by gangs as pick-pockets or whatnot) into custody is systematic for as long as I can remember. (There'…

This is just a small piece of what China calls "Wei Wen" ("maintain stability"). The employees who work on those people are more akin to what is called "social workers" in US. They are institutionalized to have a budget to pay for food and training costs and the work to look out for job opportunities for these people (frankly the factory owners generally don't want to employee these people). These employees make a government salary. The factory owners get frankly sloppy workers they don't like but have to cooperate with the government. But this type of work eventually pays off to society when many of these people get out of their old life tracks by having a job and skill where they can stop being beggars or thieves.

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

#800

Post by arminiusreturns »

valuearb wrote: post #771
arminiusreturns wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people in other countries are human beings with exactly the same value and rights as I have. This is untrue. I am very much a believer in individual rights as set forth in the decleration of independence, so on a philosophical level to an extent I agree, but the to say people in other countries have the same rights as a citizen of the empire is just silly. > The parent assumes a zero-sum tradeoff, but that's no…

> I have listened to plenty of pro-globalist/pro-free-traders talk about how America and other first world countries are just going to have to get used to the idea that their wealth is going to decrease as it equalizes out globally Anyone who says this doesn’t understand free trade, even if they advocate it. And US/Western anti-communist policies of supporting friendly dictators has nothing to do with allowing citize…

> And wake me up when you can think of a coherent criticism of the law of comparative advantage.

In exchange I would like you to tell me exactly how in the world you can claim "US manufacturing post NAFTA has been stronger than ever". I've heard about the benifits to consumer prices sure, and that a certain amount of manufacturing has returned due to robotization, but even if that is factored in I'm a bit confused as to how this claim is even close to reality.

1. CA assumes particpating consumers and businesses have knowledge of location of lowest cost, which isn't always true.

2. CA ignores transport costs which can easily offset the raw CA numbers.

3. CA fails to factor in lack of or monopoly on economies of scale.

4. CA also fails to factor in rates of inflation, subsidies, lack of or high import controls etc.

5. It fails to take into account non-price factors such as brand loyalty, item quality, etc.

6. Exchange rates can undermine raw CA numbers.

7. CA ignores IP legal issues mostly surrounding R&D investment.

8. CA still fails to take into account second and third teir effects needed to institute CA. So as I referenced before, Guatemala as an example, had to have a coup performed against it first, with massive amounts of suffering and theft from people to pave a way for the "free-trade" state needed for CA to come into effect. That loss of life and wealth as a prereq isn't factored in.

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