as a powerless person i shared the news on multiple social media and engaged wih the algos to boost it
Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
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Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#12Marriott should receive the wrath of concerned European citizens, then. Make them even more afraid of us than of China. Burn those shitty hotels down!
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#13Actively refusing is the least passive/neutral thing they could have done. Now they’ve obligated themselves (morally) to refuse Chinese political meeting bookings as well, but we won’t see that happen Opinion: Due to Chinese human rights abuses AND the threats against American business, the US should not attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics
> Opinion: Due to Chinese human rights abuses AND the threats against American business, the US should not attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics
In a vacuum, I fully agree with protesting China to the fullest extent; however, if scientists are to be believed, these things (human rights, trade, etc violations) trifle in comparison to the climate change threat, and China has all of humanity by the throat here. We need a cooperative relationship with China for the coming decades, since we can't just move our manufacturing (and thus its pollution) out of China overnight and the climate can't wait for a more gradual approach.
EDIT: Looks like I struck a nerve. Folks, believe me, I don't like the idea of letting China off the hook in the short term for its violations, but if anyone has ideas for holding China accountable while also getting it to meet emissions targets, I'm all ears.
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#14I wonder how long it took to come up with the phrase "political neutrality" to explain this, seeing as it's literally the exact opposite of that.
To be fair to Marriott, they are saying it was a local hotel management decision and not a corporate decision, and that their corporate policies would not have restricted this conference. Remember, Marriott doesn't actually own or control (the vast majority of) hotels with their name on it.
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#15Actively refusing is the least passive/neutral thing they could have done. Now they’ve obligated themselves (morally) to refuse Chinese political meeting bookings as well, but we won’t see that happen Opinion: Due to Chinese human rights abuses AND the threats against American business, the US should not attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics
> Opinion: Due to Chinese human rights abuses AND the threats against American business, the US should not attend the upcoming Beijing Olympics In a vacuum, I fully agree with protesting China to the fullest extent; however, if scientists are to be believed, these things (human rights, trade, etc violations) trifle in comparison to the climate change threat, and China has all of humanity by the throat here. We need a…
What’s that quote? It’s something along the lines of “the way to get good people to accept or do evil things is to convince them that the end justifies the means”
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#16"Only Nixon could open China". Yes, let's send pallets of cash to a communist country in exchange for plastic toys and other end-manufactured goods. This was exploitation of global inequality was only ever going to help the billionaires.
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#17More evidence that China's arm reaches quite far, including inside the West. Because China is willing to play dirty. If they hosted it, they would see Marriot executives arrested for "corruption", or Marriot hotels closed for "environmental damage" or similar things, like how they arrested two innocent Canadians as retaliation for the Canadian arrest of the Huawei executive. This is why Nike, NBA, Hollywood, ... bow…
I'm not a fan of China myself, but there's some evidence[1] that the two Canadians arrested were, in fact, spies. Personally, I'm not sure what to think. But tweets like this from CSIS[2] are certainly suggestive when viewed in a certain light.
[1] https://canadianpatriot.org/2021/09/29/michael-kovrig-and-sp...
[2] https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1441576564374769665
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#18Amazing how much hay can be made by dropping a single word:
“A Marriott refused” vs “Marriott refused”.
The text of the article makes it clear that there is no evidence that Marriott as a corporate entity had anything to do with this, ans a corporate spokesperson actually denied that this was policy and as much as said that the local hotel manager screwed up.
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#19Getting scary how much our corporations are consistently afraid to offend China.
A reminder that's it's not a good idea to outsource the guardianship of our democracy, ideas about justice, and civil well-being to corporations. That's a role for government.
But, where is the HN free speech brigade? Do they not see a connection here?
Re: Marriott refused to host Uyghur conference, citing “political neutrality”
#20Marriott decided to avoid poking the bear by stepping on the proverbial mouse. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense, but moralistically, it does not. It is very disappointing that even I, as an Asian individual living in Canada, am disincentivized from expressing even my own opinion on China and HK/Taiwan, etc. due to the perceived threat of "consequences" from a government whose reach I cannot easily…
The management of this Marriot Hotel did yes, but it's encouraging that Marriot's corporate management immediately overruled the Hotel on this and apologised to the group.
Marriot do have a spotty history on such issues, but I think we should commend them when they attempt to do the right thing. Yes this shouldn't have happened in the first place, but given that it did they do seem to be doing their best to make it right.
I'm not going to post this reply to every single other comment ragging on 'Marriot' here, which is all but one top level comment, but come on people. Read the article. Oh, and now that top level comment that was actually informed and provided useful context is getting downvoted into oblivion. We can do better than this.