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Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

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Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When deals like this are made, it makes it less likely China will do things to piss off the US, and vice-versa. The last thing we need are more tensions. Eh, no. That's sounds like a version of the "Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Olive_Tree#G... ), and it's bunk. China's leaders are nationalists, and it's likely they're looking to strengthen themselves…

"China's leaders are nationalists" And the US leaders are not?

US leaders are pluto-kleptocratic stooges and dotards whose only allegiance is to money and power.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? I am curious to know more about it.

Some US voting districts are very odd shapes, specifically to include/exclude factors which increase the chances of a particular political party winning.

Not to completely defend gerrymandering but districts are also drawn "oddly" to help ensure minority representation within a system with absurd constraints. If there were more representatives districts would be more granular and localized but because representatives are capped at 435 you have this bizarre situation of needing to give opportunities for equal representation across populations that are spread across a city/county/state.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#633
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much for throwing a sledgehammer at Big Brother. [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I ]

I have to throw a sledgehammer at the 'T' key on my 2018 Macbook Pro for it to work because of this forsaken butterfly keyboard.

Hackintosh time with a Lenovo.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#634

I’m a Chinese. I’m glad that apple did this. While I want apple to keep its dignity as much as you do, I cannot change our government (we don’t get to vote, so we literally cannot). Given this situation, if apple don’t do these kind of things, worse case scenario, it get banned in china just like google and many others. As a user, apple products are still the most privacy protecting products I can buy and use in chin…

Here we get to vote but nothing changes, don't worry about it.

If voting changed things, it wouldn't be allowed.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#635
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple has, and will, fold to government pressure faster than a lawn chair." As a publicly-traded, trillion dollar company, where profits are at stake, this would seem to make sense. What does not seem to make sense is why anyone would believe Apple might ignore its own financial interests and those of its shareholders and deliberately sacrifice a major opportunity^1 in order to resist government pressure based on so…

I seriously disagree with this. I expect a whole hell of a lot more out of American management. Money is not the measurement of all things. Apple could have: - pointed out China is confusing its politics with business - thrown this out to a shareholder vote - tried to see what customers outside of China thought - threatened to pull all manufacturing out of China - required China concede control elsewhere: Apple can o…

... no, none of these things apply.

1) 'Pointing out to China it's confusing politics with business' implies a total misunderstanding of their posture, their view of governance, and would probably be antagonistically insulting. It also assumes they are operating in 'good faith', which they are not.

'Politics is Business' to them, they know exactly what they are doing and they have most of the leverage so you risk only ire with that tact.

2) 'Thrown this to a shareholder vote' - so this is definitely not the type of things shareholders vote on, nor do they want to, moreover, the 'transparency' and news cycle this would create would be damaging. This is a 'secret agreement' for a good reason. Shareholders do not care about censorship, they generally just want to see performance.

3) What customers outside of China think is completely irrelevant to China.

4) Threatened to pull all manufacturing out. You definitely do not want to threaten your largest market with anything, but yes, you could hint that it might be best elsewhere. That said, it's a magnanimous threat for something relatively small.

5) There is absolutely no way the CCP is going to 'concede' on any of their red line issues. They are dictating the terms of leverage and oversight to Apple and everyone else. Apple has very little room to manoeuvre here.

The only choice cook had was to play friendly on a personal level, kiss ass, make sure that they felt Apple's interest were aligned with China, and to promise to do a bunch of things they were asking, and then hope they go away.

The issue with China's hyper nationalist economic strategy has to be dealt with at a higher level, i.e. US and European political leaders and industry leaders working together on one page.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#636
post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old projections systems were even made to blow up what you cared about (your country) and be very scale-imprecised on the outskirt.

That might be less propaganda, and more about wanting a large, precise map of the area that interests you.

Projections were chosen for a variety of reasons. For example the Mercator projection distorts the size of things far from the equator, but it does preserve local bearing and shape.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#637
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously disagree with this. I expect a whole hell of a lot more out of American management. Money is not the measurement of all things. Apple could have: - pointed out China is confusing its politics with business - thrown this out to a shareholder vote - tried to see what customers outside of China thought - threatened to pull all manufacturing out of China - required China concede control elsewhere: Apple can o…

> I expect a whole hell of a lot more out of American management. > Goodness gracious serious companies understand there's more going on That's what you get when your management is exclusively MBAs that never set foot outside of their bubbles and STEM-graduates that are naive in history/geopolitics/economy, etc

This is wrong in every way.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#638
post #6
post #2

At what point does something like this become a national security issue? I know these modern titans of industry answer to no one, but perhaps they should?

The modern titans of industry are certainly answerable to their govt in one country at least.

Megacorps own the US government. It's called lobbying and super PACs. Extreme corruption so ubiquitous, most people forget about it.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple has, and will, fold to government pressure faster than a lawn chair." As a publicly-traded, trillion dollar company, where profits are at stake, this would seem to make sense. What does not seem to make sense is why anyone would believe Apple might ignore its own financial interests and those of its shareholders and deliberately sacrifice a major opportunity^1 in order to resist government pressure based on so…

Apple shouldn't have to. There should be laws that US companies can only cowtoe to the US government WRT free speech. In this case - it appears to only be happening in China - which I guess is fair game. But the line should be drawn at China being able to use its market to force US companies to censor people outside of China.

I don't think you're grasping the power issue here.

China could give a s*t what American laws are.

They are pressuring Apple to take some actions, if Apple doesn't want to take those actions, for whatever reason including 'American law forbids them' - then they're out of the market.

Those are the terms presented to them, and the CCP is not bluffing.

As far as 'censoring people outside China' that is actually a line that Apple can probably actually hold.

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