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Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

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Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#61

I think we should stop using China for cheap Labour in general given how hostile their government are becoming. Where possible I try to buy Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese electronics.

Umm, with respect - it is the US anti-Chinese rhetoric that is changing, rather than Chinese government policy. There are many repressive aspects to the Chinese regime (and government specifically I suppose); but this is probably less the case today then, say, 30 years ago. Certainly I doubt very much repression has been tightened over the past few years. If I'm mistaken - please provide references, preferably to non…

The final judgement at https://chinatribunal.com makes somber reading about forced organ harvesting from prisoners in China and its increase in the last 20 years.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#62

I think we should stop using China for cheap Labour in general given how hostile their government are becoming. Where possible I try to buy Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese electronics.

Umm, with respect - it is the US anti-Chinese rhetoric that is changing, rather than Chinese government policy. There are many repressive aspects to the Chinese regime (and government specifically I suppose); but this is probably less the case today then, say, 30 years ago. Certainly I doubt very much repression has been tightened over the past few years. If I'm mistaken - please provide references, preferably to non…

> If I'm mistaken - please provide references

Yesterday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/22/hong-kong-pi...

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#63

As a Chinese, I think the logic of certain Western countries is ridiculous. Because Xinjiang’s human rights situation is considered to be problematic, so Xinjiang’s companies are banned. As an analogy, can I think that the human rights situation of African Americans is terrible, so I need to ban companies that employ African Americans? These bans will only make the living conditions of minorities worse, because they…

Is there an equivalent to the NAACP for the Uyghurs in China?

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#64

I think we should stop using China for cheap Labour in general given how hostile their government are becoming. Where possible I try to buy Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese electronics.

Umm, with respect - it is the US anti-Chinese rhetoric that is changing, rather than Chinese government policy. There are many repressive aspects to the Chinese regime (and government specifically I suppose); but this is probably less the case today then, say, 30 years ago. Certainly I doubt very much repression has been tightened over the past few years. If I'm mistaken - please provide references, preferably to non…

I have personally spoken with mainland Chinese Christians who report increasing persecution there.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#65
post #54

It's interesting to see that people on both sides are angry -- for different reasons. People on western Internet are angry at Intel for having issued an apology. People on Chinese Internet are angry because they view it as a non-apology, i.e. Intel still goes ahead with the ban. I see people -- including Chinese diaspora -- calling for banning Intel.

Personally, I'm most angry that Intel refuses to properly audit their suppliers. They're not actually banned from importing goods from Xinjiang if they can prove that they weren't made with forced labor. If they could prove that, the US government should be happy (because their stated goal of combating forced labor is respected) and Chinese people should be happy, too (better working conditions). Merely restricting s…

I don't think it's that simple. For example BCI performed multiple audits since 2012 and hasn't found a single case of forced labor.[1][2] Despite that, they've pulled back from Xinjiang. Companies don't want to deal with Xinjiang just so they can avoid controversies, regardless of actual facts.

Also, the Xinjiang Forced Labor Prevention Act is based on the maxim of guilty-until-proven-innocent. There is no way to conclusively prove a negative. Even if you perform 100 unannounced audits you can still say "oh there's 0.001% chance that they fooled you 100 times"

1 https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1375456747477815296 2 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-26/BCI-s-China-office-No-...

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#66
post #5

Should we demand that companies avoid California suppliers as well because of the extensive use of prison labor: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-11/californ... https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2020/11/11/c... https://www.freedomunited.org/news/forced-prison-labor-in-ca...

Prison labour is the unfortunate exception to the Thirteenth Amendment that allowed effective slavery to continue. The whole system is corrupt. It allows prisons to pay prisoners peanuts (~25 cents/hour) and pocket the difference giving an economic incentive to incarceration and an unfair competitive advantage with people who can't choose not to work because doing so will generally extend their sentence.

But you know the difference?

I can say that without it being taken down by the government or some company acting on their behalf. I can say it without it hurting my "social credit score". I can say it without being "disappeared" and ending up in one of the sprawling "re-education" camps in Xianjing that are so prevalent you can track their massive growth on Google Maps.

There is clearly an organized effort to extinguish a people and culture here, just like it has been and is in Tibet. Given the history of this sort of thing, it's astounding to me how many will defend, deflect or deny this.

Every time a valid criticism of the CCP comes up some shill pops up and downvotes any criticism and/or leaves some "but what about X" lame justification. It's actually depressing.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#67

I think we should stop using China for cheap Labour in general given how hostile their government are becoming. Where possible I try to buy Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese electronics.

That there is any controversy in this statement is insane, but I would be very wary of ever making this statement non-anonymously, because I know I'm more likely than not to be cancelled for it.

China has mastered the manipulation of the west's successor ideology better than those in the west that instituted it.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#68
post #45

Quoted post unavailable.

You're not wrong. But I think that's more a culture thing.

The media - not just traditional print media - is feeling increasingly fragile since the shift away from newspapers.

So while there's an appetite for it, news sites will cover any topic that needs covering. So, for example, the existence of Bolsonaro would have mostly gone under the radar had the septic spraytan not endorsed him, at which point the media felt it could start calling out the BS that was coming from there.

But it isn't just the slimy swampcleaner salesman, when antisemitism scandals that mention Israel erupt, that becomes an acceptable time to talk about their bad behaviour, under the guise of "these are the legitimate criticisms that this person is / could be raising". Do Israel stop being human rights abusers when antisemitism is not in the news? Of course not. But it isn't seen as newsworthy enough unless something local has piqued our interest.

When people are killed in racist attacks by american cops, BLM activism and systemic racism become part of the news cycle again. Does racism stop whenever there hasn't been a high-profile racist murder recently? Of course not. But without that hook, people looking to follow the story won't be clicking on every link.

And unlike traditional newspaper, where you could buy the thing just for the crossword and the advertisers will still pay, only the individual stories and individual page loads bring revenue. And so the media can no longer afford to finance investigative journalism that might not resonate with the public.

So I don't think it's that the rhetoric that has changed. News cycles are responding to what they think our attention span is, based on the numbers they see in the ad revenue. And in this specific instance, while China has had an uneasy relationships with the Uighurs since at least the 1950s, it's the secret and courtless detention and "reeducation" centres that have really got people riled up (shhh... don't mention Guantanamo) and that's only been happening since around 2017.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#69

I think we should stop using China for cheap Labour in general given how hostile their government are becoming. Where possible I try to buy Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese electronics.

Umm, with respect - it is the US anti-Chinese rhetoric that is changing, rather than Chinese government policy. There are many repressive aspects to the Chinese regime (and government specifically I suppose); but this is probably less the case today then, say, 30 years ago. Certainly I doubt very much repression has been tightened over the past few years. If I'm mistaken - please provide references, preferably to non…

Well, OP didn't really complain about government policy or repression, but rather about hostility. Even if there are no repressive aspects (but I agree with other replies that they do exist!), the behaviour would still be problematic in itself.

And it's not just an US thing, btw. Many nations perceive dealing with China as walking on eggshells.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#70
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden is on the person making a claim, not on others to disprove it. Furthermore, "no US aligned media sources" is ad hominem. Objective facts don't become falsehoods because of who is saying them. Since you've formed the opinion that Chinese government policy hasn't become more repressive, and that opinion is clearly educated, surely you have plenty of links to give us to back up your position.

Objective facts can become very hard to discern in a highly partisan environment though. That's the problem with how lots of US (and UK, etc) media works: there's obvious partisanship which can make it hard to extract the truth. Everything ends up as "the truth + highly political framing devices". There is no outside to observe from.

There’s obvious partisanship in uk and us media, but the difference vs totalitarian states like China, is that the partisanship is in a thousand different directions. So in the US or UK you have access to all agendas and can reason for yourself about what is true. If Fox says something untrue MSNBC will point it out, if the New York Times gets something wrong it’ll be all over OAN. If AOC lies about something you’ll have Lauren Boebert screaming about it. By having a free media it allows you to form the correct view by holding your views and others up to scrutiny.

In comparison, in China if the state media decides to lie for its partisan reasons then there is no where you can go to hear the truth so you never can distinguish the truth and we have a thousand different examples of that happening.

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