Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#341

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #329

xxpor wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not particularly controversial. Here's the NY version, for example. https://corcraft.ny.gov/ There's an explicit carve out in the 13th amendment's slavery prohibition for people convicted of crimes.

They make signs and license plates for the state. As far as prison labor goes, that seems relatively benign.

They do a very great deal more than that. Places with strong unions restrict what they do just so they don't compete with union labor. But that leaves enormous leeway, which is reliably exploited.

Many private prisons have contracts with states guaranteeing them a quota of prisoners, on pain of monetary penalties. It becomes the job of police and courts to deliver that quota, regardless of behavior, because there is no money budgeted for penalties.

Everybody can be found guilty of something, if you want to.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#342

Post by hker » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #65

yorwba wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

You misrepresented BCI.

And there are other independent sources showing forced labor in Xinjiang [1][2], regardless of what BCI Shanghai said.

BCI Shanghai is contradicting the BCI headquarter [3], and BCI Shanghai is not credible on this matter [4].

    While there are plenty of authentic reports, and investigations documented by independent research groups, the BCI Shanghai’s statement to deny the forced labor in the region makes us just think how much pressure the Chinese team of the group faces from the Chinese government.

It is not that rare for a local Chinese branch to contradict the global headquarter, possibly due to pressure of operating in China.

For example, the local Hugo Boss in China wrote statements on Weibo (supporting Xinjiang cotton) which contradicted the global Hugo Boss headquarter (stating that Hugo Boss does not use Xinjiang cotton) [5], and the headquarter clarified that the Chinese Weibo statement was unauthorized [6].

BCI Shanghai is in a similar situation: the local branch operating in Shanghai (claiming to find no forced labor) did not represent the headquarter [3].

The problem with what you cite is not (only) with the outlet (CGTN), but with the source (BCI Shanghai).

You are like stating that Hugo Boss is supporting the Xinjiang cotton, because you find a Weibo post by the local office supporting it [5]. This is wrong [3][4][6].

And with other sources finding forced labor in Xinjiang [1][2], the BCI Shanghai statement is a red herring in this discussion.

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/solar-chin... "Solar industry’s ties to China’s Xinjiang region raise specter of forced labor"

[2]: https://www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-ju... "In Broad Daylight: Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains"

[3]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3127501/chi... "Chinese branch of Better Cotton Initiative challenges headquarters and says it has found no evidence of Xinjiang forced labour"

[4]: https://bitterwinter.org/better-cotton-initiative-why-its-sh... "Better Cotton Initiative: Why Its Shanghai Branch is Not Credible"

[5]: https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/26/hugo-boss-tells-chinese-cu... "Hugo Boss tells Chinese customers it will continue to purchase Xinjiang cotton, whilst own website says it has never used it"

[6]: https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/27/hugo-boss-statement-saying... "Hugo Boss statement saying it will ‘purchase and support’ Xinjiang cotton was ‘unauthorised,’ brand says"

Edited: added links [1][2][3].

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#343

Post by patch_collector » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

tombh wrote: post #189

ekianjo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the soviets killing dozens of millions of russians and invading half of Europe is all the fault of the evil West. Sounds like you went around the world with a narrative preset in your mind.

Dozens of millions? You want to talk history? How many slaves were taken from Africa? How many Indians did Churcill starve? How many Native Americans died from colonialism? You think you have a big number, but you don't even know the half of it.

Slaves taken from Africa seem to be about 12 million over the course of 400 years. Churchill apparently was responsible for about 1.5 million dying by famine, plus another 2-3 million by epidemics (this is dwarfed by the up to 73 million that died by famine in the 200 years of British rule that preceded Churchill). Native Americans who died by colonialism is harder to count, because of very poor estimates of how many people were around before 1492 -- estimates range from 15 million inhabitants to 145 million. Current estimates seem to be about 100 million dying as a result of both disease and intentional genocide over the course of 500 years.

Put all of those deaths together, and we'll say

So all that to say, a lot of people have died in the things you've named, coming out to a little under 1 million per year. So dozens of millions dying per year is still a staggeringly large number (though helped along by how many people lived in the 20th century, compared to earlier centuries -- I didn't compare using a percentage of the world population.)

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#344

Post by hker » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #79

jedimind wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Right. Here, check this: https://apparelinsider.com/bci-shanghai-claims-audit-finding... Just because people and outlets have a different opinion than you doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong, or "propagandists". Some people just have a different opinion, out of their own free will and independent thought, all right?

You are misrepresenting BCI by citing BCI Shanghai, which is a red herring in this discussion, see my other comment [1].

The problem with what you cite is not (only) with the outlet (CGTN), but with the source (BCI Shanghai), and also with using a red herring.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29666455

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#345

Post by dillondoyle » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #148

joshuajill wrote: post #76

Interestingly, small companies like FairPhone work to improve their suppliers' labor conditions. Intel of all the companies is in a position to do the same or more. However they choose to whitewash their brand by blaming the chinese government of their lack of care. Their hypocrisy backfired, and they let China win on all counts. Ironically they ended up helping whitewash the chinese government.

How could Intel help improve the forced labor situation in Xinjiang? That’s an extremely sensitive political issue which money won’t solve.

They could do a better audit of their supply chains. I'm guessing silica is a big thing for them? Excuse my lack of knowledge on raw materials for processors, just jumping to silica = silicon. I do know the region produces a bunch of it used in solar panels.

Intel could also refuse to sell chips to companies that facilitate this genocide - and they are soon going to be forced to more broadly than the current sanctions list.

I don't know if any companies like DJI, surveillance camera companies, etc use intel chips but with the new law just passed companies like Intel will have to do a better job making sure their product does not come from or is used to facilitate uyghur human rights abuses.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#346

Post by BrazzVuvuzela » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #302

BrazzVuvuzela wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do with them" ? That's a truly chilling way to speak of people .

Obviously the parent was being rhetorical. Please don't take HN threads further into generic flamewar. It's precisely the hell we want to avoid here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

No post body was provided.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#347

Post by hker » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

tjpnz wrote: post #2

Is there a list of companies who've made similar apologies in the past? When presented with a choice I would prefer to avoid them.

Check out this list on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfg1ce/list_of_co... "List of companies under China's censorship orders (so far). Credit to u/lebe"

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#348

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #195

drekk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It is interesting that nobody discusses the psychology around bringing up the other sides perspective. Why do these discussions tend to be so NOT nuanced or objective? Each side has a different view of the same events, different populations are fed different propaganda. Why are we seeing certain stories in the news and not others? Why at this time? Why the aggressive downvotes at the mention of other perspectives, wi…

There's too many discussions in the past that have gone bad. I mean, there are too many times when the subject is what China is doing in Xinjiang, and people bring up slavery or US militarism or whatever, not because they want to compare and contrast and learn, but because they want to distract from an honest discussion of what China is doing in Xinjiang.

And the exact same thing happens on the other side, for the same reasons. Try to talk about US militarism, and people bring up China and Xinjiang.

So when you're in a discussion about one side of that, and someone brings up the other side of that, the priors lean toward it being bad faith. Because there has been so much bad faith in the past, it's hard to believe that someone bringing it up now is doing so in good faith.

If you want to actually have that discussion, you almost certainly can't do it in a thread that started off talking about one side or the other. You'd have to begin in a neutral place. (I don't know if you can pull it off even there...)

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#349

Post by nix23 » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #314

nix23 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Please do not respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That just makes everything worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: we've had to warn you repeatedly in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27875046 (July 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25826399 (Jan 2021) Continuing like this will get you banned here, so please don't.

The comments below mine just don't look like i "made" something worse, quite the opposite, the comments below mine are leaning more in that or the other direction, i am fine with that i don't see a problem here...but anyway...accepted.

Re: Intel apologises in China over Xinjiang supplier statement

#350

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #339

ncmncm wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pretend to be unaware of false arrest, fabricated evidence, bad representation, and over-sentencing of underclass people. US citizens are not uniquely criminal, but US incarceration rate is by far highest in the world. You don't get there justly.

I don't pretend to be unaware of that. I think it's a separate problem. Like, okay, we say that anyone improperly imprisoned is being forced into labor. What about everyone else? The argument above was that it clearly is forced labor, even when your sentence is completely valid. I disagree with that. > US citizens are not uniquely criminal, but US incarceration rate is by far highest in the world. You don't get there…

Nobody has a legitimate reason to want a high incarceration rate.

The only reason to have a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the whole world is, specifically, because you want to have your underclass ready to hand for slave labor. Or, generally, to repress them.

If you are relying on threat of incarceration to discourage criminal behavior, having the highest such rate in the world is reliable evidence that your method is failing to achieve that aim. Other countries are demonstrating better methods you could learn from. If you wanted to, that is.