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Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
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Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. But it took the economist and investor class the longest to realize the drawbacks that others knew instinctively. And now you use "we" to describe their opinion and lobbying?
Does every retired boomer living quite well off their 401K retirement plan represent a member of 'the investor class'? How many would be willing to accept a cutback in dividend payouts if it meant corporations would instead invest that money in rebuilding manufacturing in the United States?
> Does every retired boomer living quite well off their 401K retirement plan represent a member of 'the investor class'?
That is an academic argument at best. Just because someone buys a Vanguard index fund with several thousand companies in it does not imply they enthusiastically approve of everything those several thousand companies are doing. This is one reason (among many) why we have laws and regulations. It is simply not practical for you and I as individuals to conduct in-depth research into each and every thing we buy.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
>slave labour in concentration camps Not an english speaker, so is Is "slave" correctly used here or is more like a "metaphor"?, In my mind a slave is someone you own, you can sell or kill. Someone you keep in prison is called different and people kept in prison for political reasons have also different label, religions/race imprisonment might also have a different label.
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I understand is evil, but in my language a different word/phrase would be used, like maybe deportation/labor camps/political prisoners. I would prefer something more clear, otherwise someone mentioned that "slave labor" could be used for a job where you are threated bad and you have no actual choice to quit.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#154> It apologised last month for the "trouble" it had caused, saying that its commitment to avoid supply chains from Xinjiang was an expression of compliance with U.S. law, rather than a statement of its position on the issue. So is the position of Intel that slave labour in concentration camps is an acceptable means of production? To what extent are Intel chips designed and manufactured in China? Presumably, they are…
Intel and most multinationals' sanitized position is going to be "slave/coerced labour" doesn't exist in their supply chain according to their (lax) audits and oversights. But they're forced to comply with US blanket sanction on the region. Because at the end of the day, a US company operates no differently than a PRC company that is completely beholden to the state security apparatus. Sorry to PRC market for being US SOE and arm of US foreign policy.
> Intel not take a position against Xinjiang
Because PRC position is coerced labour doesn't exist. It's decades old rural labour transfer programs + vocational training that pays multitudes more than regional norms and competitive with national wages is being portrayed as slave labour by US propaganda. If you want to make money in PRC, comport with PRC position or at least figure out messaging to pave over contradictions and save face. Ergo, US companies are forced to comply with US laws and holds no position on which narrative is correct.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. But it took the economist and investor class the longest to realize the drawbacks that others knew instinctively. And now you use "we" to describe their opinion and lobbying?
>I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. Maybe not quite "happy to embrace" people of a certain political persuasion were doing a heck of a lot to not get in the way of it because eliminating those jobs reduced the wealth of people who opposed them and made those people more receptive to what they were peddling.
To be fair, this was a bipartisan lie we were all sold in the 1990's. Democrats and Republicans alike convinced Americans that globalization would result in everyone having better jobs in what is now known as the "creative class". As a country we bought this hook, line, and sinker and are still paying the price, and likely will be for quite some time.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s economic warfare against a destabilized region that only recently quelled constant terrorism. The US casts a blanket assumption that ALL products from the region are produced by slave labor unless proven otherwise. That’s backwards. And meanwhile US government and corporations have no problem buying products produced by US prison slave labor, or overseas child labor.
It’s absolutely not backwards. When you have a million people in a concentration camp in a given region, and China is known for shipping these slaves around their country to work in factories, to make sanctions and targeted policies more difficult to apply, can you maybe see why a rule of thumb has been created black listing an entire region? This is their choice. Cause. Effect.
“A million people in a concentration camp” says US state agencies who tried to prevent the UN from investigating and Adrian Zenz commissioned by the BBC.
Let’s ask the UN what they think about China’s response to terrorism in Xinjiang after investigating.
> Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers. Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded. The past three consecutive years has seen not a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang and people there enjoy a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment and security.
> What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the media. We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a rather skewed and incorrect view of history. In America and elsewhere companies do not dictate policy. They can help edge it in a direction they want, but the large swings of policy are out of their control. More so you're generalizing America to the entire west and excluding other Asian countries like Japan.
Clearly what I wrote was a broad over simplification but I think the essence is roughly correct. As it stands now companies in China are definitely subservient to the state. The communist party there is definitely in the driver seat. In America corporate interests dominate policy making. U.S. foreign policy has definitely been bent to serve corporate interests and domestic policy in many areas are enacted to serve co…
> I should not have said “other countries” in my original post. There are, currently, no other countries than China and the U.S. in terms of scale and influence.
One might perhaps reasonably compare the EU, which I would suggest is somewhere between the US and China on the where the control lies.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#158We were happy to embrace the philosophy of sociopathic capitalist companies when it meant getting our cheap electronics built in factories with suicide nets. Now that it means giant companies care more about China's opinion than ours we want to posture about loyalty and moral responsibility.
Suicide nets were a result of western over reaction to relative few cases of suicides which happened at lower rates at factories than the general public. Don't get me wrong, the actions of the CCP in Xinjiang are horrific, but we need not embellish.
> Suicide nets were a result of western over reaction to relative few cases of suicides
So just to be clear, how many low-wage workers have to kill themselves before we say it matters?
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#159Say what you want about China, but their ability to weaponize capitalism and make multi-billion dollar companies cower and self-censor in ways they would never do for Western governments is remarkable. "When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract".
My previous comment got flagged, so I'll rephrase in a way that's less sarcastic.
Intel is doing the exact same thing to help Xinjiang as the government which is absolutely nothing. Yet somehow anti-capitalists will only focus on the former. Governments do tend to virtue signal more, but that's because they don't face any negative repercussions for doing so.
Re: Intel removes Xinjiang references from shareholder letter
#160Name and shame. We need to divest our manufacturing from China. Perhaps by exposing such practices and nagging hypocrytical companies we can make divestment happen sooner? Twitter mobs could be used for good once.
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Interned prisoners in Xinjiang, China are detained with no due process without having ever committed a crime. They are systematically forced to abandon their religion, their culture, and their identity. They are tortured physically and mentally, with beatings, and electric shocks, and waterboarded. They are forcibly sterilized. They are brainwashed as a condition to even be fed, which they are often not. There is forced hard labor, and if they refuse, they are beaten or killed. Many of the workers are children in elementary school. They are medically experimented on. When they die from the torture, or the cold, or starvation, their organs are harvested and sold for profit. Journalism about what goes on in these camps is suppressed, and those who speak out about it are imprisoned. Dissent is illegal and those who do are imprisoned.
Prisoners in Xinjiang are systematically gang raped and sexually tortured, sometimes publicly. If you look in the wikipedia link you will find details on exactly what the sexual torture involves. Unless you have a thick stomach I would not recommend reading it.
This isn't even half of the crimes against humanity in that region. Men, women and children. All of these claims have been corroborated by multiple independent observers. One million people, none of which are convicted of a reasonable crime. Just...let's step back and realize what we're talking about here.
Knowing this, do you believe there is a valid moral equivalence between this and even the most steel-manned, critical interpretation of US-prison-labor? Do you believe that the existence of US prison labor, even with all its (far more nuanced than you may give it credit for) problems precludes or somehow invalidates boycott and criticism of products connected to atrocities in Xinjiang? If so, why?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/china-draconi...