The China Cultural Clash • Hacker News Board

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#121

Post by wenc » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39

ilamont wrote: post #17

Attempts by China to leverage market access into self-censorship by U.S. companies should also be treated as trade violations that are subject to retaliation. Thank you, Ben, for this honest appraisal which involves sticking out your neck and perhaps even harming your ability to travel to China or expand your business. Regarding this comment about Apple: And then there is Apple: the company is deeply exposed to China…

Note that Cook became CEO because of his logistics and operations work in China, so there is a lot of legacy to go on. Apple assembles iPhones in Brazil and I believe India now, but these are mostly for high tariff reasons. Much of what goes into an iPhone isn’t made in china (and what is made in China can easily be made elsewhere), but they are mostly made in east Asia, so having assembly done somewhere in the regio…

> Taiwan (labor is more expensive, but they could maybe rely on automation more)

A few years ago, I was surprised to learn that Taiwan actually has low-cost but high-end (university-educated) labor. Ph.D. graduates abound.

It is an advanced economy yet wages are surprisingly low due to its export-focused strategy and various other structural causes. Cost of living in Taiwan also appears to be pretty low, which makes low wages bearable. It is a low-growth economy and it doesn't have the glitziness of Hong Kong, but everything feels 1st world (clean, technically advanced, efficient) so I'm not sure how the balance sheet there actually works out.

(that said, I understand many recent TW graduates tend to seek their fortunes in mainland China, where the pay is better.)

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#122

Post by baybal2 » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #50

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Cook became CEO because of his logistics and operations work in China, so there is a lot of legacy to go on. Apple assembles iPhones in Brazil and I believe India now, but these are mostly for high tariff reasons. Much of what goes into an iPhone isn’t made in china (and what is made in China can easily be made elsewhere), but they are mostly made in east Asia, so having assembly done somewhere in the regio…

But they don't own any factories, right? Wouldn't it destroy Foxconn and only defer revenue a bit for Apple? Maybe a few people who just gotta have the newest, latest, and greatest gadget will switch to a Flagship android because they can't wait for the new iPhone. But most people are pretty loyal / trapped into their mobile ecosystem. I doubt it would materially affect Apple's market share or their revenue long-term…

> But they don't own any factories, right? Wouldn't it destroy Foxconn and only defer revenue a bit for Apple?

Do you realise that there would be no shortage of customers for them in China after Apple leaves? The biggest problem as I wrote in a post below is that Apple may leave China, but Foxconn can not. It will still have an absolutely mammoth manufacturing capacity that will be sold to Apple's competitors the moment they leave.

The biggest shock to me in recent days was seeing an advertisement for a humongous amounts of manufacturing machinery being pretty much liquidated by Foxconn. With the amount of stuff being sold, it can possibly be a double digit of Iphone production capacity.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#123

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #115

baybal2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That may be true of manufacturing now, but will it be true 5 years from now? Not even a wildest guess can tell now. As for Vietnam, it's the closes substitute. Demographically, Vietnam is incomparably better off than China. On the level of technical capability it's late nineties China. The few manufacturers venture there only for abundant skilled workforce. Big players like Foxconn and Samsung can build entire citi…

Seeing how Vietnam is also controlled by a single authoritarian party, couldn't it end up the same as china eventually?

Vietnam is too small to go it alone, and that insecurity means that they are more aggressive about integrating themselves into the world economy, and making allies with the west (as a counter to China, ironically).

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#124

Post by yorwba » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

jakemoshenko wrote: post #94

yorwba wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd just watch via VPN, if other bans are any indication. Of course not everyone knows how to use a VPN, but the NBA becoming unavailable might be an impetus to figure it out.

I read an article recently that made it seem as if VPN wasn't the panacea for GFW that westerner's think it is. Apparently the GFW throttles encrypted connections heavily outside of normal business hours.

You may have to compromise on either speed or quality, but watching videos is not impossible. FWIW I had the best connection at 4 in the night, when I assume no one else in my apartment complex was still online. (All data 1 year out of data. Maybe everything is different now.)

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#125

Post by Loughla » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

shalmanese wrote: post #101

One thing you learn from spending time studying China is that the Chinese state has an asymmetric advantage in much better understanding the US than the US understands China and being very good at deliberately structuring their systems and policies in a way that consistently exploits the weaknesses in how Western liberal democracies are organized. I think the much bigger story here is how China's state capitalism is…

>they realize China needs the NBA more than the NBA needs China.

I was with you right up until this point. How is that?

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#126

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

zarro wrote: post #41

I see lots of Anti-China sentiment. I would be very careful here into not falling into their deliberate trap of making "The West" China's "Enemy". China in its current totalitarian form needs an "Enemy" to survive, without it, it has to deal with difficult internal questions which will force it to adapt and change - and this what scares them. Totalitarian governments rely on distraction and misdirection of the popula…

I upvoted you for a thought-provoking perspective, but I think you're wrong historically. Most totalitarian governments fail on the battlefield, or they fail when the charismatic leader dies and his heirs are not so charismatic. Think of Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the empires that fell during WW1, the Axis powers in WW2, Libya post-Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein. Totalitarianism seems to be an effective way to rapidly modernize a population to take advantage of already-discovered technological advances, and then to mobilize the population for war. It fails heavily at actually waging war, where the life-or-death competition between powers leads to a rapidly shifting reality that totalitarian governments cannot keep up with, because totalitarianism requires a near-total distortion of reality in order to keep the ruling clique in power. Additionally, liberal democracies often have a deeper bench of talent and technological developments waiting in the wings; totalitarianism requires the extermination of these institutions as potential threats to the regime, but liberal democracy cultivates these institutions in times of peace and then can draw on them in times of war. Witness how quickly the allies deployed radar, sonar, codebreaking, convoy systems, fire control computers, mass production, strategic bombing, and nuclear weapons during WW2: almost all of these inventions existed within Nazi Germany (some of them were discovered there), but their widespread development was blocked by Hitler's disfavor or inattention, and so they never got the resources they needed.

I suspect you're thinking specifically of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations during the 90s. There's a conflating factor there though: communism breaks up under internal pressures without an external enemy. (This is a pattern also replicated within many Latin American countries, as well as within smaller-scale communes within the United States.) Communism is one form of totalitarianism, but it's not the only one, and it's not the one currently practiced by China (which switched over to state capitalism in the 70s).

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#127

Post by ookblah » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #109

guelo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody, including Chinese citizens thinks this is "ordinary people boycotting offensive speech", this is government action.

How do you know? I see literally zero direct evidence for this in the linked post -- only that some people in China responded. Not everybody in China is working for the government. When analogous statements are found offensive in the US, US citizens, US tech companies, and the US media can act with astonishing speed and coordination to stamp them out. That doesn't mean that the US government is directing all of it.

The Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement condemning the tweet.

You have a track record of China using the heavy hand to dictate the messaging of corporations and individual citizens.

No coordinated message in China goes through without the explicit or implicit consent of the government, even if it starts "from the people". It's not hard to make the connection here.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#128

Post by novok » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #78

I have an interesting take on this, from knowing a bit about Chinese culture (lived there) and for having friends and coworkers who are Chinese. Culture in China is about unity. If you look at Chinese history, and if you watch Chinese movies, this is a recurrent theme. Unification through blood and war. This is the goal and China will get stronger and more stable over time. At what cost? Tiananmen, xinjiang, hk, the…

Isn't the culture more like: There were many attempts to violently force the political union of a large group of people for the ambitions of a warlord, but in the end, it never working out? The provinces have also always acted fairly independently, which is still the case today right?

AFAIK the culture is more like loyalty to your family and village, and "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away". Heck even the languages of china are mutually unintelligible. Maybe in the end, china should split up into several separate countries, like the khmer region split up into thailand, cambodia, laos and vietnam. Maybe it should be split up into beijing-land, shanghai-land, guangzhou-land, tibet and xinjiang-land.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#129

Post by tiredwired » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #105

tiredwired wrote: post #77

World superpowers and associated people should not take tweets so seriously. People read too much meaning and emotion into throwaway comments.

That just waves away the fact that Twitter and other places like it on the internet are THE platforms for conversation and statements. It's seemingly a statement that assumes internet based communication is secondary to real-life communication. And that's just not the case in 2019.

No, they are not THE platforms. Billions of people are not on Twitter and do not follow the mindless babble.

Go ahead and downvote because facts make you angry.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#130

Post by UIZealot » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

It helps to know a little bit about what's been going on in Hong Kong, before you all line up and take your daily dump on China.

It all started a few months ago when someone committed a crime in Taiwan and fled to Hong Kong. To prevent HK from becoming a safe haven for criminals, the Chief Executive of HK proposed a new law to facilitate extradition of these crime suspects from HK to various jurisdictions in the region, including Taiwan and mainland China.

The proposed law even explicitly stated that it's not applicably to crimes political in nature. But some HK people were nevertheless concerned that it might be abused by China to target political dissidents in HK.

So they have taken to the streets to protest that law. As a result, the law was quickly suspended before it had a chance to pass, and a few weeks ago the HK Chief Executive officially announced the withdrawal of the law.

However, despite the concession from the HK government, the protesters pressed on, demanding four more concessions from the government, chief among them universal suffrage, or the direct election of the HK Chief Executive, who up to this point have been nominated from a narrow pool of Beijing-approved candidates, then voted on by a committee.

It's not entirely clear that China even had anything to do with the proposal of the law which started this ordeal. But the protesters have been shrewd to paint a picture, to great effect, of big bad China stomping on the poor helpless people of HK.

What I cannot stress enough, is the rampant violence and destruction from these protesters, which has done this great city, and many innocent citizens, unimaginable harm. Feel free to support their peaceful protests, but please don't simply pile on and encourage these violence and destruction.

(EDIT: If anything I said is untrue, please correct me. Use the truth to argue your side, don't be a coward and hide behind your downvote.)