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Amazon Quits China Market

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Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#201

Post by solidasparagus »

AareyBaba wrote: post #128
solidasparagus wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given India's protectionist stance towards foreign companies, I'm going to guess not Amazon or Walmart.

Companies like Harley-Davidson, Ford, GM, McDonalds, Dominos are running fine in India because they have plenty of local competition and create local jobs. Walmart, Amazon are seeing resistance because they could potentially put thousand of small business owners out of work. Boeing, Intel, Corning are doing great business in India because there are no local alternatives. I've even seen automotive lifts for auto repai…

I was referring specifically to ecommerce players, in the context of the recent protectionist laws enacted by India in that area. And it is more than just protecting small business out of work since the laws specifically target foreign investment.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#202

Post by munk-a »

manigandham wrote: post #196
munk-a wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the best case that's a misunderstanding of the political situation in the US. As a reference, recall HQ2 where Amazon was negotiating to skirt property taxes for the next infinity years with the local government. All corporations technically have access to these, but regulatory capture is strong in the US and market incumbents tend to have a lot of weight to throw around to make sure they get favorable tax loophol…

Those are opposite things. True, US corporations are independent and can gain influence over parts of the government. In China, the government controls the corporations. Chinese nationals are the largest foreign group of investors in US commercial and residential real estate. They have plenty of access. The success and scale of the Belt and Road Initiative directly shows just how vast the control extends.

Is this separate from US investment abroad - historically, when the US was at it's peak, there were governments in central and south america that were overthrown to make sure fruit corporations received favorable government treatment. In the modern world we're seeing the influence of the US waning, but lots of countries have "voluntarily signed on" to buying the boondoggle that is the F-35 even after all of the negative press and the US (or US organizations) still have significant political sway in eastern africa, though their losing it.

In China the government appears to clearly control the corporations (while there are some highly influential corporations that, through their economic power, have essentially become moves and shakers in the government) in America corporations control the government (while there are a lot of former politicians who end up sneaking off into highly paid do-nothing positions for their help during their tenure in elected office). These things are different, and America is absolutely a more free place, but it isn't an absolutely free place.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#203

Post by cthalupa »

tracker1 wrote: post #161
cthalupa wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has same day delivery and prime now in a lot of the US - I can get the same order before 10 get before 18 from Amazon in my town. I don't have a ton of experience with UI/UX on JD or TMall, but my experience with alibaba and aliexpress hasn't left me particularly impressed there. But I also have no problem with Amazon's interface and experience in general, which I know lots of people don't like. Product offeri…

What you are talking about is a US experience... it's not like that in China from Amazon. They haven't built out locally, and have neglected to acknowledge local competition and invest in local infrastructure properly.

> What you are talking about is a US experience...

Correct.

Because that's what this comment thread is about.

Grandparent: >I'm curious is this because jd.com is far ahead of American Amazon or because Chinese Amazon is far behind American Amazon?

Parent: > I would say jd and taobao is far ahead of American Amazon

The question was whether or not JD and Taobao in China are better than Amazon is in America. Not whether or not Amazon in China is as good as JD and Taobao are in China.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#204

Post by pesmhey »

rossdavidh wrote: post #189
tekkk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the evidence in this case seems to be against this statement (Amazon indeed offered worse service than competitors) I think it is otherwise valid. Chinese are really driven to become the world's superpower number 1 and give no quarter to Western companies trying to establish themselves in China. So the big dilemma is, do we let them? Or more precisely, do we as the outside world let Chinese stifle all the forei…

Hasn't this been obvious for years? Like, centuries? No major power allows other nations, especially nations which are not close military allies, to dominate its economy. China acts in its own self-interest, as does...every other nation in the history of the planet which is able to. The U.K., the U.S., or any other major economic power, will not allow its economy to be dominated by companies from countries that it do…

Schneider Electric has a fairly large presence in the US...to what I can imagine is a huge benefit to both Europe and the US. Bosch, VW (let’s forget the scandal for a minute)...

This goes beyond so much more than this particular article. The ‘western’ world is building a global civilization, and it seems like anyone is invited if you play by the rules. All of the China doves over the last 3 decades probably thought China would open up in that way and join the ‘developed’ world.

I mean, fuck, Samsung is a huge compnent of the US economy, isn’t it?

No, fuck China, and protectionism in general. They had (still have?) an invitation into the global civilization. It’s based on rules, that you have to follow. Of course there are criminals (hsbc, Libor, etc...) but overall it’s based on rules.

This ‘realpolitik’ that has taken over, where ‘yeah of course nations act in their own best interest’ is not the complete picture, because at some point, a nation’s self interest is in cooperation.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#205

Post by parrellel »

chrischen wrote: post #193
parrellel wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since China is also known for all-levels number fudging and revisionism, and state policy and culture has a tendency toward brigading that'd make tumblr blush, the "anti-china propaganda" tends to be a tad more credible, no?

Is that how the process works now? Go with whoever tends to be be a "tad more credible." Everyone has agendas, and you'll go nowhere comparing the relative strength of everyone's agendas. Simply stating something likely done by Alibaba, but not necessarily true not only adds nothing to the conversation, but detracts from the journey to the truth. If we accept his statement as is, then you may as well accept anything…

Not anything, but well, China's a corrupt totalitarian state that believes in information control and revisionism... and then there's also the element of performative solidarity in response to state actions (re: doping scandals, trade sanctions, Taiwan, etc).

So, I'll sing praises to China when they do something praiseworthy, but by god I'm not trusting a statistic or a press brief coming out of that place, and no-one else with half a brain should either.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#206

Post by Leary »

mellow-lake-day wrote: post #187
yding wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just wrong. By many measures, China is one of the most innovative countries on earth. Take scientific citations for example: https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/chinas-citations-catch...

How much of those are legitimate though? There have been cases of fraud and falsifying information. "Since 2012, the country has retracted more scientific papers because of faked peer reviews than all other countries and territories put together,..." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-...

Given that the Nature Index only measures top quality publications, China's contribution to science is second only to the US's.

https://www.natureindex.com/annual-tables/2018/country/all

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#207

Post by mitfahrener »

philwelch wrote: post #64
sytelus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

The entire Chinese economy has to do with government interference. The scales are absolutely tipped in favor of Chinese companies.

Sadly. You can shout to try to win the arguments here. But it don't matter.

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#208

Post by megaremote »

yding wrote: post #179
mahranch wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese culture of copy-catting freely doesn't help. The problem with that, is that it's a vicious circle. Innovation is the foundation for future innovations. It builds on itself. It lays the groundwork and foundation for what comes next. By leapfrogging and cheating its way to the top (or near the top) they are sacrificing that crucial infrastructure for future discoveries and innovations. China has to copy & ste…

This is just wrong. By many measures, China is one of the most innovative countries on earth. Take scientific citations for example: https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/chinas-citations-catch...

Do you have any other benchmark apart from citations?

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#209

Post by dang »

product50 wrote: post #51
paganel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon has literally won everywhere else in the world I've mentioned it in another comment, too, but Amazon is not present in my Eastern European country (Romania), where Alibaba beats them by a large margin (even though they're also not officially launched here). I've just done a quick search and it seems Amazon is not winning it in Russia either, nor in Ukraine, to say nothing of India. As such, to say that they…

Dude do some research. They are winning or close to winning in India, South East Asia, Western Europe, Australia, US, Dubai etc.

Please don't cross into rudeness in comments here. It's not cool, and isn't necessary.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon Quits China Market

#210

Post by dang »

sytelus wrote: post #30
cletus wrote: post #3

This is why I don't get why companies--tech giants in particular--kowtow to China in the hopes of getting access to the Chinese market. It will never happen. At least, it won't be open access. You'll have to play by Chinese rules (ie integration with the Great Firewall, storing data in China, probably integration with social credit and so on). Worse, there might be (basically forced) "IP transfer". Even after all tha…

Perhaps you didn’t read the article. This has nothing to with government interference. Local players in China are very strong with likes of Alibaba doing massive shopping festivals that easily rivals Thanksgiving. Two day delivery is China is considered slow and nothing to be proud about. On the top of this, it looks there were control issues where leaders at Amazon.cn weren’t empowered to make decisions. I actually…

"Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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