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China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

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Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#301

Post by nsagent »

culi wrote: post #249
giwook wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what exactly are these founders being investigated for?

Breaking the export rules. Tech workers should be used to the idea of a "Invention Assignment Agreement". Manus was built in China and all of its development happened there. In order to skirt Chinese review of the deal they tried to close down shop there and move to Singapore. I don't think China is being unreasonable. I'm sure the US would act exactly the same way if an American tech company raised money from China…

There is no equivalent exit ban in the US that can be instituted on a whim for regulatory or business disputes. If you want to know more, you can read up on it in this Stanford Journal of International Law publication:

"Legal Strategy for Commercial Hostage-taking and Business Exit Bans" https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/SJIL_60-...

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#302

Post by giwook »

nsagent wrote: post #301
culi wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking the export rules. Tech workers should be used to the idea of a "Invention Assignment Agreement". Manus was built in China and all of its development happened there. In order to skirt Chinese review of the deal they tried to close down shop there and move to Singapore. I don't think China is being unreasonable. I'm sure the US would act exactly the same way if an American tech company raised money from China…

There is no equivalent exit ban in the US that can be instituted on a whim for regulatory or business disputes. If you want to know more, you can read up on it in this Stanford Journal of International Law publication: "Legal Strategy for Commercial Hostage-taking and Business Exit Bans" https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/SJIL_60-...

I love that there is an actual 48-page research paper on the exact comment that you were responding to and completely refutes their assertion.

What a mic drop.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#303

Post by bluegatty »

NoGravitas wrote: post #299
HappyPanacea wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there were efforts to ban TikTok well before Oct 7th 2023 in 2020-2021 by the first Trump Admin, and there was ongoing effort in 2022-2023 during Biden Admin. TikTok Agrees to Sell U.s. Operations, https://www.tiktok.com/en/trending/detail/tiktok-agrees-to-s... , 25 Dec 2022 Biden approves banning TikTok from federal government phones, https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144519602/congress-is-about-... , 20 Dec 2022…

There were National Security ghouls pushing a TikTok ban as far back as 2020 because of the "China bad" angle, but it didn't really become a widespread and bipartisan concern until after the latest round of massacres amped up in Gaza and USAians started seeing atrocities on TikTok.

China is bad. It's a hyper authoritarian state using information collected from accounts for nefarious purposes, including informing their influence campaigns, targeting and they were censoring for specific issues.

It's unthinkable that any free nation would allow a fairly oppressive and powerful entity to have that kind of power.

China had (has) it's own police force in Canada, monitoring ex-pats and students, and very actively monitors nationals and ex-nationals, they us research funding to leverage acquiescence on those kinds of things on campus etc..

Media, Finance and other 'core industries' are protected everywhere, the only place it's less visible is the US, because they haven't needed to - the nation is huge relative to it's peers.

Instead of being TikTok specific, most nations should have foreign surveillance rules and they should be applied much more severely to the extent that those nations are authoritarian / totalitarian etc..

China should not be allowed to own any media entities in the West, full stop.

Most nations should definitely ban US Social Media companies from hosting certain kinds of data, have some domiciling rules that protect form CLOUD act etc..

All of that proportional to the risk and general concerns; obviously the US represents a risk vector of greater proportion than in 2008, so rules need to adjust.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#304

Post by giwook »

mothballed wrote: post #192
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of immigration issues, you can only be made to surrender your passport if you have been arrested and indicted for a crime, as a part of bail This has historically not been the case, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haig_v._Agee and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson

Anyone with a child support order that makes decent money is only one misrecorded or bounced payment away from being ineligible for a passport. The trigger is only 4 digits of USD.

So were these founders found violating a child support order?I'm still unclear on what crime they actually committed and what they're being investigated for.

Is it possible that they are merely pawns in a political dispute between two rival countries?

It's one thing to block an acquisition because you don't want your rival to gain an advantage, an action which is not limited to the CCP.

It's another thing to detain an individual when no crime was committed.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#305

Post by rvnx »

baq wrote: post #279
culi wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Down with all nation-states! Not the rallying call I expected but I'm here for it

A nation state is a corporation with a monopoly on violence

and also that initially took power through violence.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#306

Post by mothballed »

komali2 wrote: post #248
mothballed wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily china has a litany of 3rd world countries land borders surrounding it with porous borders, and in a great deal of them no one who gives too many shits about some poor chinese villager crossing. Americans on the other hand have Canada which for LEO purposes is basically an extension of the US, and Mexico which due to the drug trade and other unique factors mean anyone getting caught jumping the border in eithe…

Surveillance in the PRC is massive and centralized. There's a reason NK fleeing into the PRC plummeted when the PRC decided to stop turning a blind eye.

A valid point. Although PRC citizens have a little easier time explaining why they are in the PRC than North Koreans, and there are hundreds of miles of sparse Chinese border area where no one even knows where China starts/ends and where Pakistan or India begins. Out of places where there is a known border, Myanmar for instance is infamous for porosity.

The reason why NK have stopped is largely either NK enforcement or being caught while in the PRC without permission to reside in the PRC. Both of which are highly mitigated for PRC citizen (PRC citizens can have issues spending time in cities they're not authorized to live in, but less so with merely "visiting" countryside).

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#307

Post by giwook »

codedokode wrote: post #277
observationist wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Barring them from leaving the country feels a bit sinister for people who haven't been accused of committing any crimes. This is standard operating procedure for the CCP. They are a truly ruthless, sinister group who have no scruples about ensuring compliance and using leverage on behalf of Chinese interests. Just look at what happened to Jack Ma.

Oh come on. Look what happened to Russian enterpreneur, Pavel Durov in France, and what happened to Julian Assange and to Edward Snowden. It's the same thing just wrapped in different colored package. You don't cooperate with the government, you have some suffering.

I don't know what Durov did, but Assange and Snowden released classified government documents.

Is that what these two founders did?

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#308

Post by mothballed »

giwook wrote: post #304
mothballed wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone with a child support order that makes decent money is only one misrecorded or bounced payment away from being ineligible for a passport. The trigger is only 4 digits of USD.

So were these founders found violating a child support order?I'm still unclear on what crime they actually committed and what they're being investigated for. Is it possible that they are merely pawns in a political dispute between two rival countries? It's one thing to block an acquisition because you don't want your rival to gain an advantage, an action which is not limited to the CCP. It's another thing to detain a…

"Missing" (but quite often only due to a clerical misreporting) a payment isn't facially criminal and isn't even established as "violation" without a contempt hearing where you can argue why you didn't actually violate it. So the passport denial is even looser than that.

I'm just pointing out the bar isn't much different except dressed up in a think of the children meme. I'm not justifying either one.

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#309

Post by Daishiman »

Saline9515 wrote: post #204
Daishiman wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That gets repeated a lot. Is there any source? Have you not been reading The Economist for the past 20 years of the WSJ since its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch? They've been predicting the downlfall of China every other month.

Can you point to this month's article then so we have a sample?

Nah I prefer to discuss with people who have some basic literacy or googling skills because if you search for "economist predicting the fall of china" you'll find both their articles and the commentary surrounding it.

It ain't that hard!

Re: China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus

#310

Post by Levitz »

wg0 wrote: post #239
Levitz wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, why does China want GPUs then? Also, regarding that "tit for tat", how large of a "tat" is due, regarding decades of corporate espionage?

Oh it's okay check what US did with the TikTok. Corporate espionage isn't the only factor behind China's rise. It is relentless hardwork.

>check what US did with the TikTok.

A specific case in which the US demanded a tiny fraction of what China does systematically, orders of magnitude worse. Okay. Didn't even take that into account to begin with but that's an even larger "tat" then I guess.

Do they pay you extra for the gratuitous glazing?

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