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Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#621

Post by wolverine876 »

dirtyid wrote: post #264
throw_m239339 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm amazed the world isn't taking more action on China. Its quite sad really, 20 years ago, any one of the headlines from this year would have prompted sanctions and denunciations... I don't think so. Nothing happened with Tibet, or after the Tiananmen Square event AFAIK. 20 years ago, the people that signed all the trade deals with countries such as China claimed it would lead to improving democracy and human righ…

> obviously, it didn't Of course it did, in Kishore Mahbuani's words: >The greatest explosion of personal freedoms that the Chinese people have experienced in the past 4,000 years has taken place in the last 40 years There's some slide back in some categories from Hu Jintao era, but overall things are progressing. The west fixates on the 1% of extra bad when it's been mostly great. >what human cost? 800m uplifted fro…

> a few million minorities gets shafted, to be crass: the cost was/is negligible

That is the difference between a society of freedom and human rights, and mob rule. Someone else's benefits have nothing to do with the horrors suffered by people in Tibet and Xinjiang. Each one of those people is as important as you or me.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#622

Post by hungryhobo »

russli1993 wrote: post #506

Let me get this straight, seems like if a company uses Uyghur workers they get accused of "forced labor". Then solution is easy, lets not hire any Uyghur people. No employment Ugyhur people. Then Uyghur people know what happens, they don't have income, they stay poor. This is what these people who accuses of Uyghur "forced labor" want? China may not have the best labor laws. But this is 2020, at will employment, empl…

I think you nailed it, it's not about the Uyghurs, it's about not allowing china to continue its economic growth. Never mind that growth has had tremendous positive impact on average chinese citizens Uyghurs included.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#623

Post by wolverine876 »

sthnblllII wrote: post #169
Dumblydorr wrote: post #72

Does Apple care more about perceptions of privacy or perceptions of using slave labor?

If they just made their computers in the US like they used to they could have both, but that would mean giving up the lucrative arrangement of only paying Chinese wages but charging US prices.

They can't have both. Production in the US is less efficient (not only for labor reasons), which deprives the entire economy of the wasted resources.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#624

Post by ardy42 »

nlitened wrote: post #399
baybal2 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To declare their shares of having no more legal power than toilet paper.

But owning shares mean owning a part of a company? Does that mean that when a company’s shares are invalidated, then the company is now worth zero, and anybody can buy it for a penny? Are the owners forced to sell everything for a penny, or they are allowed to choose, when to sell and at what price? Why would the price be different from current stock price?

> But owning shares mean owning a part of a company? Does that mean that when a company’s shares are invalidated, then the company is now worth zero, and anybody can buy it for a penny? Are the owners forced to sell everything for a penny, or they are allowed to choose, when to sell and at what price?

In real life, bankruptcy usually ends up essentially invalidating the shares of a company. Depending on the method of bankruptcy, the company continues to exist, but the owners of the existing shares loose any claim to anything. If "invalidate stock shares" of a public company became some kind of sanction for improper behavior, it would probably be coupled with some kind of process to transfer ownership?

Invalidating all shares in a company without further process to reallocate ownership is an interesting hypothetical. I suppose the organization would become something like abandoned property and escheat to the government.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#625

Post by wolverine876 »

briantakita wrote: post #615
legulere wrote: post #513

As long as companies Apple are not legally responsible for their supply chain in front of developed countries’ courts nothing will change. In Switzerland a law that would have changed this was recently rejected. Hopefully another country makes the first step.

A downstream issue with importing the product of forced labor into the US is that US manufacturing markets, business (small & medium in particular), labor, & markets affected by finance are distorted. The argument that an influx of cheap foreign goods & cheap labor costs are good for the economy does not properly consider the long term & strategic costs of hollowing out large markets where the USA once lead the world…

> A downstream issue with importing the product of forced labor into the US is that US manufacturing markets, business (small & medium in particular), labor, & markets affected by finance are distorted. The argument that an influx of cheap foreign goods are good for the economy does not properly consider the long term & strategic costs of hollowing out large markets where the USA once lead the world.

That's potentially a very valuable point politically: Those complaining about unfair competition from China and those concerned about human rights can find common cause, and maybe enough support to pass such a bill.

'American workers should not have to compete with slave labor!'

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#626

Post by arentyouspecial »

Alupis wrote: post #599
arentyouspecial wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn’t be like paying prisoners literal pennies is a way of getting around the law that made convict leasing illegal.

Convict Leasing is different, and people felt strongly enough that it was bad that the laws were changed (nearly 100 years ago!). Now the prisoners can get paid some wages in return for labor, in a mostly voluntary labor system. Unlike the CCP, every inmate had a trial and was found guilty of some crime, and is now repaying their debt to society - as it were. What did the million Muslims in the article get convicted…

Yes we all know how fair and just the American criminal system is and paying pennies is vastly different than paying nothing.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#627

Post by mike_h »

Alupis wrote: post #595
mike_h wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt anyone in this thread is arguing that forced labor would be ok anywhere. But hypocrisy is its own destructive force in the world, and there’s a weird meme in Western culture whereby unsavory behavior in China is somehow a sign of evil while the West is somehow more pure. The respective body counts and the number of people in jail (absolute and per-capita) make this highly questionable.

The article is talking about something very specific. Muslims being forced into labor camps against their will. The US has it's share of problems - nobody sane would deny that. But, what the US does do that the CCP does not is allow the open discourse of it's problems, and to change it's policies if people agree. Even the very numbers that come from the CCP regarding their prison population are extremely suspect - th…

I think you're being earnest so I'll dive into this thread for a few more minutes before I go back to work. Because I'm being earnest too:

If the West wants to influence internal China policy, it needs either a clear moral high ground for Chinese citizens to refer to, or clear economic upper hand. It doesn't have the latter right now (maybe never will again), and as this thread demonstrates, it doesn't have the former either.

Re: open discourse and changeable policies, China policies are more changeable than you would gather from the cartoon picture in Western media. They change constantly, in response not only to public opinion (as expressed on the internet these days), but also in response to continual internal debate within the CCP.

The US, for all its waving of the "free speech" banner, is only as changeable as the culture allows. Right now, for example, there would be no hope of reforming either prisons or e.g. a climate policy that might destroy civilization itself, because ~50% of US culture believes those aren't necessary.

Also note that open discourse is only allowed to a certain extent, as seen in surveillance and countermeasures against protests and organizers of any kind, from 1776 until the present day. So we can't in reality claim to be a society of free discourse when it comes to threats against the status quo, perceived or otherwise.

Prison labor in the US is only voluntary if people choose it over labor outside of prison. The fact that people sometimes choose it over staring at a wall for decades (and, one can imagine, being harassed by prison staff for not making the place more profitable) doesn't make it voluntary.

And finally re: Muslims being forced into labor camps against their will. It was not a century ago that the West dealt with its Muslim-extremism problem by bombing cities and weddings, and causing the economic collapse of entire countries. You want leverage over Chinese policy, you need to address this first.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#628

Post by esarbe »

monocasa wrote: post #412
esarbe wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's a deeper structural issue. The issue is actually pretty simple; first-past-the-post voting. This automatically leads to a two-party system.

Canada has both first past the post voting and a multi party system, so no, it's a deeper structural issue than that.

Let's see.

Canada currently has 338 MPs and over 80% (!) of those (278) belong to one of two majority parties.

So yes, in theory Canada has a multi party system. In practice this multi party system is severely damaged by the effects of the FPTP voting system.

There are mathematical reasons for FPTP to result in two party systems. [0] explains it pretty well. There don't have to be deeper underlying stuctural reasons for the dichotomy.

So to combat two party systems, replacing FPTP with an alternative voting system seems a pretty reasonable step.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#629

Post by arentyouspecial »

Alupis wrote: post #620
arentyouspecial wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why aren’t they paid a fair wage? Keep moving the goal post, but these people are being exploited.

Yes, you can indeed continue to move the goal posts, but acknowledge we're far into the weeds and even further from what the article focused on - Religious Slave Labor Camps in China. Why aren't inmates paid a "fair" wage? Well, that's up for debate and I think I'd enjoy hearing pros and cons. Some cons I could think of are: * These are inmates, serving a sentence as punishment for a crime they were convicted of. * M…

I’m not the one moving the goal post, I remain steadfast that they are being exploited and every time I point this out you give a slightly different reason as to why they are not. First it was the two systems (China vs US) are vastly different, then it was the convict leasing was ended, then it was voluntary (except when it isn’t), then it was at least they get paid, then it was well they are criminals so they deserve it.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#630

Post by MereInterest »

Alupis wrote: post #616
MereInterest wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, that is not the distinguishing factor. Historically, money was used as an incentive for slave labor done especially well. That does not prevent it from being slavery. https://www.historyextra.com/period/slave-labour/

You have an uphill battle to convince anyone being paid (any amount) for voluntary labor is akin to slave labor.

I take issue with describing it as "voluntary", when the alternative is a longer prison sentence. It is paid a pittance, and is effectively involuntary.
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