What China Expects From Businesses: Total Surrender (nytimes.com) 99
Unlike regulators in Europe and the U.S., Beijing is using the guise of antitrust to bring powerful tech companies into line with its priorities. From a report: When Pony Ma, head of the Chinese internet powerhouse Tencent, attended a group meeting with Premier Li Keqiang in 2014, he complained that many local governments had banned ride-sharing apps installed on smartphones. Mr. Li immediately told a few ministers to investigate the matter and report back to him. He then turned to Mr. Ma and said, "Your example vividly demonstrates the need to improve the relationship between the government and the market." By then Tencent had invested $45 million in a ride-sharing start-up called Didi Chuxing, which later became a model in the government's push to digitize and modernize traditional industries. When President Xi Jinping met with global tech leaders in Seattle in 2015, Didi's founder, Cheng Wei, then 32 years old, joined Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Apple's Tim Cook and Mr. Ma at the gathering. But the relationship between Beijing and the tech sector has splintered badly in the past year. Didi is now a target of the government's regulatory wrath. Days after the company's initial public offering in New York last month, Chinese regulators pulled its apps from app stores on the grounds of protecting national data security and public interests.
At the heart of the Didi fiasco, and to a large extent China's increasingly aggressive antitrust campaign, is the question of what Beijing expects from private enterprises. The answer is a lot more complicated than in the United States or Europe. China's Big Tech wields as much power as the American tech giants in the national economy. Like their American counterparts, the Chinese companies have appeared to engage in anticompetitive practices that hurt consumers, merchants and smaller businesses. That deserves scrutiny and regulation to prevent any abuse of power. But it's important to keep in mind that the Chinese tech companies operate in a country ruled by an increasingly autocratic government that demands the private sector surrender with absolute loyalty. So unlike the antitrust campaigns that European and American officials are pursuing in their regions, China is using the guise of antitrust to cement the Communist Party's monopoly of power, with private enterprises likely to lose what's left of their independence and become a mere appendage of the state. The developments at Didi amount to "a shock-therapy type of enforcement," said Benjamin Qiu, a partner at the law firm Loeb & Loeb in Hong Kong. "We could see more control by the state, with in-effect data nationalization as the end result."
The Communist Party made it clear last year that it needs "politically sensible people" in the private sector who will "firmly listen to the party and follow the party." They should contribute more to the longevity of the Communist Party and help make China great again, the party said. The message, people in the tech industry said, is that businesses need to prove that they're useful and helpful in advancing the government's goals while avoiding causing trouble. Didi didn't heed the message, these people said. They were surprised that Didi defied some regulators' objections and rushed its I.P.O. through in the current regulatory environment. For some government officials, Didi's U.S. listing was "yang feng yin wei" -- to comply publicly, but defy privately. The word choice is revealing because the phrase is often used to describe a subordinate's betrayal of a superior.
At the heart of the Didi fiasco, and to a large extent China's increasingly aggressive antitrust campaign, is the question of what Beijing expects from private enterprises. The answer is a lot more complicated than in the United States or Europe. China's Big Tech wields as much power as the American tech giants in the national economy. Like their American counterparts, the Chinese companies have appeared to engage in anticompetitive practices that hurt consumers, merchants and smaller businesses. That deserves scrutiny and regulation to prevent any abuse of power. But it's important to keep in mind that the Chinese tech companies operate in a country ruled by an increasingly autocratic government that demands the private sector surrender with absolute loyalty. So unlike the antitrust campaigns that European and American officials are pursuing in their regions, China is using the guise of antitrust to cement the Communist Party's monopoly of power, with private enterprises likely to lose what's left of their independence and become a mere appendage of the state. The developments at Didi amount to "a shock-therapy type of enforcement," said Benjamin Qiu, a partner at the law firm Loeb & Loeb in Hong Kong. "We could see more control by the state, with in-effect data nationalization as the end result."
The Communist Party made it clear last year that it needs "politically sensible people" in the private sector who will "firmly listen to the party and follow the party." They should contribute more to the longevity of the Communist Party and help make China great again, the party said. The message, people in the tech industry said, is that businesses need to prove that they're useful and helpful in advancing the government's goals while avoiding causing trouble. Didi didn't heed the message, these people said. They were surprised that Didi defied some regulators' objections and rushed its I.P.O. through in the current regulatory environment. For some government officials, Didi's U.S. listing was "yang feng yin wei" -- to comply publicly, but defy privately. The word choice is revealing because the phrase is often used to describe a subordinate's betrayal of a superior.
will apple add china pay for app store vs there ow (Score:2)
will apple add china pay for app store? In there apple does not get 30% but in the usa you must use apple payment systems?
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will apple add china pay for app store?
Apple's App Store has been in China since the beginning.
https://www.apple.com.cn/app-store/ [apple.com.cn]
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Make China great again? (Score:1, Insightful)
Something about that doesn't add up. Last time I looked, Chinese companies made everything. Could it be that Chinese industry and commerce are doing so well that they are starting to wonder why they need the "party" for anything?
Re:Make China great again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Then you haven't looked, ever. Because there was never a moment during last few decades, including Deng's tenure when every major company didn't have an internal CCP division who's sole job was to ensure that company only acts in ways that are beneficial to The Party. And no one within the company had any competency to do anything about that division, while this division could make legally binding demands for almost anything related to politics, including firing the CEO of the company for acting against the interests of the state, as defined by The Party.
And Xi has been rolling back Deng's anti-totalitarian reforms one by one. He's now simply at the point where the system is almost fully back to being hardcore Marxist-Leninist, and they're just mopping up what remains.
Re:Make China great again? (Score:5, Informative)
He's now simply at the point where the system is almost fully back to being hardcore Marxist-Leninist, and they're just mopping up what remains.
Stalinist / Maoist perhaps (Mao probably beat both Hitler and Stalin in number of deaths caused). The key point is totally authoritarian. They are not "communist" in any useful way of thinking and the mistake in suggesting that is that it suggest weaknesses that they don't have. They are still completely happy to use private industry / capitalist ways of achieving efficiency and the idea that they can be defeated as easily as the Soviet Union is a grave mistake.
Re:Make China great again? (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the core tenets of Marxist-Leninist dogma is condensed in Lenin's quote: "capitalists will sell us the rope we will hang them with".
Maoism, both in terms of dogma and according to the man himself is simply an extension of Marxism-Leninism. It was clearly visible in how CCP justified Sino-Soviet split, where according to CCP, USSR stepped away from Marxist-Leninist way of doing Communism when they started de-stalinization process.
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Maoism died when Deng Xiaoping dismantled the Cultural Revolution and the CCP central committee denounced much of Mao's work and reworked much of his quotations to mean the opposite of what they originally meant. It's totally the sort of shit that Orwell warned us about.
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Yes, that's the popular narrative among ignorant idiots who bought Deng's "if China was to ever become imperialist, it should be destroyed" (quoting from memory, may not be the exact quote, but the meaning is dead on) propaganda line.
Anyone who has followed CCP in even cursory manner on the other hand knows that all that Deng did was institute temporary reforms. That have been fully rolled back at this point, and then some. Xi has now more power repatriated into his hands than Mao himself as of approximatel
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I feel you veered off track here. Maoism is not a thing. I'm not defending China, I believe it to be an authoritarian government that tramples on the human rights of literally a billion people. Your incorrect application of Maoism and side-ways defense (strawman) is what I dispute.
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Why do you feel the need to deny existence of Maoism? What are you ties to it and other movement in Marxist sphere that makes you find it unacceptable to even grant it recognition of existence?
Maoism faded with Deng ... (Score:2)
And is being resurrect by Xi.
But the world is different. This could end very badly.
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It's not like it ever ended well before with this ideology. There's a reason why when you look at numbers be they about slavery or death, National Socialists look like rather nice people when compared to Communists.
Re:Make China great again? (Score:5, Interesting)
They are not "communist" in any useful way of thinking and the mistake in suggesting that is that it suggest weaknesses that they don't have. They are still completely happy to use private industry / capitalist ways of achieving efficiency [...]
Its because they're basically a Fascist state and economy at this point. Their economic and political programs are rationalized under nationalism, and "the Leader" is not elected at this point, while able to remove political competitors and military leaders through show trials. Commercial enterprise is beholden to their political patron, and Xi's government will not allow a commercial enterprise grow to the point it can challenge political prerogatives.
As far as I'm concerned, China is much more of a threat with a more efficient economic model than Communism. While a "free market" should be the most efficient economic model, the US is apparently moving away from it, for a more monopolistic, plutocratic approach. What nation will rise to the challenge of Fascism 2.0? It looks like the US is aging out of the "World Policeman" role.
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What nation will rise to the challenge of Fascism 2.0? It looks like the US is aging out of the "World Policeman" role.
Who wants them there? We've already exited from one country after twenty years with little to show for it. The nation's past is a running joke on slashdot, every time they even have a presence elsewhere.
Re: Make China great again? (Score:3)
I think China resembles fascism from both an economic and governing perspective. One thing that is central to fascism is they outlaw things that they deem harmful to the state and to the people. They do this on a micro level with their social credit system. What's happening with Didi is how they do it on a macro level.
NAZI was socialist (Score:2)
Hitler tried hard (and was somewhat successful) in improving the lives of ordinary workers. Even free holidays. That would make it easier for him to control them.
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They are not "communist" in any useful way of thinking and the mistake in suggesting that is that it suggest weaknesses that they don't have. They are still completely happy to use private industry / capitalist ways of achieving efficiency [...]
Its because they're basically a Fascist state and economy at this point.
Insightful.
Yes, that is the textbook definition of the fascist economic model: private industry, but under the control of, and serving the interests of, the government.
Their economic and political programs are rationalized under nationalism, and "the Leader" is not elected at this point, while able to remove political competitors and military leaders through show trials. Commercial enterprise is beholden to their political patron,
Yep. People seem to have forgotten what fascism actually is (lately it tends to be a word people use when they mean "authoritarian"), but that's indeed the actual definition.
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In the same vein as most people who talk about Fascism tend to forget that both Fascism and Communism are progressive outgrowths of Socialism. The main difference being that Socialism collectivises means of production, Communism collectivises all property and Fascism collectivises people.
Chinese regime meets the second criteria. They collectivise all property. They do not collectivise people, as evidenced by lack of officially sanctioned groupings of people based on inherent characteristics, instead opting
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That's because it does. For example all of the "private ownership" of housing in China?
Those are actually 70 year long leases from the government.
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Are you criticizing Chinese laws dear fifty-center? Are you sure there are no consequences for you for being this brave in criticising Chinese Communist Party and its official policies like this?
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Ok. As much as I am not a fan of you being a cyber stalker and a Chinese troll, I don't wish upon you what I've seen happen to Chinese trolls when they accidentally do illegal shit like criticise CCP policies in their blind pursuit of trolling anyone who's telling the truth about China today.
That stuff is things I don't wish on my worst enemies, and you're an minor annoyance at worst, and great source of entertainment at best.
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"Fascist" is probably the wrong term. Not everything that is authoritarian is fascist, although all fascist governments are authoritarian. Fascist governments were nominally on the right, with strong preservations of the status quo and culture; as opposed to China which had its cultural revolution to undo the status quo and create a new society and culture. Of course fascist doesn't really fit on a simplistic left vs right dimension anyway, but eveyrone has to talk that way because so many don't understa
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"Fascist" is probably the wrong term. Not everything that is authoritarian is fascist, although all fascist governments are authoritarian. Fascist governments were nominally on the right, with strong preservations of the status quo and culture
Is preservation of the status quo and culture not a core focus of modern China?
as opposed to China which had its cultural revolution to undo the status quo and create a new society and culture.
Sure, but that's done. They're not trying to create a new society or culture any more, they're now focused on preserving the one they built.
And the AC's point about China taking a fascistic approach to economic issues is undeniable. In no way in modern China do the people own the means of production, everything is privately-owned -- but woe betide the owner who opposes the state's interests. That is the heart of fascism.
Marx just had a theory of how economics would evolve as workers gained more power, and he was of the time when the world was literally ruled by aristocrats.
Marx st
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Mao probably beat both Hitler and Stalin in number of deaths caused
To be fair, Hitler and Stalin intentionally killed people, whereas Mao killed people mostly through mismanagement and incompetence.
Without mens rea, it wasn't mass murder, but mass negligent homicide.
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Mao probably beat both Hitler and Stalin in number of deaths caused
To be fair, Hitler and Stalin intentionally killed people, whereas Mao killed people mostly through mismanagement and incompetence.
Without mens rea, it wasn't mass murder, but mass negligent homicide.
IANAL, but I did watch "Law and Order." Depraved indifference that results in death can lead directly to a murder charge. So, even in the legal sense, it was mass murder.
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Depraved indifference that results in death can lead directly to a murder charge.
Except it wasn't indifference. The commies actually believed that collectivization would work.
By the time the GLF famine began, it was too late to stop it because the harvest had already failed.
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No, it was simply through logical and coherent application of Communist dogma. Mao was exceedingly smart and an excellent leader, which is why he managed to stay in power as long as he did. People prone to mismanagement and incompetence would not be able to survive on top as he did for as long as he did.
The problem with Communist dogma is that it's so utterly disconnected from biological reality and natural law, that it becomes difficult for a competent Communist leader to distinguish between ideology and r
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And the failure in all of these is in putting the power, and loyalty, into a single person or a small set of people. Which in itself is in opposition to Marxism or Maoism, in that the power in those theories was supposed to lie with the people (the peasants, workers, those masses at the bottom). Even if you want power to lie with the party, these examples don't work because those parties were all beholden to a single feared leader, even if that leader was chosen from within the party itself.
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I don't think Xi is anymore a Marxist-Leninist than Deng was. What Xi is is a totalitarian dictator. He's quite happy to administer a capitalist system, so long as that system in no way threatens Party rule. To be honest, he probably has more in common with the likes of Franco and Pinochet than Stalin or Mao.
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Why do you feel the need to go into such complex mental contortions to deny reality? Marxism-Leninism, like all functional forms of Marxism is totalitarian. There is simply no other way to force people to act in such an unnatural, utterly alien way that Marxist dogma requires. There must be massive totalitarian pressure from above and from the peers to socially enforce Marxism in all its viable forms.
And you're simply ignorant on how governance in China works if you think it is anything like Franco's or Pin
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Marxist-Leninism is hardly the only ideology that leads to forms of autocratic rule. Whatever China is, it hasn't been a Marxist-Leninist state since Mao's death and the Gang of Four were taken out.
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I already debunked this narrative above, and I could just copy-paste the second paragraph. That said, I notice you chose to ignore the question I posed, so I'll repeat it.
>Why do you feel the need to go into such complex mental contortions to deny reality?
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Just nakedly claiming something isn't debunking it. Xi has not rolled back capitalism, he's rolled back the carefully crafted constitutional reforms of the 1970s and 1980s that made sure that central authority wasn't held in one person's hands.
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You refuse to look at Xi's actions, or read any Xi Jingping Thought. The only thing you agree to look at is the part about top leadership.
Ok. That's on you.
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Xi's actions are the actions of an autocrat. Autocratic rule can happen in many kinds of regimes that might traditionally be on the right and the left.
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All white cars are cars. But not all cars are white.
Why are you so desperate to deny the fact that Xi's actions are not just of any autocrat, but of a Communist?
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Because he's not a Communist, at least in the doctrinaire and ideological sense that people like Lenin and Mao were. During the Communist revolutions in Russia and China, private industry and private ownership were heavily curtailed (although, out of economic necessity the Soviet regime in the 1920s did reinstitute some limited forms of free enterprise). If I were to suggest anything, it would be that the PRC leadership are a combination of autocrats, technocrats and kleptocrats (considering the number of h
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>Because he's not a Communist, at least in the doctrinaire and ideological sense that people like Lenin and Mao were.
And we're done. When you open by stating that "black isn't white, because I redefine what black and white is and then pretend really hard that even according to my definitions, black isn't black and white isn't white" which is what you do in that quote, there's no discussion to be had.
I'm going to once again ask you the same question you're still dodging. WHY is it so important to you do d
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Your argument basically amounts to "Xi is a dictator, therefore he's Communist." It's an absurd argument.
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And you are now openly lying and gaslighting, as I clearly outlined my argument above, and it is nothing like one you're stating.
All while you still haven't answered a simple question:
>WHY is it so important to you do deny reality when it comes to Communism in China?
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And with all those systems the most prominent political idea is that the guy at the top is the most important, and that overwhelms petty details about whether they want to head left versus right. The real enemy is not capitalism or communism, but authoritarianism. Arguing about whether or not socialism is evil or not is missing the big picture. Socialism under a functioning democracy will work better than another system under an autocratic leader that demands loyalty from the subjects and strong police e
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I visited a provincial-sized pharmaceutical company in China and doing tea with the CEO and the party representative.
So I asked, wait a minute, so which one of you is the boss. And they would both laugh say each other. This became a joke as we kept going on and drinking over lunch. And we kept bringing it up.
The joke wasn't that one of them was right and I didn't know which. The joke was that the question was wrong--it didn't matter. They both worked for the Party and they want the company to succeed.
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This is very company dependent. There are very few hardcore Communists who start companies and grow them. Exceptions to this exist, but they're indeed exceptions that prove the rule. That's why political division in every major company is mandatory.
What normally happens is that an enterprising low level but well connected individual manages to build a company up, and then is replaced by the party with someone who is more loyal. You appear to have run into the latter case.
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On paper China has a lot of stuff going for its economy, and should had been the #1 economy by a large margin for decades.
1. Population - The largest population on the planet, they have enough workers to drive the economy in any direction.
2. Landmass - In terms of Land and Natural Resources, China is just as good as the United States, with it being larger or smaller than the United States depending on what disputed borders go where.
3. Location - They have a large Sea Border, as well bordering a number of hi
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China has a "lying flat" [youtu.be] movement to deal with.
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What's China doing wrong?
Tell me, how industrialized was China when Mao led the Revolution? How industrialized was the US in 1949?
Their population has massively grown, and they've had to spend a huge amount trying to both industrialize *and* build up their military, to protect them against the US (Korean War, anyone?)
They seem to be doing better than the USSR did, but then the USSR had WWII inside their country.
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In short (Score:3)
They must bend the knee or be shortened
Listen up, Zuckerberg (Score:1)
"firmly listen to the party and follow the party."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/18... [cnn.com]
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Sure, if you're a terminal bean-counter with zero principles. "All" and "nothing" are the only two ideologically principled positions, anything else is weak-willed liberalism whose only principle is "number go up".
Personally - everything within the state, nothing without the state, nothing against the state. The Fed needs to tear Zuckerberg (and the rest of the -bergs) a new one.
Textbook (Score:5, Insightful)
If the textbook definition of Communism is "government control of the means of production" then in the modern age we should probably understand this to also mean information... because at this point, it's as important as land, machinery, loans, and all the other traditional stuff that is used to produce goods. So while it may offend our capitalistic sensibilities, it seems this is right in line with the communist system.
Also, did they really say "make China great again" or is that a translator who is a Trump fan?
Nationalism same everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Make Italy great again; to the point where they had to do some BS territorial expansion before WW2. The main theme in Germany was making it great again... it's all the same sort of nationalist rhetoric everywhere. Also the slight variation where it's our "destiny" to become great or greater; we're chosen to make that true etc (also see "Manifest Destiny".)
Trump steals credit for everything; he falls for nationalism and thinks he invented it. Same with "fake news", which was already big WW1 in Germany an
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Re:Textbook (Score:5, Insightful)
If the textbook definition of Communism is "government control of the means of production" then in the modern age we should probably understand this to also mean information... because at this point, it's as important as land, machinery, loans, and all the other traditional stuff that is used to produce goods. So while it may offend our capitalistic sensibilities, it seems this is right in line with the communist system.
Communism was very much about turning the entire country into a single organization where all business decisions were ultimately directed from the top.
It's failed pretty spectacularly everywhere it was tried, it's done as an economic system and I don't think trying to incorporate "information" into the mix accomplishes anything useful.
Outside the economic realm the big problem (or benefit) of communism is once you turn the country into one big organization you become authoritarian almost by default. As such, the last 40 years have been all about communist governments figuring out how to dump the useless economic system while keeping the authoritarianism. That's the area where China has really been leading the charge, and that's the area where control of information really matters.
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No, that's not communism. Though it is how communist countries ended up. But theoretically power was supposed to come from the bottom, from the peasants. Later it was the workers as society was less agrarian after Marx's time. Communism is supposee to be bottom-up, but the early leaders like Lenin wanted a stronger state temporarily as it evolved towards the communist ideal. Which is why they never labeled the USSR as communist but only as soviet socialist state.
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"State" control, not government control. The textbook end result is that the workers and peasants manage themselves in accordance with communist principles. This is why so many communist leaning states are very insistent about controlling the public thoughts, because they want to reach the theoretical end game.
Say What!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Unlike regulators in Europe and the U.S., Beijing is using the guise of antitrust to bring powerful tech companies into line with its priorities.
In what way is it unlike the regulators in Europe and the US?
Re:Say What!! (Score:4, Informative)
In what way is it unlike the regulators in Europe and the US?
It's a bit of a stupid question, however please point to camps in Europe or the US like the internment camps in China [wikipedia.org] which include systematic rape and torture [bbc.co.uk]. That is completely "unlike" China.
Maybe facing the question more directly, antitrust enforcement in Europe and the US requires proof of harm to people in court. China's appears to be enforced on the whims of the party leadership.
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A bit of a stupid answer, yes China has horrendous human rights violations going on, but that has nothing to do with the way antitrust is used in Europe and the US to force companies into doing whatever the government wants. What the government wants is mostly to extort money out of them and force them to be another propaganda tool for the governments.
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Bullshit. Antitrust enforcement is so rare in the West it makes major headlines, and the result has never been to make the company a propaganda tool.
We have good reason to have antitrust legislation (see the results of unfettered capitalism in the US in the 19th century); at a certain size and/or extent of market domination, companies become abusive and have to be reined in.
The only valid criticism of antitrust legislation in the West is that it's not used enough: companies are only sued years after they've
Re: Say What!! (Score:3)
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Also known as "inverted fascism".
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I have to say there's a large difference between what China does and saying "you probably shouldn't be charging customers and lying to them about what they're buying".
"increasingly" autocratic government? (Score:4, Informative)
Has the author not been paying attention? This is the fascist state of China being less autocratic than it has historically been.
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Well, it's been up and down. Compared to the Mao era, it's less autocratic. Compared to Deng's relatively permissive regime, it's more autocratic.
Have owned Chinese IPOs that has lost 90% of its v (Score:3)
Re: Have owned Chinese IPOs that has lost 90% of i (Score:1)
I am sure a lot of party members of the CCP have also lost money with these IPOs
Surely.
"surrender with absoloute loyalty" (Score:1)
"... government that demands the private sector surrender with absolute loyalty."
So, a lot like the US.
Re: "surrender with absoloute loyalty" (Score:3)
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With even shittier results.
Please tell me this isn't "news" to anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean seriously, I understand that there's a great confusion for some people about "where to stand" on China: Trump was agin' 'em, so we must be for 'em, right? We can't ever agree with anything Trump did, can we?
But there shouldn't be.
China is still an officially communist state. While it is fashionable to sneer at such an ... antiquated ... disparagement (who calls anyone a communist anymore?), and very postmodern to desperately seek moral equivalencies between the stains on US and Western countries' conduct and what China is doing now...there is no objective comparison today.
What happened nearly two CENTURIES ago does not exonerate Chinese conduct (which is, to be fair, not far off the shit Western powers did in the 19th century and before) in 2021:
- the government ultimately controls everything. Any company that doesn't like it might see its CEO vanish for a while, or just get dissolved since most of them end up (somehow) having the People's Army as the main 'shareholder' to say nothing of China's Nat'l Intel law of 2017 that basically codifies: If the government says it wants a company to do something, they have to. Full stop.
- far from the glittering cities on the coast and shown in media, the average Chinese is DESPERATELY poor - about $4300/year. MOST of the population is at - or frankly below - 3rd world conditions. They they are spending $billions on everything from moon landings to aircraft carriers is even dumber (and, likely to be simularly doomed) than the Soviets doing it in the 1960s and 70s.
- ethnic cleansing, re-education, and (whispers of worse) to the Uighurs and Tibet
- Putin-level geopolitical audacity at literally building islands over seabed that they want to claim, and basically daring anyone to stop them
- Hong Kong was ceded back to them (to be fair, it was basically stolen from them in the first place; that it should go back to China is historically a pretty just move) under terms that left Hong Kong the ability to continue to enjoy a relatively prosperous semi-independence - this has been abandoned at the first moment HK pulled at the reins. (I would contend that China never intended to honor that quasi-independence, but them saying so allowed everyone to politely pretend together and allow UK to exit an historical embarrassment.)
- the fact that they can build a bunch of showpiece 'eco friendly' projects somehow seems to camouflage their massive coal-fired power plant BINGE, air, water, and soil pollution, desertification and habitat loss, "cancer" villages, population growth (do you think the suspension of the one-child policy is going to make any of these BETTER in the next generation?), more than half the world's riverine pollution of marine environments comes from ONE river: the Yangtze*, the environmental catastrophe of the 3 Rivers Dam**, to say nothing of their nakedly geopolitical 'water grab' of the South China Sea by wholesale WRECKING the ocean environment island-building. By their same logic (using a 15th century map as justification) the Treaty of Tordesillas apparently still gives Spain authority over the whole western hemisphere.
- let's not even start talking about COVID, whatever the source (hm) was apparently concealed for MONTHS before they had to admit it even existed, they've stonewalled and where they had to, falsified information. Whether WHO was forced to kiss their ass and accept their stories, or whether WHO did it out of bureaucratic toadying is unclear today.
They are a shitty world actor. ...and it seems like a significant chunk of the west from politicians to LeBron "Mao" James work their asses off to give China a pass.
They care nothing for consensual norms nor international regulations unless they either a) happen to be following them already, or b) can reasonably pretend to be following them.
NO other country in 2021 would be allowed to pull half the shit they do, but the UN, WTO, G7, everyone just seems to whist
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And see, here you are again. QED: "...And no Trump didn't deal with it in any meaningful way, he just needed a big bad guy and chose it. But he's corrupt as fuck and certainly doesn't mind what China is doing to its minorities. Even if he really wanted to do something against them, he's much too dumb and too focused on the appearances of fighting to do anything useful..."
1) he may not have done MUCH but he's the first president in DECADES to actually call them out on their shit. (Let's remember the half
Re: (Score:3)
"Trump was agin em...".
Most of my politics are "center" or "left. But I have long ( at least 2000's ) thought that China was a very poor world actor that we should limit contact with.
I cant say you are far off the mark on anything you wrote.
I would add their IP grabs
- producing products that mimic foreign made products
- producing shoddy products competing with well enough made products
- stealing technology from other nations
- running factories a
Damn it! (Score:2)
China channeling Mussolini (Score:2)
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state"
Capitalism demands democracy (Score:2)
Historically, every time autocratic rule has come up against capitalism, capitalism has won. This has been true of all monarchies, Soviet Russia and Vietnam. It is a fair bet that Putin's Russia will also fall. How long the Chinese communist party will be able to prevent capital from fleeing is a subject for intriguing debate. The only certainty is that once capital flees, the regime's days are numbered.
Democracy is the only system that provides and guarantees private ownership of property. Without this gua
China bad! (Score:1)
Russia bad!
Korea bad!
Iran bad!
Venezuela bad!