Comment by O_H_E | Hacker News Reader

Comment by O_H_E | Hacker News Reader

I was skeptical about "boycotting" China and Huawei for a long time; just thought that they make cheap phones, and innovative tech, so why not.

I changed 180 degrees when I started learning about the growing Chinese influence, how politically corrupt they are, and the excessive violence and human rights violations exercised against minorities.

China is growing its economic dominance very quickly. They are gaining many growing Asian and African countries under their belts (pun intended with the belt & road initiative [1])

These poor counties don't really have a say when offered china's generous offers, but we do.

It is going to be expensive, just like trying to fix climate change is: We have to be willing to pay to fix our mistakes (or other people in our society, if we want better future for our [grand]kids. But we will only be paying the price of our mistakes: depending that much on sweatshops, factory workers who are paid next to nothing, and collaborating with an authoritarian regime that clearly opposed our values for the longest time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative Concentration camps and race-based terrorism in Xinjiang: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-life-like-in-xinjian... Belt and road effect on nature: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-belt-road-encourages-i...

PS: I agree with the stance on bloomberg, but that doesn't really defy my point. I just had to get something off my chest.

"Chinese influence, how politically corrupt they are, and the excessive violence and human rights violations exercised against minorities."

I know your heart is in the right place, but you could replace China with "The US" or "Russia" or "North Korea" or "colonial Britain" or almost any other country and it would be true. Those who wouldn't be worthy of the list are those who've never had the resources or opportunity to make the list.

It's sad, but I believe it's pretty close to the truth.

In relation to China, "The West" gifted it the power it now wields by outsourcing manufacturing there because cheap labor meant much higher percentage profits for all the savvy business owners who didn't want to pay local rates. And didn't they do well over the last 40-odd years! Can't deny it being smart business back then. Also can't deny that China's current world power status wasn't predictable 40-odd years ago if businesses everywhere decided to follow suit. And they did, and here we are, and all the countries that host companies that contributed to this are now having a cry about the actions of the monster they profited from creating.

All that is true.

Howver.

Given the choice, I would much prefer to live in the US (or US-dominated/sponsored West) than in China, Russia, Middle East etc. US has better economic, legal and political systems. It doesn't discriminate against foreigners or religions, allows foreigner people and companies to compete in the markets and make enormous amounts of money, it has one of the most transparent and stable political systems in the world (which allows immigrants to participate in partially, and 2nd generation immigrants completely).

Sure, the US is not perfect, but that's why I support the US and am in favor of boycotting China (and other less-free countries).

Your view of the US seems a bit filtered through rose-coloured glasses, but I agree with your fundamental point:

If it came down to choosing sides, I wouldn't be defecting to China or Russia.

But I won't, ever, outsource my critical thinking.

> And they did, and here we are, and all the countries that host companies that contributed to this are now having a cry about the actions of the monster they profited from creating.

But did they really profit? Let's assume for a second that the media isn't one monolithic entity governed by suits in a smokey board room but by many competing entities with opposing and dynamic economic incentives, like the public's fatigue and need for novelty. Let's assume that these changing media narratives are purely a result of inter/intra-generational variance in upbringing and other effectively random factors (accumulation of wealth and social mobility among them).

Has the general public truly profited from the movement of manufacturing over seas? I don't mean intangible improvements like higher resolution televisions and thinner smartphones and cheaper everything - just because they can be measured in SI units or dollars doesn't mean that they tangibly improve someone's life. I mean by the cold hard numbers. Is the average middle class family healthier than they were before? Are they spending less money to stay healthy? Are they more secure in their finances? Can they take longer vacations? Can they afford to send their kids to college without them having to balance study and worm time? Are they happier?

I intended my point to be that the individuals at the top profited (those making the decisions to take advantage of cheap overseas labor) in terms of money / wealth.

No, happiness has not increased (maybe fairly-floss happiness has increased, that short term heavy-crash happiness that people get from new/shiny things - but I don't count that towards general societal happiness). Fear and paranoia has increased. (my opinion).

> you could replace China with "The US" or "Russia" or "North Korea" or "colonial Britain" or almost any other country and it would be true. Those who wouldn't be worthy of the list are those who've never had the resources or opportunity to make the list.

Many Western countries have a checkered past, but it's not exactly as though present citizens of the West were directly involved in the atrocities committed in the past by the West. Every sufficiently long lived state has had its dishonorable days, but it's not like we can't criticize both the past and current behavior of these nations and the /current/ behavior of China.

On the other hand, it is to the current Western climate's benefit that many dare make such criticism openly on the record and without fear of persecution (e.g. Gitmo). The same cannot be said of China.

> And didn't they do well over the last 40-odd years!

While your paragraph has the tone that the West is simply getting its just desserts, I find it unwarranted. This criticism, at its best, is criticism of past bad realpolitik policy by the West. People like the parent comment are only just learning of how woeful it is that Chinese influence is spreading, when Chinese influence is that unjust. It is useful to know that the West may have fed the beast. But the parent comment you are replying to was likely ignorant of the situation then and likely had no decision-making power then anyway. Thus adopting such a tone is in quite bad taste, since the parent comment is likely a victim of someone else's poor decisions and not their own.

"the tone that the West is simply getting its just desserts"

That wasn't my intention, although it can easily be read like that. My intention is for the potentially "ignorant of some history" parent-poster to be provided with some context around the current situation, ie. it does not exist in a vacuum, and has been strongly influenced by the actions and policies of the leadership of non-Chinese countries and companies.

The citizens of all countries are the victims in this. The significant majority (99+%) of the world population are caught in situations created or influenced by a very small minority of people (some of which were democratically voted for, but then that turns into a much more complex debate).

I intentionally started my comment with "I know your heart is in the right place" to make it (hopefully) clear that I wasn't directing any accusations toward the parent poster.

I swapped out China for US, Huawei for Google/Apple/Amazon/Facebook, Asian for South American, and it all still made sense.

US is a democracy with an independent judiciary. China isn't.

Google, Apple etc are public companies. Huawei is state controlled.

So it only makes sense if you completely ignore the basic facts.

> Google, Apple etc are public companies. Huawei is state controlled.

Citation needed - Huawei denies being under state control and there is no evidence of any direct state involvement in their day-to-day decisions. Maybe the Chinese state makes secret demands of them occasionally - but maybe the US state makes secret demands of Google/Apple occasionally.

US companies comply with laws governed by an independent judiciary and monitored by a free press.

China has none of those.

Honestly, China is probably worse, but it's not like the USA is the shining beacon of freedom and democracy. Or is Brett Kavanaugh an honorable man?

We are all sort of guilty, we want our cheap goods (clothes, smartphones) and look away when the news talks about garment factories collapsing in Bangladesh, or when the Chinese phone factory workers commit suicide. I enjoy a high living standard, I don't think the way the West (me included) is living is sustainable and it's built on the blood and suffering of so many around the world (like the news the other day how electronic waste exported from Europe are poisoning Ghanaians), but well, isn't ignorance bliss...

Thanks for this. This is what I tried to address by my original post in this thread.

We've essentially outsourced slavery. As horrible as that realisation is, none of the arguments against it are very strong.

What do you suggest we do? I'm asking in good faith; I think the worries of the influence of the CPC in the world are valid, but China can't simply be boycotted like any small country, and it's also not clear to me those boycotts (Cuba, Iran, etc) really effect change.

I think it's important to show our governments that we're worried about this influence. Hopefully they'll react to that and move closer to the people's wants (you know, like democracies are supposed to work)

We can choose who we want to be spied by.

You couldn't sound more pretentious if you tried

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