US business elite welcomes Xi Jinping with standing ovation | Hacker News Reader

US business elite welcomes Xi Jinping with standing ovation

ft.com

46 pointsironyman70 comments

Is this pandering or do these business leaders truly honor and respect President Xi? By all accounts he is a dictator and many of China's governmental policies run contradictory to Western values and morals. This is not to assume that America is perfect, or without its own problems, but the basic principals of free speech, elections, and assembly in China are without question deplorable.

It's absolutely pandering.

These same lads denounce democrats and progressives for being "socialist" or "communist" for not backing unhinged neo-liberal policies. Xi is literally an authoritarian communist quasi dictator and gets a standing ovation.

Private ownership of capital is legal in China. It’s not communist at all.

Oh here we go again, but CCCP was a communist state, eh?

This is akin to calling everything and everyone socialist.

The Soviet Union was a socialist state: that was the word they used to describe themselves. It was ruled by the Communist Party, which has nothing to do with the economic or political system the country followed. The best word to describe China's economic system is Mercantilism.

I believe, academically, the phrase used to describe China's economy is "socialist market economy". However, that doesn't preclude calling Xi a "communist", as the other commenter did above. A person is not the economy, and I think there is plenty of evidence to conclude that Xi is worth of the label.

It’s a middle road between communism and capitalism. Sure, you can own capital, but annoy the regime, and you’ll soon be relieved of your assets by the ultimate owner: the state.

Sounds like a capitalist dictatorship to me…

People need to stop defining stuff by whether or not it works the way you want it to work. We still call a capitalist system “capitalist” if it’s broken for the same reason we still call a box a box if the bottom has given out and it can’t hold anything.

Private ownership of capital is allowed at the discretion of the communist party in China.

This is similar to how weed was "illegal" for decades in the US. Note the quotation marks. "illegal" is different from illegal.

Saying china is "communist" is different then saying china is communist.

Yes it’s an authoritarian capitalist society.

State ownership of capital is legal in the US.

Basically all economies are at least a little bit mixed. We label them based on whichever principles are predominant.

Capitalism doesn’t exclude the government from owning capital. Communism does exclude the private ownership of capital.

Yes, but if we want to be that pedantic, we should also specify that Xi is a person and not an economy. The person you replied to above did not say that China has a communist economy, they called Xi a communist.

If someone is heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology, calls themself a communist, and leads a communist political party, it is reasonable to call them a communist.

I'm reading "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Klein and Pettis. The thesis is in the title and his case is convincing. American elites have every reason to give Xi a standing ovation: his oppression of the Chinese worker has played a key role in pumping American assets into the stratosphere and subduing American labor interests. Not only do they love him for it, they should love him for it.

You and I? Maybe not so much.

How has he suppressed the Chinese worker?

TWCW cites 40% labor-share-of-value-add (vs 70% typical) as the macro figure and gives the hukou system as one example of policy that achieves this outcome.

According to Bloomberg and a few other sources, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to Xi Jinping and asked him to name his child. Like, what has to be in one's head to even consider such a thing...? Can you imagine asking Trump or Joe Biden to name your child?

Well, Zuck did exactly that. You really can't make it up.

Source?

I must correct myself, apparently he didn't write him a letter but rather actually asked him in person with other people present in the room. Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/china-s-president-...

Bloomberg clip: https://youtu.be/S20BoxH8W9g

Much appreciated!

I have an utter dislike of Zuck, but there is no evidence this happened. Unnamed source tells page six, the Bloomberg reports on the page six article.

Never heard that one… His wife has Chinese heritage though so I can see a more culturally rooted desire to have the region’s leader name your child.

What do the "business elite" actually care about? Power. End of story. A lot of people will say money, but money is just an indicator of power and tool for achieving it. Xi has ultimate power. He can bend the entire global south to his will. The Musks, Zucks, Bezos, Thiels of the world lust after that kind of control.

You guys are reading a LOT into this headline. The only direct quote:

> On his way into the Hyatt, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio told the Financial Times he was “excited to have this relationship [with Xi]”.

All this is saying is they just showed up to a conference with Xi. These guys do business in a place that is very hostile to American business. Keeping a good image in their eyes helps keep all of those factories the average American depends on chugging along without interference. Image matters a lot to small minded leaders and certain Asian cultures.

But otherwise I don't see any evidence they are hyping Xi up or something. It's just "big american companies show up at conference with Xi Jinping and one guy said he's excited".

Today's business leaders are members of the managerial class. Xi is probably the world's most important manager, so there may be some sincere appreciation. (now think about what this chinese manager did to the oceans, the people, etc and what a sincere standing ovation would mean)

Right but many things in china are done better than the US such that an average business person or citizen can live a relatively happy life.

Most people don't exploit the right to protest or the right to speak Ill of their government in a public venue.

The western view of China is not fully correct. You have to take a more neutral view. It is two competing ideals. The US has plenty of deplorable that are on the scale of the "evils" china has done and china has done "good" also to to the same level of not greater than what the US has done.

It is wrong to look at this through the lens of ohh china is just another dictatorship.

What's the problem if that is the case? If we truly believe that these values are beneficial to humankind, why would we dislike Chinese to act differently, handicapping themselves?

I would argue, the only reason why we would object is if we secretly believe that these values are not in fact beneficial, but merely luxury goods rich nations can afford to make life nicer, at the cost of restricting their growth. Only then Chinese not doing the same sounds like a genuine threat.

Its simpler than you think.

China is a big market with a growing middle class. Read that to mean - they have money to spend. They also have a large labor pool and world class manufacturing.

More consumers, more labor - that's opportunity.

It doesn't even matter if a world leader orders the dismemberment of journalist. [1] The values and morals of American business leaders is always up for sale.

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/10/29/saudi-arabia-ho...

Um...yes? They didn't get to be the US business elite by prioritizing patriotism and idealism over profit and power.

Warren Buffet says that he needs America more than America needs him and credits American dynamism for his success.

Makes sense because he runs an index fund of late stage American brands

Which index fund is that?

Berkshire Hathaway

That's not an index fund, that's a company.

We know

Which index fund is that?

Stratton Oakmont

Sounds plausible. OTOH, both Buffet's public persona and his actual personality seem to be far kinder & gentler than is normal for modern American business elites. And he certainly understands both polite fibs and "speak no ill...".

[Edit: Read "plausible" as "plausible for Buffet to have said". I'm quite aware that Buffet's sainthood is strictly relative.]

That’s bull

Him and his colleague Charles Munger fawn over China exactly as the grandparent post said

They are multinational panderers they know what to say for the people of the respective countries and every business leader learned from that too

I think there is merit to that though, the last thing I ask when I get an audience with the leaders of a country is whether parliament has been taken over by ideological extremists. It actually doesn't cross my mind at all

Buffet has actually been divesting from China lately.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4559370-berkshire-hathaway-...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/investing/berkshire-hathaway-...

That’s rational

All the fawning in the world cant help make it a great regulator and market environment or solve geopolitics

I don't think that changes my point

> Him and his colleague Charles Munger fawn over China exactly as the grandparent post said

I've noticed the same thing. At least since the BYD investment they do.

And it's not just not criticizing, some times they actually praise him. For example, I remember an interview where Charlie Munger was asked what he thought about bitcoin (he hates it) and he went out of his way to say that Xi Jinping was much smarter than American leadership in banning it.

Now I agree it should be banned, but could he not have made such point without bringing Xi Jinping into it? It was really weird.

> It was really weird.

Assume that the Xi's briefings about (and impressions of) Munger are heavy on content like this:

   - Praised Xi on topic T1 at date D1
   - Praised Xi on topic T2 at date D2
   - Criticized Xi on topic T3 at date D3
   - Praised Xi ...

And Munger wants both (1) to be relatively well thought-of by Xi and (2) to be able to criticize Xi.

Do people believe Warren Buffett? I don't necessarily mean this statement, but every press article or video appears to be deliberately tailored by him and his team on what to say and how the message will get out. For example, he seems to only work with a few select interviewers, often gives the interview surrounded by products of the brands he invests in, and usually only gives statements to the hungry press when pushing a new deal. Other corporate "celebrities" seems to receive slightly more push back when trying to control the narrative around them. I don't necessarily disagree with him most times, but everything about how his message gets out throws up a red flag for me.

I have no evidence that he is lying nor can I recall any scandals or ethics concerns.

Warren Buffet is a Weird Billionaire, tho; he’s not typical.

Warren Buffet is also a big fan of China

It crazy how they so eagerly hasten their own destruction of a short-term profit. As China becomes stronger their bargaining power weakens. What use will China have for them once it moves up the technological ladder? Only screw-ups of Chinese leadership like single child policy or too aggressive foreign. policy might prevent China from becoming the by far the largest economy now. What will US business elite do then?

Here's the whole speech: https://youtu.be/cTgtQ3Fl1jw?si=FnLAYTLIKM2ZAYZE&t=1139

Transcript: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-17/Full-text-Xi-s-speech-...

archive: https://archive.is/oyYAM

I saw a similar piece in the WSJ and honestly my first thought was: these were arranged by the US gov to make XI happy and make it look like "hey the US really is friendly to China"

Sad if true but maybe I'm too cynical

Why would the government need to be involved? It's an uninteresting self organising phenomenon where commercial entities pay attention to and show respect to bigger entities.

> “The world needs China and the US to work together for a better future,” he added. “China is ready to be a partner and friend of the US.”

So if China isn't going to become more democratic / less authoritarian - it's gone on record about that - then what does this say about the USA's stance against such things? What does that say about where the USA sees its future going? Is the quarterly or so military saber-rattling legit or something drummed up by the MIC to keep the budgetary dollars flowing?

I read the article and couldn't help but feel like changing my name to Winston Smith.

The U.S. is presently grappling with its own democracy-related issues, rise in authoritarianism, and declining quality of life, as well as a lot of “de globalization” problems originating in its poor attempts at playing hardball with China and other powers (Russia) that it just doesn't like.

In my opinion, the most grim and dystopian elements of China’s system (Social Credit, censorship, mass surveillance, extreme bureaucracy) are either already present in the U.S., but with a decentralized/capitalist bent rather than a centralized/communist one.

Agreed. The 1984 reference was more about how the truths of both countries and the relationship between them reeks of newspeak (i.e., propaganda). It all feels so staged so contrived.

> In my opinion, the most grim and dystopian elements of China’s system (Social Credit, censorship, mass surveillance, extreme bureaucracy) are either already present in the U.S., but with a decentralized/capitalist bent rather than a centralized/communist one

A lot of these are over-hyped by Western media. For example's China's "social credit" system seems even more basic/low-tech than America's "credit score" and has less of an impact on people's lives than the American Credit Score. It's actually almost only used for business executives, judges, and other people in power rather than ordinary citizens.[0-3]

Similarly, "mass surveillance" has actually been going the other direction in many areas. Back in 2021 the Supreme People's Court basically made facial recognition illegal in public and nationally they're moving to even restrict business uses of it. Which puts them pretty far ahead of where the US is on the issue currently.[4-5]

[0] https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-c...

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpe3z/china-social-credit-m...

[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-sys...

[3] https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-unt...

[4] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-08-15/chi...

[5] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/china-releases-plans-to-rest...

As a country, we (the US) keep pointing at other political systems and governmental systems as examples of terrible practices while those with power in our country seem to be seeking the exact same sort of outcomes, doing everything they can within our system to move further in that direction, and largely succeeding.

We really need to look in the mirror, functional outcomes not just philosophical ideas of freedom and rights (how much freedom and what rights you actually have and can use), and fix it. Instead we just want to continue on with business as usual, point fingers and say at least were not that bad, and try our best to become or allow ourselves to become that bad.

IMHO we average folks in the US are losing this battle more rapidly and the underlying cause seems to be wealth disparity, the unequal levels of power wealth buys in this country safely within all our philosophical constructs, and the nature of those with the advantage to want to exploit the advantage further and further to get more power, compromise more freedoms, gain more control, etc.

It's like we're running a Democracy hypervisor and installing an Authoritarian OS within it and all our accounts are user accounts inside the Authoritarian OS. Sure, Democracy underlies it all... but when's the last time you poked around the hypervisor and cared? It's transparent and largely becoming inaccessible to you for all your real world applications.

You don't want to be the one not clapping, to stop clapping, or to start last. Dictators notice these things.

https://mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/some-chilling-public...

I mean, is that a surprise? I personally thinks it's a bad bet.

What happens when China invades Taiwan? Will business continue as usual?

It was hosted by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and US-China Business Council, what do you expect?

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