Malibuflyer wrote:
Yes, there are some wrong things happening in China esp. with minorities and I wished they would not do it – as in many other countries as well.
Exactly, especially in some US favorite allied countries and in proxy wars they conduct but it doesn’t mean that US citizens are responsible for that.
Malibuflyer – thank you, an interesting post and always good to hear from those that have lived in China.
I have no doubt the rank and file of the Chinese people are sound.
Frankly, I dont mind if they make cheap stuff, which I think for most of us, translates to poor quality. The market will decide whether this is wanted. I suspect the market will decide to gradually move away from cheap stuff for various reasons, but there will always be a market.
I suspect that there is a substantial rift between the rank and file of the Chinese people, and those who are in business and of course, politics. This is the usual drift in a totalitarian regime which I believe is increasing in China, and it is why there is increasing concern that in business China cannot be trusted. The party I have little doubt is becoming ever more influencial, and ever more prepared to dabble in the business conduct of the Chinese people at every level. Again, this is what you would expect of a totalitarian regime.
It is certainly the case that China currently seems prepared to upset more and more of the established democracies. Australia has now been accused of “gross interference” over Hong Kong, and given that Australia relies substantially on China for its ecomony, it says something that Australia is prepared to call China out.
China is currently testing the boundaries of accepted behaviour. It is an interesting experiment and an interesting debate as to – why now? Does it feel threatened, does it feel it diverts from the Covid scrutiny, or was China simply determined to exert its influence to a greater extent anyway? Has the party made a fatal mistake, or is its timing perfect? Most regimes like China are very good at pulling bank from the brink when they realise they have over played their hand, and we may seem them do so. I think there is every chance that they may have pressed a little too hard this time, and the consequences will be more severe than they have judged. I have to say I hope so.
China is an enormous danger to the world order.
As to Covid, China has now had over six months to be transparent, but clearly this isnt sufficient time. Will they ever feel they have had enough time?
Fuji_Abound wrote:
You do make a very fair point, and I was worried that was the impression that I would give. I also apologise if my words were poorly chosen.
Thanks for the clarification!
Fuji_Abound wrote:
China is an enormous danger to the world order.
We don’t understand China if we look at it with the lens of our (Western) idiosyncrasies. Of course China is a “danger” to current world order, as current world order was negotiated basically between US and Russia basically w/o China on the table. Now China is on the table and claims their fair share of the meal. Just looking at the map, there is actually now justification that US has more influence on the pacific than China has (to the opposite). History is a living thing – and I wouldn’t call it “danger”.
Same with human rights: From our POV it is extremely natural, that the declaration of human rights (which is not even a legally binding contract) is above everything – but there is no natural law that it is more important than e.g. nature conservation (one could even argue that nature conservation is more important as transgressions against human rights “only” have short term impact on people that live today while destroying nature has long term consequences even for future generations).
But even the universality of human rights is not as clear to us than we try to pretend now if we talk against China – it have been the UK that delayed ICCPR (the legally binding sibling of the declaration of human rights) because they argued it should not be applied to humans living in colonies.
Malibuflyer, how do you feel about industrial espionage and IP stealing?
The two chaps who set up their lives, lived in China and documented a lot of their lives on youtube were very interesting. Super positive about Chinese people on the individual level but the government basically forced them to escape. At one point they set up a small custom motorcycle shop, then found that someone had copied their bike and set up a factory and produced hundreds if not thousands of them.
Off_Field wrote:
Malibuflyer, how do you feel about industrial espionage and IP stealing?
Hate it !
I have, however, no indication that this is a bigger problem with China than it is with the US or (to a less extend due to lower available resources) Russia. US seems to have the ability to monitor any communication that happens in Europe – despite the fact that in no country they are legally authorized to do it. Why shouldn’t China try to do the same?
For the US it might be a new feeling, that there is an outside power that has the aspiration and resources to do such thing – for us Europeans it’s just an “ok, there’s now two (to 3) of them)”…
Malibuflyer wrote:
I have, however, no indication that this is a bigger problem with China than it is with the US
Hang on, didn’t they sell new computers for a long time with bootleg copies of windows? Microsoft were unable to do anything about it which in the end led to them giving up.
no indication that this is a bigger problem with China than it is with the US
You are absolutely kidding, surely?
China copies everything it can copy! Not even remotely comparable with the US, etc.
Of course so did the communist countries (Czechoslovakia, where I come from, had a large State industry tasked with buying foreign stuff and copying it) but China does it all the time, while hilariously requiring customers like me to sign declarations that the CDs they produce (to include in the box) contain only non copyright stuff etc. Oh and that we do not employ child labour… One thing they forgot to ask for a certificate for is that we don’t eat bats 
Actually I stopped getting all finished products made there now; just buy mouldings, PCBs and cables and that’s it. I am done with the hassle and the arrogance and chancing, e.g. doubling the quoted price after I paid for tooling “due to CV19”… I told them to stick the tool somewhere dark and they climbed down. Also, a large % of firms there have had their email hacked (possibly as an inside job); only a few days ago I got yet another “enclosed are new bank details” notification, which the company would not even discuss! Luckily it happened after the last lot was loaded onto the ship…
China has changed a lot in the last few years – everyone I spoke to there says this.
BTW, posts moved to this OT/politics thread following some complaints… probably right to do that.
Without getting too specific, many companies in the US and elsewhere get many attempts at industrial espionage every day from China, using a large state paid work force. It costs a great deal of money in IT to (mostly) keep them out.
I could post the server log for any server I have access to (several) to show it is jam packed with hacking attempts which are nearly all from China. I won’t because I would need to edit out the other stuff and I have better things to do. The EuroGA Airports server was hit at least every second within hours of going live, and we all know it is packed with top secret data
