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Depository for off topic / political posts (NO brexit related posts please)

Peter wrote:

China will prob99 get away with it. Best thing anyone can do is stop buying stuff made there. Hmmm that includes Apple phones! Buy Samsung…

I totally agree.

The vacuum will incredibly quickly be filled. The Chinese do very little others cannot, and that is increasingly true.

Sadly, they cannot be trusted. In all dealings with China the starting point is dont believe a word thay say. I know that is a disappointing position to take, but with a family member who must deal with them on a regular basis, and I refer to relatively straight forward businesses in China, when you get to that point, you have to recognise there must be some truth in his experience, because he has no axe to grind.

China cannot be trusted, pure and simple.

We have to make choices and the choice, even if it costs more, is not to buy from China. As China was recently quoted as saying, if you dont wish to buy Huawie that is your choice, but you will suffer the consequences with other Chinese business. My conclusion is fine, as China has said, it is a choice, there is not threat implied other than the consequence you may not be favoured by other Chinese businesses – that is fine with me, it assists in the move away from being reliant on China, it assists with supporting other developing nations, and, if ulitmately it leads China to recognise that we are all part of an international community so much to the good.

My answer would be bring it on.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

China cannot be trusted, pure and simple.

We have to make choices and the choice, even if it costs more, is not to buy from China. As China was recently quoted as saying, if you dont wish to buy Huawie that is your choice, but you will suffer the consequences with other Chinese business. My conclusion is fine, as China has said, it is a choice, there is not threat implied other than the consequence you may not be favoured by other Chinese businesses – that is fine with me, it assists in the move away from being reliant on China, it assists with supporting other developing nations, and, if ulitmately it leads China to recognise that we are all part of an international community so much to the good.

My answer would be bring it on

I agree by and large. I think the Chinese are also much more vulnerable to a drop in international trade than we are, and I say this even as a citizen of one of the most export dependent nations on earth.

Whether from deliberate boycott or simply from customers seeking other suppliers because of the apparent vulnerability of supply chains starting in China, any reduction in export income will hurt China, badly. And their system of government is not very stable. It relies on bringing a degree of economics wellbeing to their coastal “middle classes”, who are also much more aware of what’s really going on in the wider world than the regime would like.

As soon as the economy of China does no longer lift its people out of poverty the way it has done for the last 40 years or so, the political system will be under threat. The people might not ultimately desire an identical copy of western democracy, but they certainly desire more freedoms. The economic success of the past decades was simply a means for the CCP to stave off inevitable political reforms.

The way Covid-19 was initially handled in China and the way the Hong Kong issue is handled right now Highlights the dire need for political reform in China. And the best way we in the west can support reformist forces might ironically be to not buy Chinese at the moment…

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

WingsWaterAndWheels wrote:

Samsung is not from Vietnam, but from South Korea :-) just nitpicking a little

Their phones are made in Vietnam.

EGTK Oxford

WingsWaterAndWheels wrote:

Samsung is not from Vietnam, but from South Korea :-) just nitpicking a little

And Apple is not from China – So?

Germany

Peter wrote:

I think in the fullness of time there will be changes. It is just too early to tell. China is not really cheap like it was say 10-20 years ago

As the COO of a larger electronics company already put it some 5 years ago: “In the last two decades production cost optimization was quite simple: You only needed to move 2000 miles further east every 5 years. But now moving further east would take you to California – and labor rates are not cheaper there ;-)”

Germany

Fuji_Abound wrote:

I know that is a disappointing position to take, but with a family member who must deal with them on a regular basis,

Sorry, but in my opinion in a pilot community like EuroGA there is no room for such openly xenophobic and racist hate speech!

I obviously don’t now about your family member. But there is more than a billion Chinese. With how many of these does your family member deal on a regular basis? China is a country with 3 times the people, ten times the history and many more diverse cultures than the US. There is a multitude of different languages, cultures, etc.

Stating “Chinese can’t be trusted and I know because I know some people who had to deal with some Chinese” is simply racist – not only black lives matter!

Germany

I am afraid I am with Fuji on the cultural differences. China is not what it was 2000 years ago – a world leader in wisdom and technology. I wrote about my extensive experience of dealing with China here.

It’s a different culture out there, for the most part, and this includes basic business ethics (well, lack of, largely). They get the Western business because they are cheap, and offer uniform production of stuff which is too boring for people in the West to make.

BTW you can edit a post, to add to it – for up to 2hrs.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Malibuflyer wrote:

ten times the history and many more diverse cultures than the US. There is a multitude of different languages, cultures, etc.

The cultural revolution destroyed much of the history. Do they really have many more diverse cultures than the US? Isn’t it majority Han? They literally put the uiguyr muslim Chinese into reeducation / concentration camps. Want to practice falun gong, maybe think about your social credit score.

It’s a bit overboard to call it racist hate speech as it clearly isn’t. China is a country not a race. Asian / oriental would be the race, but no one is claiming they all behave in a certain way. People are noting business practices of certain countries and areas which is well documented.

Taiwan was up there early trying to alert the world as to what was going on with the coronavirus and seems to have been dealing with it in their own country far better than China has.

Malibuflyer wrote:

Sorry, but in my opinion in a pilot community like EuroGA there is no room for such openly xenophobic and racist hate speech!

I obviously don’t now about your family member. But there is more than a billion Chinese. With how many of these does your family member deal on a regular basis? China is a country with 3 times the people, ten times the history and many more diverse cultures than the US. There is a multitude of different languages, cultures, etc.

Stating “Chinese can’t be trusted and I know because I know some people who had to deal with some Chinese” is simply racist – not only black lives matter!

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.

I have absolutely no doubt there are some lovely Chinese people, who are opposed to both their current regime and to the business practices of some Chinese.

I believe this discussion is about the approach widely taken by China with respect to the matters we are discussing. i am satisfied that as a group they have a very poor reputation for thier lack of honesty with respect to their business dealings. It is a view you will hear frequently. That does not mean there arent exceptions – of course there are.

There was many years ago a particular business sector that had strong roots in London. The majority of the sector had no ethnic background. It was widely accepted the just about everyone involved in the trade (and there was nothing illegal with the business sector) were crooks. In the end no one with a reputation would deal with them – they could not borrow from the main street banks, they could not engage the recognised professional firms and so on.

There is widespread criticsm of China’s other human rights transgressions and their transgressions with regards to international law.

So let me be clear, my remarks are concerned with their regime, and with their widely held business practices, not with individual Chinese who I am in no doubt are as diverse as the rest of us in terms of the views they hold and their integrity in dealing with their fellow man.

We all know business is tough – we must make decisions based on a raft of factors. My point is I believe there is widespread distrust when it comes to business and political dealings with China, and the consequence of which is that rather than find the odd buiness with which you can estabish a good relationship, the point has been reached at which most people feel it is no longer worth the effort and the hassle.

Please let me give another example. In my business there are certain categories of other businesses with which I will not deal. (and this has nothing to do with their race). I have simply found in the past that in the vast majority of my dealings with this sector the outcome is not unsatisfactory (I have no doubt for both parties). I know there is the odd “good” one, but I dont need the hassle, so as a matter of policy I simply do not deal with this sector. Of course I have no obligation to do so.It is a choice that is mine to make, in exactly the same way it is a choice for us to make to employ Huawei, or not. We chose not to employ them I hope, because we operate in a free market, and, on balance there are other companies for a raft of reasons with who we would prefer to have our business relationship.

I believe we should chose not to deal with China, and decision we are free to make until they change their practices. It is that simple. I think that is exactly what will happen.

Peter wrote:

It’s a different culture out there, for the most part, and this includes basic business ethics (well, lack of, largely). They get the Western business because they are cheap, and offer uniform production of stuff which is too boring for people in the West to make.

I’ve spent about 20% of my time in the last 5 years actually in China. I have, however, mainly been in Pearl River Delta, the Shanghai/Beijing Corridor and some few other big cities – so I’ve seen only very few parts of the country.

Many things I learned in that time:
- As said before, China is extremely diverse. The western perception that cultural revolution unified the entire country is just not true – and it’s somehow funny that some parts of the western world are actually buying into exactly that part of official government propaganda
- I have met very nice people which are trustworthy and deeply grounded in values – family, e.g. is a value that is much moe common and much stronger with many Chinese I met than in western cultures
- I have also met people which are not trustworthy – both in business as well as personally. My personal impression is, however, that the share of them is not higher than on other parts of the world
- Many of our stereotypes are actually grounded in misunderstandings and/or our own behavior:
. If we are only asking for cheap stuff, why should they deliver something different? It’s like saying that UK has no competencies in bespoke tailoring because every time I visit Primark they only offer me cheap stuff ;-)
. Trustworthiness has something to do with own expectations and listening carefully. In our western frame of reference a statement like “We’ll see what we can do” is often understood as “We don’t know how yet but we’ll find a way to make it happen”. Chinese mean it as “We’ll see what we can do” – no connotation of making it happen included as it has never been said. In that sense Chinese are often even more trustworthy if you measure by what they said rather then by what you heard.

With respect of freedom and politics, most Chinese I met (which are not involved in the party) are the most unpolitically persons I’ve ever met. They are just not interested in politics. 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.

Germany
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