China Sucks

[Hugo Stiglitz 23355]

6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Internally, China is as communo-fascist as you could possibly want.  They are semi-capitalist as concerns trade with foreigners.  That's only to generate revenue to fill the communo-fascist coffers.

Pretty spot on.  They're state/party controlled capitalists. 

The thing we need to watch out for with Xi is rising Chinese nationalism. 

DO NOT WANT.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

Quote

On Friday, Canadian justice department officials gave the go-ahead for her extradition proceedings to begin. Meng was due in court on Wednesday to set a date for the proceedings to start. It could be several months or even years before her case is resolved.

Meng’s arrest set off a diplomatic furore and severely strained Canadian relations with China. Beijing has accused Washington of a politically motivated attempt to hurt the company.

China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor on 10 December in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng.

A Chinese court also sentenced a Canadian to death in a sudden retrial, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier. Kovrig and Spavor haven’t had access to a lawyer or to their families since being arrested.

 

Fucking China, man.

Edited March 7, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Thetexashammer 1062]

On 3/5/2019 at 11:08 AM, TwiceHorn said:

Internally, China is as communo-fascist as you could possibly want.  They are semi-capitalist as concerns trade with foreigners.  That's only to generate revenue to fill the communo-fascist coffers.

It's also a tacit admission that their state-owned industries can't generate products that would attract Western trade.

When they abandoned socialism, it was because they had starved 50 million Chinese to death, not because they had some long term strategic plan to dominate the West with communication equipment. 

 

[TwiceHorn 31085]

23 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

When they abandoned socialism, it was because they had starved 50 million Chinese to death, not because they had some long term strategic plan to dominate the West with communication equipment. 

 

They havent really abandoned socialism.  Production for internal consumption is still state-run and they are forcing the "experimental" quasi capitalist entities to pay "social dividends." 

I am realistic about socialistic policies.  Some are very useful and may be the only way to get things done on a large scale (e.g highways).  But state-ownership of the means of production has been a failure nearly everywhere it has been tried and seems to me to be a rotten fucking idea for a country the size of the US (or China, or Russia).  Statoil/Equinor works, but it's 1/3 private owned and I think oil and gas is a special case, particularly for a country that possesses the technology to exploit its own resources, cf. Central and South America.

[ChiTownDoc 21071]

40 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

They havent really abandoned socialism.  Production for internal consumption is still state-run and they are forcing the "experimental" quasi capitalist entities to pay "social dividends." 

I am realistic about socialistic policies.  Some are very useful and may be the only way to get things done on a large scale (e.g highways).  But state-ownership of the means of production has been a failure nearly everywhere it has been tried and seems to me to be a rotten fucking idea for a country the size of the US (or China, or Russia).  Statoil/Equinor works, but it's 1/3 private owned and I think oil and gas is a special case, particularly for a country that possesses the technology to exploit its own resources, cf. Central and South America.

You know your shit on China.  Props.  The Chinese also have been very aware of what happened to Russia in the 80's/90's.  They always have wanted to put on the 'looks' of a westernized communist nation - whatever the fuck that is.  'Sure, we believe in fair trade / human rights / freedom for our people etc.'  Then guess what happened?  We bought in and got sucked into this BS 7% growth they magically keep hitting (that's actually a recession for them lol).  The Chinese own 23% of US treasuries...that's what's known.  Through shell companies etc it could be much more.  And those numbers are from 2013.  Sorry I'm a few drinks in and can't find a more accurate graph to post but all this has fascinated me for a while so I choose to opine, even half in the bag.  So guess what?  China does whatever the fuck they want and we pretend to be ok'ing whatever the fuck is going on there.  The reality is we have almost zero teeth to do shit.  If Russia had owned a full 25% of our treasuries, you can bet your ass we would have tolerated their bullshit a whole lot better.  I'll provide a more cogent analysis some other time.  Apologies. 

[zork 629]

10 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

[snip]  The Chinese own 23% of US treasuries...that's what's known.  Through shell companies etc it could be much more.  And those numbers are from 2013.  [/snip]

Hmm. This article from fairly recently shows just over $1 trillion($1.18 trillion) owned by the Chinese:  "from the U.S. Treasury is as of June 2018".

Quote

...

The most recent complete breakdown from the U.S. Treasury is as of June 2018. The public debt was $15.6 trillion. It's in the Treasury Bulletin, Ownership of Federal Securities, Table OFS-2. Here is the breakdown:

 

• Foreign - $6.2 trillion. In June 2018, China owned $1.18 trillion of U.S. debt and Japan owned $1.03 trillion. That's more than one-third of foreign holdings.
• Federal Reserve - $2.46 trillion.
• Mutual funds - $1.8 trillion.
• State and local government, including their pension funds - $984 billion.
• Private pension funds - $600 billion.
• Banks - $674 billion.
• Insurance companies - $226 billion.
• U.S. savings bonds - $158 billion.
• Other holders such as individuals, government-sponsored enterprises, brokers and dealers, bank personal trusts and estates, corporate and non-corporate businesses, and other investors - $2.4 trillion. 
• ...

https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124

Edit: those numbers are showing the public owned portion of the debt while the US gov owes itself plenty.(see article linked for more of the breakdown)

Edited March 7, 2019 by zork

[ChiTownDoc 21071]

2 minutes ago, zork said:

Hmm. This article from fairly recently shows just over $1 trillion($1.18 trillion) owned by the Chinese:  "from the U.S. Treasury is as of June 2018".

https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124

I'm pretty sure I fucked up by just looking at the % the Chinese own of all FOREIGN US debt.  I'll look again but the Japanese were very close as well.  To me these are still big numbers but no 23%. 

Update: As of October 2018, foreigners owned $6.2 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 39 percent of the debt held by the public of $16.1 trillion and 28 percent of the total debt of $21.8 trillion.

 

 

So indeed I stand corrected at that time they owned 25% of the foreign debt.  But I still see this as a big problem.  Also remember this has nothing to do with how much 'private' Chinese money is used to hold US assets.  They just dropped a billion or so on the Waldorf in New York.  The government also at times will just say stop investing in the US or repatriate funds. This is dangerous. 

And I'll leave this here - my number was off but its absolutely a threat:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/chinas-1-point-2-trillion-weapon-that-could-be-used-in-a-us-trade-war.html

[zork 629]

26 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

I'm pretty sure I fucked up by just looking at the % the Chinese own of all FOREIGN US debt.  I'll look again but the Japanese were very close as well.  To me these are still big numbers but no 23%. 

Update: As of October 2018, foreigners owned $6.2 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 39 percent of the debt held by the public of $16.1 trillion and 28 percent of the total debt of $21.8 trillion.

 

 

So indeed I stand corrected at that time they owned 25% of the foreign debt.  But I still see this as a big problem.  Also remember this has nothing to do with how much 'private' Chinese money is used to hold US assets.  They just dropped a billion or so on the Waldorf in New York.  The government also at times will just say stop investing in the US or repatriate funds. This is dangerous. 

And I'll leave this here - my number was off but its absolutely a threat:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/chinas-1-point-2-trillion-weapon-that-could-be-used-in-a-us-trade-war.html

If you round China ownership up to $1.25 trillion that is about 5.68% of the just over $22 trillion current total US national debt. 

[ChiTownDoc 21071]

5 minutes ago, zork said:

If you round China ownership up to $1.25 trillion that is about 5.68% of the just over $22 trillion current total US national debt. 

That’s a big number.  Also we have let debt REALLY go since 2013...As neither side gives a fuck about being fiscally conservative.  

[happyfunball 481]

[Thetexashammer 1062]

On 3/6/2019 at 10:05 PM, TwiceHorn said:

They havent really abandoned socialism. 

The guy who wrote the Fascist bible is named Giovanni Gentile. He was a philosopher and worked under Mussolini. He literally wrote the textbook on fascism. 

Gentile was himself a lifelong socialist and described Fascism as a subset of Socialism. The Chinese has a CP congress in 1979 and made the formal decision to abandon socialism. This was just after Mao died. Their decision to abandon Communism is what has led to their economic rise. Fascism is basically socialism. But yes, to your comment, virtually identical systems. The idea that they are somehow polar opposites is idiotic.

The Chinese Communist Party didn't even need to change their name. 

[TwiceHorn 31085]

https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-sues-us-prodding-prove-suspicions/

 

 

[elfenix 34161]

On 3/6/2019 at 11:11 PM, ChiTownDoc said:

I'm pretty sure I fucked up by just looking at the % the Chinese own of all FOREIGN US debt.  I'll look again but the Japanese were very close as well.  To me these are still big numbers but no 23%.  Update: As of October 2018, foreigners owned $6.2 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 39 percent of the debt held by the public of $16.1 trillion and 28 percent of the total debt of $21.8 trillion.

 

 

So indeed I stand corrected at that time they owned 25% of the foreign debt.  But I still see this as a big problem.  Also remember this has nothing to do with how much 'private' Chinese money is used to hold US assets.  They just dropped a billion or so on the Waldorf in New York.  The government also at times will just say stop investing in the US or repatriate funds. This is dangerous. 

And I'll leave this here - my number was off but its absolutely a threat:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/05/chinas-1-point-2-trillion-weapon-that-could-be-used-in-a-us-trade-war.html

 

So they own a bunch of pieces of paper with no inherent value and just spent a lot of money on something that can't leave the US and that's a problem for the US?  

So long as they want to sell us way more consumer goods than we sell to them, they're going to have to keep buying treasuries and buildings. They don't use dollars internally.

If they tried to dump dollars on the open market they'd be hurting themselves - it'd be like Bezos dumping Amazon stock and the value would plummet. The value of their holdings would degrade and at the same time a dollar wouldn't buy as much junk so they'd sell us less stuff.

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by elfenix
goddamn autocorrect

[ChiTownDoc 21071]

53 minutes ago, elfenix said:

So they own a bunch of pieces of paper with no inherent value and just spent a lot of money in something that can't leave the US and that's a problem for the US?  

So long as they want to sell us way more consumer goods than we sell to them, they're going to have to keep buying treasuries and buildings. They don't use dollars internally.

If they tried to dump dollars on the open market they'd be hurting themselves - it'd be like Bezos dumping Amazon stock and the clue would plummet. The value of their holdings would degrade and at the same time a dollar wouldn't buy as much junk so they'd sell us less stuff.

 

They’re much better suited to hurt themselves as long as it hurts us too.  If it comes down to which country can take the most pain, they’ll win every time.  

[Parliament 14086]

https://www.nj.com/news/2019/03/feds-seize-1-million-lbs-of-pork-smuggled-from-china-to-nj-port-amid-african-swine-fever-outbreak.html

Officials announced the seizure of more than 50 shipping containers during a press conference Friday morning at a warehouse in Elizabeth. Three rooms were filled wall-to-wall with packages of the illegally smuggled pork products.

“Agriculture specialists made a critical interception of these prohibited animal products, and stopped them from entering the U.S. before they could potentially cause grave damage,” said Troy Miller, director of Customs and Border Protection Field Operations in New York/Newark.

The seizure was in an effort to battle the spread of African swine fever, a contagious, deadly virus which has killed more than a million pigs in China. The disease has never been reported in the United States, and does not affect humans, but spreads rapidly to domestic pigs and wild boars. If African swine fever infected American livestock, it could cause $10 billion in damage to the pork industry in just one year, Miller said.

The million-pounds of pork is the largest agricultural seizure in the U.S., he said. More than 100 Custom and Border Protection agricultural specialists and canines from the Department of Agriculture worked to uncover the prohibited food.

The pork was smuggled in various different ways including in ramen noodle bowls to Tide detergent, deputy chief agricultural specialist Basil Liakakos said.

China imports a LOT of pork, and we have tariffs on our exports there.  I find it hard to believe the smuggler is making money on this job.  Add to that, China has a major problem with Africa swine fever.  It's isn't contagious to humans, but it kills pigs and taints their meat.  We're take major biosecurity precautions here, to keep things like African swine fever out.  

So I'm going to say it.  This was an attempt to move a virulent disease from China into the US.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23355]

Reddit Has Become A Battleground Of Alleged Chinese Trolls

“Bad enough to have to deal with Russian Ops and the Alt-Right, but now we have to deal with Chinabots as well.”

Full article in link. 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/reddit-coordinated-chinese-propaganda-trolls

 

“Believe it or not, this shit is effective."

One Reddit user who’s paying close attention to China content on the platform is a Westerner who has lived in China for more than 20 years. Jim, as he asked to be called, told BuzzFeed News he has definitely seen a change in the tone of discussion on the site about anything related to China over the last year.

“You mention Falun Gong and it’s amazing, they just come out of the woodwork and all say the same thing,” he said.

“You get a lot of brand-new accounts that are suddenly popping up and their whole deal seems to be to engage you on China-related topics.”

He said his long experience in China helps him recognize the party’s propaganda and messaging tactics when they’re applied outside the country. And he thinks Reddit and the West as a whole are not prepared to deal with it.

“Believe it or not, this shit is effective,” he said. “This shifting the narrative and downplaying and questioning sources, it actually works. People in the West are entirely stupid when it comes to China.” 

[Dbeasy 14931]

China is a country that lacks moral standards. They are the biggest threat to mankind in this world, even above global warming. I’ve spent twenty years working with and in China. Terrible terrible country. Most of the people themselves are fine, but they are being brainwashed daily by government control of the media. There are also cultural practices that don’t align well with a moral compass.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23355]

On 3/10/2019 at 9:57 AM, ChiTownDoc said:

They’re much better suited to hurt themselves as long as it hurts us too.  If it comes down to which country can take the most pain, they’ll win every time.  

However, globalization and China’s desire to be at the head of the table to set the rules acts as a built in deterrent from them doing anything that would dramatically disrupt the global economic system.  

Their gameplan is clearly is to slowly subvert and bend the economic order to their favor.  

They’re not looking to blow it all up like Russia which is maneuvering from a position of economic weakness.  

China is a economic powerhouse looking to expand into the international markets.

[RPM 26167]

Coasties tell China gàn nǐ niáng!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taiwan-military/us-navy-coast-guard-ships-pass-through-strategic-taiwan-strait-idUSKCN1R50ZB

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, the U.S. military said, as part of an increase in the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.

The voyage risks raising tensions with China further but will likely be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from Washington amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.

The two ships were identified as the Navy destroyer Curtis Wilbur and the Coast Guard cutter Bertholf, a U.S. military statement said.

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the statement said.

“The U.S. will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” it added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing that China had already lodged “representations” with the United States, and that it had paid “close attention” to the U.S. ships.

Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom of navigation patrols.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, to China’s anger, will stop over in Hawaii this week at the end of a tour of the Pacific.

Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the democratic island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms.

The Pentagon says the United States has sold Taiwan more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010.

Beijing has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of “one China” and sacred Chinese territory.

China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle Taiwan during drills in the past few years and worked to isolate the island internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released a report earlier this year describing Taiwan as the “primary driver” for China’s military modernization, which it said had made major advances in recent years.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said trade negotiations with China were progressing and a final agreement “will probably happen,” adding that his call for tariffs to remain on Chinese imported goods for some time did not mean talks were in trouble.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

On 3/6/2019 at 11:05 PM, TwiceHorn said:

They havent really abandoned socialism.  Production for internal consumption is still state-run and they are forcing the "experimental" quasi capitalist entities to pay "social dividends." 

I am realistic about socialistic policies.  Some are very useful and may be the only way to get things done on a large scale (e.g highways).  But state-ownership of the means of production has been a failure nearly everywhere it has been tried and seems to me to be a rotten fucking idea for a country the size of the US (or China, or Russia).  Statoil/Equinor works, but it's 1/3 private owned and I think oil and gas is a special case, particularly for a country that possesses the technology to exploit its own resources, cf. Central and South America.

That is certainly the case with natural resources. However, the same factories that produce products for the west, also produce products for internal consumption, and are often the same things without the expensive brand label. I don't think many, if any, are state owned although they all pay the bribes they need to. Small business also seems to operate similarly in cities and are for local consumption only. Perhaps food staple producers are state owned still. 

One interesting thing I have found with Chinese communism is that "nail houses" still exist so there is still some compassion associated with it. The Soviets certainly would not have allowed people to stop a highway from going through. In fact, they probably would have just bulldozed it with the occupants still inside. 

[Parliament 14086]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/canola-ban-sask-farmers-disappointed-1.5072637

Canola is a huge part of Canada's ag economy, and China buys a lot of it.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

On 3/25/2019 at 9:37 AM, FondrenRoad said:

That is certainly the case with natural resources. However, the same factories that produce products for the west, also produce products for internal consumption, and are often the same things without the expensive brand label. I don't think many, if any, are state owned although they all pay the bribes they need to. Small business also seems to operate similarly in cities and are for local consumption only. Perhaps food staple producers are state owned still. 

One interesting thing I have found with Chinese communism is that "nail houses" still exist so there is still some compassion associated with it. The Soviets certainly would not have allowed people to stop a highway from going through. In fact, they probably would have just bulldozed it with the occupants still inside. 

You are correct that there are Chinese outward facing companies producing top quality products for western markets, but they are only doing so with extensive, extensive assistance in engineering, manufacturing and quality control from their western customers. On occasion someone leaves one of those Chinese companies with the benefit of that western exposure and starts up their own. It seems that they are mostly incapable of competing other than on rock bottom price due to slave wages without substantial western assistance, either voluntary or involuntary. 

And yes some of that bleeds over to things for internal consumption like cell phones and computers and probably involves patent infringement on a fairly massive scale. If it's something that China produces without assistance from western companies it's probably garbage. But as Chinese mfg becomes more attractive for more and more western companies, eg GM/buick they will reap the benefit at 1st peoples automotive factory 13 and in chinese cars. 

But China is also becoming less attractive than Vietnam and other Asian countries for manufacturing. So their pipeline could dry up. I'm not sure they can sustain the way Japan and Korea have done. Maybe by stealing all our shit. 

 

 

[Parliament 14086]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-05/don-t-count-on-u-s-china-trade-relations-warming-up-anytime-soon

Too much to quote, but it does a good job of explaining how we got here.

[Zavala 1384]

There no Canada thread, but Chinese are buying up Canada so maybe relevant

https://globalnews.ca/video/5134697/justin-trudeau-drowned-out-by-boos-protest-chants-during-press-conference-in-toronto

[XYZ 2154]

On 3/17/2019 at 9:48 AM, Dbeasy said:

There are also cultural practices that don’t align well with a moral compass.

Such as what?

[Parliament 14086]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-swinefever-pork-idUSKCN1RO0MP

Up to 200 million pigs could be culled or die from being infected as African swine fever spreads through China, Rabobank said, by far the highest such forecast yet and underscoring the gravity of the epidemic in the world’s top pork producer.

Such a number would mark a huge chunk of the nation’s pig herd, which Rabobank says stood at 360 million animals late last year, and comes as many in the industry say the spread of swine fever there is much worse than authorities have reported.

The drop would drag down China’s pork output by 30 percent in 2019 from last year, Rabobank said in a statement late on Thursday, boosting demand for meat imports and sapping appetite for animal feed made from commodities like soybeans.

The Ag community has been talking about this for awhile, and it's just now hitting the mainstream press.  They eat huge amounts of pork, and much of it is produced in small, backyard pens.  (Think backyard chickens in the US.)  Biosecurity in these farms is impossible and when one farm gets it, it spreads quickly.

No vaccination exists.  I'm sure they're working on one, but until they have it, Chinese pork production will struggle.  

[happyfunball 481]

US businesses are at fault

[berlinerbaer 670]

I chatted at length about a year ago with a company VP about doing business in China, and he said in no uncertain terms how wearily he viewed the prospect. He was well aware of the risks, as I would imagine most upper managers would be. Thankfully, it's not an attractive market for our division.

Despite all that, we just can't resist sailing too close to the rocks. Our most technical salesperson just spent a month there. I recently learned we have started manufacturing our most popular product, and a major portion of our technology and competitive advantage, at our Chinese plant. We own the site, but espionage, if possible, has already occurred. The lure of fortune is just too strong.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

On 4/6/2019 at 5:45 PM, XYZ said:

Such as what?

The central thing is that they don't have a firm cultural concept of a contract that fixes relations between two parties.  To them, the relationship remains infinitely variable, even when they sign a contract after lengthy negotiations.  They'll call up and try to change a major term as soon as it suits them to do so.

Nor do they have firm conceptions of property rights.

Everything is or appears to a westerner to be highly situational, ethically.

An amazing example.  I was over there telling a group of patent agents about US patents and the system.  And one of their people, with a completely straight face, in front of a dozen other employees, asked "If we were accused of patent infringement because we used a certain machine, why couldn't we just hide the machine?"

I really haven't ever heard anything like that from a western client, even in a small, confidential meeting, as anything other than a joke in nearly 30 years of practice.

I can't really explain it adequately, but suffice it to say that they don't think like we do, and the way they do think seems lawless and immoral to a westerner.

[Dbeasy 14931]

I chatted at length about a year ago with a company VP about doing business in China, and he said in no uncertain terms how wearily he viewed the prospect. He was well aware of the risks, as I would imagine most upper managers would be. Thankfully, it's not an attractive market for our division.
Despite all that, we just can't resist sailing too close to the rocks. Our most technical salesperson just spent a month there. I recently learned we have started manufacturing our most popular product, and a major portion of our technology and competitive advantage, at our Chinese plant. We own the site, but espionage, if possible, has already occurred. The lure of fortune is just too strong.

There will be no fortune for your company, just your company’s lost fortune due to what they steal, with full governmental support.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

Another thing that's common over there.  Let's say you engage a die-casting firm to make parts for you.  You bring them or help them make tooling for the parts.  They will sell or give copies of the tooling to another plant, which will start making the parts and selling them into the US.

Or, if your production run stops temporarily, they will start punching parts using your tooling and selling them to someone else.

Before you know it, you are competing with exact copies ("chinese" copies), of your own frigging products.

[Dbeasy 14931]

Another thing that's common over there.  Let's say you engage a die-casting firm to make parts for you.  You bring them or help them make tooling for the parts.  They will sell or give copies of the tooling to another plant, which will start making the parts and selling them into the US.
Or, if your production run stops temporarily, they will start punching parts using your tooling and selling them to someone else.
Before you know it, you are competing with exact copies ("chinese" copies), of your own frigging products.

They will actually setup new companies and a factory a few miles away from the factory that is producing for you, and move some of the employees to go set it up.

[Crusher 127]

53 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

They will actually setup new companies and a factory a few miles away from the factory that is producing for you, and move some of the employees to go set it up.

Very true...Happening to the company I work for now. Supposedly the new company across the street will be better at working with our corporate entity. LOL!!! The first company has some of our intellectual property now and the new one across the street will steal the rest.

It's a joke. The thirst for year over year growth has blinded them to the massive IP theft that they are incurring. Fuck it. "NO MORE SECRETS"

[Crusher 127]

Plus. I am the only one that thought that " Crazy Rich Asians " was supposed to be funny? And then it wasn't ?

 

Or doubly mad because it wasn't a porno either..?

Edited April 14, 2019 by Crusher

[TwiceHorn 31085]

Another thing.  Several years ago, as response to the ongoing criticism of their IP practices, they actually implemented a patent and trademark law that is fairly functional.  Then they "ordered" Chinese companies to start filing patents, which they did, and they started taking their Chinese patents to the US for filing.  It makes a certain amount of sense:  "see our own companies use our system and bring their patents to the US."

Anyway, a net positive I suppose and some non-Chinese are having some limited success enforcing their patents in China. Beats hell out of the big fat nothing they had 25 years ago.

But the average Chinese businessperson, even one heavily engaged with the west, has almost no clue what a patent really does or why his company might want one.  It's just a motion they go through because it's "good business practice" and their government more or less told them to do it.  I am told "Japan Inc." was much the same way 40-50 years ago. 

And Japan is strange. They file hundreds of thousands of patents a year in Japan (and bring them to the US in sufficient numbers that Canon is usually a or the top patentee in the US), but only a tiny fraction of those are ever pursued to the grant stage, most are published and abandoned, resulting in no rights in Japan.

[triplehorn 2664]

 

[happyfunball 481]

I have heard this a lot too from Chinese nationals who have been westernized

[LonghornJudas 1089]

On 4/13/2019 at 11:31 PM, TwiceHorn said:

Another thing that's common over there.  Let's say you engage a die-casting firm to make parts for you.  You bring them or help them make tooling for the parts.  They will sell or give copies of the tooling to another plant, which will start making the parts and selling them into the US.

Or, if your production run stops temporarily, they will start punching parts using your tooling and selling them to someone else.

Before you know it, you are competing with exact copies ("chinese" copies), of your own frigging products.

Truth. Been doing plug-n-play type games and electronics in China since 2007. Once the STPs, BOMs, and designs are transferred, you can pretty guarantee someone else will be using it soon. I wish I could go somewhere else and still compete in this market, but even Mexico and India are quite unreliable. I found one of my devices being sold as white label on Alibaba a few years ago. That was fun...

[AeroHorn 735]

The only thing standing in our way to overcome the Chinese advanage (supply chain infrastructure and cheap labor) is our weakness to take the easy way out. With automation, we can overcome the cheap labor aspect to some degree, and bring back the product assembly as a first step. We do the designing and engineering, and work on materials and equipment, and hence Foxcon type assembly should be easy to do onshore. >80% of IP is protected if we just do this, leaving onshoring of component fabrication (stamping, polishing, molding, etc.) for a later time. I have worked with American CM's in China (Flex, Jabil) to implement our product in their factories in China, and except for cheap labor, there was nothing of value, except the local availability of component suppliers who required constant handholding. A sweet deal for them since they were getting trained for free.

 

[TwiceHorn 31085]

Well it is not just cheap labor, it's a near complete lack of environmental and safety and every other kind of regulation that increases manufacturing cost in the US. 

[AeroHorn 735]

That's correct. But product assembly and test has a small environmental footprint, compared to fabricating components that use nasty chemicals, etc. Similar to car assembly in US, we should make a concerted effort to do product assembly here. Of course, it is going to be costlier to have factories to address at least the US market, but I think it will pay off long term by giving us the opportunity to develop new tech in manufacturing such as smart factories. By not doing manufacturing here, we are cutting ourselves out of a big chunk of future innovation.

[Parliament 14086]

I mentioned up-thread they have a bad African Swine Fever outbreak going on. This clip is allegedly from the disposal of sick pigs. (Trigger warning):

[Hugo Stiglitz 23355]

 

[Parliament 14086]

22 hours ago, Parliament said:

I mentioned up-thread they have a bad African Swine Fever outbreak going on. This clip is allegedly from the disposal of sick pigs. (Trigger warning):

Corrected.  Disposing of sick pigs in China:

 

[Dbeasy 14931]

I just want to make an additional comment about why we should all care about China.

The US created a brand of democracy that allowed anyone, at any socio-economic level, to achieve success and wealth. The people of the country were able to share in that wealth by buying the stocks of companies that competed freely in the market.

China, on the other hand, is a somewhat centrally planned economy with winners and losers defined to some extent by the government. These people do not have freedom.

As they grow more and more powerful, they take over industries thru deceit, cheating and stealing. They then develop dominant positions via their low cost structure and drive global competitors out of business, leaving them more and more in control of markets. By extension, they are slowly impacting the freedoms of people throughout the world.

This isn’t about producing tinker toys in a factory. It’s about taking away the freedoms of mankind by government control.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20333]

45 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

This isn’t about producing tinker toys in a factory. It’s about taking away the freedoms of mankind by government control.

 

 

Well when you put it like that, it sounds serious. 

[SmokeyTheBear 5562]

SIAP 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/15/business/jack-ma-996-china/index.html

One of China's richest men has been criticized for endorsing the controversial culture of 12-hour workdays in the country's red-hot tech industry, saying employees who worked longer hours will get the "rewards of hard work."

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba(BABA), has spoken out on social media in recent days in support of the Chinese work practice known as "996." The number refers to working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week and is said to be common among the country's big technology companies and start-ups.

Curious if this will start a trend as the government looks at forcing that production level nation wide. It'll make China boom to scary levels short term but burn them out long term. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23355]

1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

I just want to make an additional comment about why we should all care about China.

The US created a brand of democracy that allowed anyone, at any socio-economic level, to achieve success and wealth. The people of the country were able to share in that wealth by buying the stocks of companies that competed freely in the market.

China, on the other hand, is a somewhat centrally planned economy with winners and losers defined to some extent by the government. These people do not have freedom.

As they grow more and more powerful, they take over industries thru deceit, cheating and stealing. They then develop dominant positions via their low cost structure and drive global competitors out of business, leaving them more and more in control of markets. By extension, they are slowly impacting the freedoms of people throughout the world.

This isn’t about producing tinker toys in a factory. It’s about taking away the freedoms of mankind by government control.

Globalization has made foreign policy and domestic policy increasingly intertwined.  Most Americans don’t get this yet but they will when it really starts to hurt. 

[F250 28623]

20 hours ago, SmokeyTheBear said:

SIAP 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/15/business/jack-ma-996-china/index.html

One of China's richest men has been criticized for endorsing the controversial culture of 12-hour workdays in the country's red-hot tech industry, saying employees who worked longer hours will get the "rewards of hard work."

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba(BABA), has spoken out on social media in recent days in support of the Chinese work practice known as "996." The number refers to working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week and is said to be common among the country's big technology companies and start-ups.

Curious if this will start a trend as the government looks at forcing that production level nation wide. It'll make China boom to scary levels short term but burn them out long term. 

This is pretty common in India too and not unusual for startups here in the U.S. This kind of workload makes sense for a startup where the workers are heavily invested in the company's success but not for established companies where you are just a salaried employee.

 

[happyfunball 481]

More Chinese nationals are being caught secretly working for the Chinese military