
Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure - antiviral
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-cash-is-suddenly-toxic-in-silicon-valley-following-u-s-pressure-campaign-11560263302
======
surge
Chinese investment means increased pressure on tech oligopolies* to increase
censorship of media critical of China. They've been branching out to increase
soft influence, keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan
as a separate nation. Then there's what is currently going on in Hong Kong.
Chinese investor cash is effectively Chinese government investment. It's not a
good thing.

*edit

~~~
dcolkitt
Not that this isn't a valid concern, but is there really any evidence that
this is happening in Silicon Valley? Hong Kong's a different matter because of
just how comparatively dominating and close by the mainland Chinese market is
compared to the tiny city state.

But in the US tech sector, the Chinese market is at best an after-thought.
We're also living through probably the strongest seller's market in history
when it comes to venture funding. My guess is that in most situations if a
fund like Tencent tried to force an Internet startup to censor their content,
they'd get laughed in the face as the founders just walked next door to the
next VC firm on Sand Hill Road.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a SV insider by any stretch. So take these speculations
on my part with a big grain of salt...)

~~~
cwkoss
A reddit user from Hong Kong was recently banned from the /r/pics/ subreddit
for posting about their support for the Hong Kong protests against

[https://www.reddit.com/r/chinareddits/comments/bz177v/got_ba...](https://www.reddit.com/r/chinareddits/comments/bz177v/got_banned_in_rpics_after_receiving_6_awards_in_a/)

Tencent recently invested in Reddit.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/reddit-users-
revolt-o...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/reddit-users-revolt-on-
news-of-chinese-investment/10798584)

~~~
cmonnow
The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is
similar.

Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic
terrorism gets banned.

Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users
banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page.

Not surprising, since there are 3 mods who moderate both r/worldnews & r/india

~~~
happppy
Islamic terrorism? Indian Army is killing a number of people in Kashmir daily
and still Muslims are terrorists?

Indian Agency RAW is the major sponsor of terrorist attacks and still Muslims
are terrorists.

Muslims are being killed in Palestine by Israel and still Muslims are
terrorists.

US attacked Afghanistan for oil and still Muslims are terrorists.

US threatening to attack Iran and still Muslims are terrorists.

~~~
siphon22
Other people doing bad things does not negate that Muslims also do bad things.
I hate this deflection/whataboutism as if it means anything.

On another note,

>Muslims are being killed in Palestine by Israel and still Muslims are
terrorists.

>US attacked Afghanistan for oil and still Muslims are terrorists.

>US threatening to attack Iran and still Muslims are terrorists.

You can talk about and criticize all three of these things freely if you want,
without worrying about being retaliated against physically by extremists or
being censored by platforms who are afraid of the lashback if they fail to do
so as Muslims are somehow a protected minority.

------
rawrmaan
Good. We raised Series A from Chinese investors a few years ago and they were
toxic. Not to mention the political implications of enriching countries like
China and Saudi Arabia. In hindsight would have rather closed up shop than
taken their money.

~~~
omginternets
Could you elaborate? What made it toxic?

~~~
bduerst
Not GP, but I've pitched to a crossover fund from China and they were super
seedy. On top of having a questionable website and other investments, one of
the red flags was they wanted their engineers to review our source code
before/without signing any NDAs or commitments.

~~~
avocado4
We also had Chinese VCs ask to review our code (their value proposition was
access to Chinese hospital data). Also "system design interviews" asking to
essentially how everything works in technical detail, and would work for
future expansion plans.

~~~
stcredzero
_(their value proposition was access to Chinese hospital data)_

Whose value proposition to whom?

------
fmajid
I'd be more concerned about Chinese financing of Hollywood. Nearly every big-
budget production these days has Chinese co-producers. This leads to farcical
episodes like the remake of Red Dawn featuring feeble North Korea as the
villain rather than China as originally envisioned.

~~~
learc83
Russia was the villain in the original movie and China was on the US side (but
were only briefly mentioned). Or do you mean "as originally envisioned for the
remake"?

~~~
ethbro
In the original, it was in fact strongly implied that the Warsaw Pact nuked
China once war broke out.

------
potatofarmer45
It's not just Chinese investors, even having large Chinese customers raises
red flags during BD work for us.

We provide a SaaS for data analytics and often we hold a copy of the client
database to provide rapid answers to queries.

We were recently finalizing a deal with a US based retailer when it came out
that we worked operated in China and the tone of the conversation shifted
immediately. They literally sought all manners of guarantees on data security
and storage that were unnecessary, but due to the current climate, seems to
make everyone paranoid.

Now we have to specificlly mention in our integration docs that when we do
multi-zone backups, none of those backups are in China. They never were, but
now we have to be explicit because it's coming up in so many of our
conversations.

Our pilot with the Chinese company ends in November. We are seriously
considering terminating the deal because it's trending towards the case where
we can either have China, or Non-China markets. Not both.

~~~
duxup
That doesn't seem too unusual to me.

I worked with US and European financial institutions who regularly requested /
needed guarantees that data (not necessary financial data, all sorts of data),
who had access to what, and etc.

Most of it all seemed design to ensure that the things / company / people were
within a reasonable legal context, sometimes that context was just what
country the data was in, the people who worked on it.

Laws provide everyone a framework to know how things might play out if
something goes wrong, if someone is in a country that generally doesn't
respect those laws all rules are out the window.

------
antiviral
Here is a snippet of the article, which I am posting under the Fair Use Act (I
think you should all consider a subscription):

"Silicon Valley startup Pilot AI Labs Inc. signed a Chinese-backed venture-
capital firm as its first big investor. By last summer, Pilot AI wanted it
gone.

The U.S. startup hoped to sell more of its artificial-intelligence software to
the U.S. government after working with the Pentagon, according to people
familiar with its operations, and worried its effort could be hurt by the
investor’s ties to China’s government. The chairman of the Chinese-backed
investor, Digital Horizon Capital, was asked to sell back its stake, said one
of the people. He angrily refused.

Chinese investors were once embraced in Silicon Valley both for their
pocketbooks and their access to one of the world’s largest and trickiest
markets. Today, they are suddenly less welcome.

Since late last year, amid rising U.S-China tensions, venture firms with China
ties have been dialing back their U.S. investments, structuring deals in novel
ways to avoid regulators or shutting their U.S. offices. Some American venture
firms are dumping their Chinese limited partners or walling them off with
special structures. And some U.S. startups that have taken significant Chinese
money are keeping the investments quiet or trying to push their Chinese
investors out to avoid scrutiny..."

~~~
PakG1
That's a horrible example. Of course that's not going to wash. Of course an
investor would not be willing to sell back their stake before seeing the
return they were looking for. If they wanted to sell AI software to the US
GOVERNMENT, they should have found US investors. If they couldn't, then
investors from US allied nations. They should have seen this coming a mile
away, no?

~~~
jeremyjh
Our relationship with China looked a lot different in July, 2016 when they
took that investment.

~~~
elefanten
Ehhh.. no, not really. Not to anyone watching China beyond what appears in the
mainstream headlines.

Things have been on a strong downtrend since 2012 and alarms have been ringing
loud since around 2014.

Edit: Anyone writing a business plan including sensitive technology sales to
the US government should DEFINITELY have seen this coming in 2016.

Edit2: Also, candidate Trump had loudly been yelling about China for over a
year at that point

~~~
umeshunni
> Things have been on a strong downtrend since 2012 and alarms have been
> ringing loud since around 2014.

Can you elaborate?

~~~
elefanten
The short version: that's when Xi Jinping took power and started very quickly
undoing all kinds of moves toward moderation and reform that had been
undertaken by the previous few leaders.

He ramped up control over the population, consolidated power for himself and
cracked down on dissidents/party criticism.

The 2014 bit is more subjective, but going from memory that's when I started
to regularly see semi-mainstream technology, business and politics
publications focusing on problems/concerns with China.

------
dmode
Hey, Chinese money is bad. But Saudi money is more than welcome. 50% of
Softbank's vision fund is from Middle East sovereign funds, who have even more
brutal censorship laws and commits more brazen human rights policies. US
policy is completely incoherent and probably explained by who pays the bribes
to Whitehouse vs. any legitimate principles.

~~~
chibg10
It helps that SA isn't really a risk to export its censorship (among other
ills) to the US in the near future.

I generally sympathize with the position of rejecting Saudi money where
possible, but it's inaccurate to frame US policy towards China in purely moral
terms. In the case of China, there's a lot of ideological self-interest at
stake for the US.

------
citilife
The reverse is also happening and is a _way_ bigger deal.

Resources are also being pulled out of China, as U.S. companies have spent the
last several decades plowing tens (if not hundreds) of billions into China a
year. It'll be a fairly large windfall coming out of China as well. To India,
Mexico, Taiwan, the United States, etc.

~~~
bjourne
Why is it ok for US companies to plow billions into China, but not for Chinese
companies to plow billions into the US? Seems like a double-standard.

~~~
jjeaff
Problems with the overreach and missteps of the US government aside, the US is
not systematically silencing its critics through censorship and forced work
camps. And the human rights record of China is abysmal in comparison to the
US.

To think the two are comparable is just head in the sand at this point.

~~~
bjourne
I agree with you. But that was never an issue when US companies _invested_ in
China. It appears that cooperating with authoritarian regimes is fine as long
as it is your nations companies that comes out on top.

~~~
jjeaff
Yes. I definitely want the companies of the US to come out on top. Or the
companies of any country that has a decent human rights record.

------
lallysingh
Unlaundered Chinese cash, of course. Hop it through an "investment" somewhere
else and suddenly it's the investment arm of a multinational REIT.

~~~
aswanson
Dampens direct influence proportionally, though. The "cleaner" the money is,
the more difficult it is for nefarious sources to dictate terms of use to the
end user.

------
rhacker
I doubt it. During the Khashoggi thing it turned a few heads but most
businesses just stayed quiet for the few months it was a thing. Now biz as
usual. I would expect that the same is happening for China money. Hush hush
until we get out of the cloud.

~~~
DeonPenny
The difference is that was just social pressure SA is still a US ally. China
is not and given elections are coming up China will a huge talking about and
looks to be approaching war on drugs level brinkmanship.

------
ETHisso2017
It's interesting: Chinese cash is welcome in real estate and the US treasury
market. What is it about startups that makes the government concerned?

~~~
hiram112
As someone who has been waiting on the sidelines to buy a home for years now,
I'd love to see the Chinese begin pulling cash out of our real estate market.

It's said that most of this cash has pushed up prices mostly on the West
coast, but I have this belief that a lot of money has trickled into almost all
metro areas of the US. I can't see any other reason for home prices to be so
out of whack in medium-sized US cities with no apparent influence (e.g. Amazon
HQ2 in DC).

~~~
robocat
New Zealand banned foreign investors last year.

Prices have dropped where I live (although could easily be due to other
causes). Mortgage rates have also dropped recently.

------
sniperjzp
Reminds me of Reddit, Uber, Tesla and Snapchat (well, LA based), they have
large portions of Chinese investment.

------
tibaiiplus
Writer of the article here. Totally get the frustrations with paywalls. Bottom
line is feature stories like this take weeks, months, sometimes a year or more
to produce. Sites without paywalls have to go for clicks (which are worth
close to zero now that Google/Facebook gobble up most online ad budgets). If
low value clicks are all you have, you end up like dailymail.co.uk.

If you want high value news, you have to pay someone a reasonable salary to
report/write it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy and here's another fun part of the story:

The FBI office has conducted hundreds of briefings for companies on
cybersecurity threats and economic espionage. It discourages people from using
their regular smartphones and laptops when traveling in China and warns male
U.S. executives to avoid “honeypot” espionage attempts by attractive women.
“If you’re not a 10 in the U.S., you’re not a 10 in China,” officials say
they’ve told the executives.

~~~
stcredzero
_“If you’re not a 10 in the U.S., you’re not a 10 in China,” officials say
they’ve told the executives._

Not true. If you're a 5 in the US, you're not a 10 in China. However, being
Asian might well cost you a point or two in the US, depending on whom you ask.
There are some weird cultural things going on in the US, in particular,
manifesting as biases. I was raised in a place where we literally had to drive
almost 50 miles to visit other Asian friends of the family. I have some
_perspective_ on this matter. Up until around 2011, it was not hard to find
online assertions that Asian men were fundamentally less masculine and
desirable, and it's still not impossible today.

Decades ago, I'd been called a "hottie." Strangely, the reactions I've gotten
from women have varied _tremendously_ \-- more than makes sense to me. My
conclusion after all these years, is that it had more to do with them than
with myself.

My wife is from Fujian province in China. She has 4 degrees, including a PhD
from Stanford. She used to perform Salsa dance. There's a video of her dancing
in a gold sequined outfit looking like a starlet from the 60's. (Not public
and which I'm not going to post, thank you.) She used to date millionaires,
before I somehow snagged her. I've talked to her about these issues of bias,
and my conclusion from those talks, is that, yes, there's some weird,
pervasive "filter" in US culture, with regards to Asian men.

(I think it's in the same category of phenomena as the "Shiksa" attraction.)

~~~
hiram112
I agree as a white guy. Asian guys have never been particularly well placed in
most US media, movies, etc. and there is a stigma when white women date them -
you rarely ever see it outside of places like SF and NYC.

I know for a fact my white female friends (at least in high school and
college) had large biases against Asian dudes.

What's worse, it seems that many American-Asian women go for white guys
instead of Asian men, though I have no idea why.

On the flip side, I believe I do get an extra few points with the ladies when
I travel to Asian countries. I don't know if it's because they assume I'm
wealthy (which I am compared to most in low wage Asian countries) or if it is
just the foreign novelty.

And it's kind of a stereotype now where the unattractive American or British
gent goes over to East / SE Asia to teach English (and pick up a girlfriend or
bride).

~~~
stcredzero
_I know for a fact my white female friends (at least in high school and
college) had large biases against Asian dudes._

Thanks for this! I dislike identity politics when used as a bludgeon for the
sake of power. However, many of the phenomena talked about are indeed real.

There's one Brazillian rom com, where the Chinese boyfriend was something of
the "bad guy" or at least the punching bag. There's nothing about the
character that's actually characterization. It's all about his being an Asian
guy, who furnishes his apartment in a stereotypical "Asian" fashion, teaches
martial arts, only ever wears his martial arts uniform, and makes gross noises
in the bathroom. Wish I could remember the name of that movie.

 _And it 's kind of a stereotype now where the unattractive American or
British gent goes over to East / SE Asia to teach English (and pick up a
girlfriend or bride)._

It also works like this for Irish and Scottish guys with that "cute accent."

------
chewbacha
In conjunction with the trade wars and increasingly hostile posturing between
leaders, I'm nervous that the ultimate consequence may be war between super
powers.

If raising the number of trading partners decreases the likelihood of war,
decreasing may increase it's chance instead.

[https://phys.org/news/2015-12-partners-wars-
nations.html](https://phys.org/news/2015-12-partners-wars-nations.html)

~~~
elefanten
There's been no change in number of trading partners as a result of the trade
war.

Also worth noting that the claim is more trading partners lowers likelihood of
war. War can still happen.

At some point, economic interdependence cannot save a situation where two
sides desperately want to change/preserve the state of something (about the
world) and those desires come into conflict.

IMO, with US-China, the best inoculation against war would be to push for
multilateral engagement... in either direction. But speaking from the US side,
US needs to bring other countries into the efforts to reform the aspects of
the CCP's behavior that are unacceptable long term.

~~~
Rapzid
The EU is acting after what has come to light in New Zealand, Australia, and
Africa. Unfortunately it appears they are acting separately because we are
such great friends these days /s .

A lot of people only familiar with the surface link this to the trade war and
Huawei, but those are largely reactions to the scope and reach of China's
propaganda, control, and soft-power efforts that have been coming to light
over the past few years.

Ultimately I believe these are all symptoms caused by a fundamental
incompatibility between China's "communist", fascist government and the
liberal democracies of the world. Unless that can be reconciled, which I don't
believe it really can, everything else is just managing for time.

------
dawhizkid
Anyone else paranoid about TikTok (owned by Chinese co ByteDance)? The fact
that it's basically a video recording app it's hard to believe there _isn 't_
a backdoor to it.

------
Leary
What is the legal basis, if any, for getting rid of your investors for this or
other reasons?

~~~
umeshunni
There's no legal basis. It's just Xenophobia.

~~~
aclsid
Nah, nobody is complaining about Taiwanese or Japanese investment, so that is
moot point, mostly made by Chinese from the continent when things don't go
their way.

~~~
sangnoir
> Nah, nobody is complaining about Taiwanese or Japanese investment, so that
> is moot point...

FYI: xenophobia =\= racism

~~~
elefanten
I don't understand the point of this FYI. GP's logic applies to both and
answers both.

~~~
sangnoir
One can be xenophobic against a nationality without being racist against a
race that happens to be predominant in the said country. You don't have to be
racist against asians (incl. Japanese and Taiwanese) to be xenophobic to the
Chinese. Parent only provided for proof against racism - not xenophobia, which
is why I noted the difference. I am not commenting on the absence or presence
of either racism/xenophobia in this particular case: I'm only noting an
important difference.

------
pigscantfly
Regardless of the wider debate, it's very sad to learn that Shoucheng Zhang
decided to take his own life. He was the only VC I've ever had a legitimate,
deep technical discussion with, and I respected him as a scientist.

------
Causality1
Even if the Chinese government never interfered with a single company, I don't
want Chinese corporate culture "leeching into the groundwater" as it were.
They put Europe and the US to shame when it comes to not giving a damn. About
safety, the environment, intellectual property, you name it.

------
julienfr112
Don't they use the dollars they receive to finance the negative US balance of
trade ? Is the dollar toxic ?

~~~
Theodores
When you have a global currency that all other currencies are measured in and
all oil is bought in, what happens to a country that has economic surpluses?
They have to buy dollars.

What happens if countries want to buy dollars? The U.S. government (well, the
Fed) has to print them. If you look at the balance of trade and look at the
dollar as a printed thing, the US is very good at getting the rest of the
world to buy their dollars (that can be just printed or magically made on a
computer screen) and getting real stuff in return. I wish I could print money
and get boxes of nice shiny iphones, shoes and other trinkets.

I think this is a pretty successful exploitation model. The dollars printed to
go overseas to buy oil and other stuff don't come back to cause inflation.
Apart from anything else, if another country decides to dump its dollars then
if that did cause inflation in the US then that would devalue their remaining
holding.

Meanwhile the US can spend as much as it wants on gunboats and the like to
enforce this hegemony.

If you benefit from this system, i.e. by being an American, then the dollar is
far from toxic. If you are a farmer in a developing nation trying to sell
wheat then your view of the dollar may be different.

~~~
muricula
"The dollars printed to go overseas to buy oil and other stuff don't come back
to cause inflation." I think this part is wrong. When overseas oil companies
get the dollars they are going to spend them, otherwise they wouldn't sell in
the first place. If the economy worked the way you suggest I think we would
see inflation from those dollars sent overseas for oil etc.

~~~
Theodores
This article introduces a new term 'structural' for describing the US trade
deficit.

Essentially if a country is to have their currency as the world's reserve
currency then they have to run at a deficit.

Since all those extra dollars that get printed go overseas they are not in the
US economy to cause price inflation, i.e. too much money chasing too few
goods.

[https://qz.com/1266044/why-does-the-us-run-a-trade-
deficit-t...](https://qz.com/1266044/why-does-the-us-run-a-trade-deficit-to-
maintain-the-dollars-privileged-position/)

------
maerF0x0
Anecdata time: In 2012 Canada allowed the sale of Nexen (an oil company) to
CNOOC. CNOOC management promised they would keep the staff in Canada, the
management local etc.

Fast forward 7 years later and it's a ghost town, they cite "business need"
but somehow all the jobs have moved abroad and the only thing remaining in
Alberta is a resource pump sending all the value abroad.

This comment is not intended to be about racially Chinese people, but the
constantly malicious and negative behavior of the communist government in
China.

~~~
majia
7 years is really a long time and there is likely to be some real needs to
adjust business operation. If the deal doesn’t specify a duration to keep jobs
in canada, you can’t reasonably expect it to be forever.

CCP has done horrible things, but it isn’t really a CCP specific behavior; any
greedy capitalist would have done the same.

~~~
fjp
Yeah this is basically what every American company does after extorting some
town or state for preferential tax breaks

------
parliament32
Why would you post the paywalled version of the link?

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-cash-is-suddenly-
toxic-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-cash-is-suddenly-toxic-in-
silicon-valley-following-u-s-pressure-campaign-11560263302?mod=rsswn)

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/urxAO](http://archive.is/urxAO)

------
codephined
Chinese cash may be toxic in Silicon Valley, but not in Silicon Wadi! Which is
why we're deliberately transferring our high-tech sector to Israel. None of
this makes any sense for America.

------
jorblumesea
So long as Chinese money comes with so many strings attached (political
concessions, IP transfer) this is good for the US and US companies. Hard to
imagine a country where investing comes with so much additional baggage.

------
kmlx
china owns 5.6% of US national debt. does this make US debt toxic?

------
ulfw
Do all of you have WSJ and NYTimes subscriptions? I can't read any of those
links submitted quite frequently

~~~
thg
For WSJ submissions you can append ?mod=rsswn to the url and read the article
that way.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-cash-is-suddenly-
toxic-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-cash-is-suddenly-toxic-in-
silicon-valley-following-u-s-pressure-campaign-11560263302?mod=rsswn)

~~~
wil421
Any chance WSJ or NYT devs read HN/Reddit and work on closing these loops?
They only seem to last for so long. Thanks for this one.

~~~
jsty
Equally likely they notice the thundering herd of non-subscribers accessing a
select few articles through a particular hole in their subscription wall.
Surely can't be that hard for them to track.

------
devy
For those who claimed Chinese cash is toxic, let me ask you an important
question: what about Softbank's cash that primarily coming from Saudi? What
about the Ivy League schools' endowment money donated by "morally
unethical"(including but not limited to middle east) sources? Are you not
going to send your children to Ivy League schools?

~~~
leroy_masochist
I think the assertion that Chinese cash is toxic is not so much because of bad
things that Chinese do to their own citizens; it looks like the point you're
trying to make is that Saudis : Khashoggi and gay people :: China : Uyghurs
and Tiananmen, or something of that nature.

Rather, the claim of toxicity stems from the perceived tendency for Chinese
investors to be difficult LPs and steal intellectual property both pre-deal
during diligence and post-deal once they are in the capital structure. There's
an additional perception of 'toxicity' in terms of the way that having Chinese
investors might limit a company's ability to procure US Gov contracts, which
is getting tighter under this administration, as described in the article.

The comparison to sending your kid to an Ivy League school makes no sense to
me whatsoever, seems like a total non-sequitur.

~~~
elefanten
No reason for this to be downvoted.

IP theft/strongarming and sales opportunities are the more likely concerns
from the entrepreneur/business side.

 _Some_ people are taking the moral stance, but TFA lines up with parent
comment well

------
itsaidpens
There are massive externalities to Chinese influence from a culture of a
city/state side. I think this is a good thing.

------
entropea
Could somebody explain to me the vicious American hate for China from a
totally uninformed viewpoint? Any links to read why I should also dislike
China?

~~~
lenzm
From a very broad moral perspective, their human rights violations are
legion[1] including large open air internment camps for ethnic/religious
minorities like the Uyghur[2], political imprisonment[3], alleged organ
harvesting of prisoners[4], supporting North Korea ...

From a purely tech perspective, state-sponsored hacking[5] and IP theft[6] are
common.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-
education_camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps)

[3] [https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-
chapters/china...](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-
chapters/china-and-tibet)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China)

[5] [https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/state-
hacking-1220201...](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/state-
hacking-12202018162931.html)

[6] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-
china-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-stole-
their-ip-within-the-last-year-cnbc.html)

~~~
Mr_Shiba
> From a very broad moral perspective, their human rights violations are
> legion

This judgement coming from the country with the highest incarceration rate,
criminalized abortion, caged immigrants, historic systematic racism, legal
bribery (lobbying), genrrymandering electoral system, countless invasions with
disastrous results in the middle east, africa & asia

Don't get me wrong but outside the US everyone is wondering what is the moral
high ground?

~~~
pessimizer
It's whataboutism to mention that one has 1.5x more absolute and 5x more per-
capita prisoners than a place one calls a police state.

~~~
ionised
Sorry, but accusing others of whataboutism doesn't detract from your own
double standards:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Criticism)

 _Others have criticized the usage of accusations of whataboutism by American
news outlets, arguing that the accusation whataboutism has been used to simply
"deflect" criticisms of human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States
or its allies.

They argue that the usage of the term almost exclusively by American outlets
is a double standard, and that moral accusations made by powerful countries
are merely a pretext to punish their geopolitical rivals in the face of their
own wrongdoing._

In fact, invoking 'whataboutism' in the way you have done is a misuse and a
deliberate attempt to deflect.

------
throwayEngineer
I'd gladly accept their money.

My company automates things, not creates economic or political policy.

------
inflatableDodo
Many people critique the system of global capitalism, however 'can we please
return to feudalism', is not generally what most of them were meaning.

------
ffn
I'm all for openness and transparency, but wouldn't an increase in US refusal
to play with China just lead to more censorship and oppression by the
communist Chinese government?

Consider the following:

1\. The Chinese communist government derives its legitimacy to rule almost
exclusively from its massive economic growth (i.e. Chinese citizens and
corporations are effectively saying to themselves "I'm ok to trade some of my
human rights for lots of money")

2\. The Chinese communist government wishes to remain in power

So if the US decides to target Chinese economic growth - i.e. lower the amount
of money that an unit of human rights could buy - this should cause the
Chinese citizens and corporations to respond by exercising the human right
that the Chinese government is no longer able to buy with growth. In turn,
this would cause the Chinese government to use alternative methods (i.e.
straight-up oppression by force) to prevent the Chinese people from becoming
unruly.

This sort of pressure on the Chinese government may lead to reform (which is
indeed a good thing), but it may also lead to civil / politic unrest and a
massive economic slow-down that will have aftershocks around the world (which
is certainly less than ideal) - and all of this pretty much will depend on how
Xi decides to handle this pressure.

Here in the US, We should at least recognize that this is a risky move and
take measures to protect ourselves against this (somehow)

~~~
nine_k
I would like to remind that the Soviet regime was defeated by economic issues.

I think the _only_ reason the CPC regime might change is due to economic
problems. The more abrupt they would be, the better: people need to remember
better times and demand change to get back there — including people at higher
positions in CPC itself.

Remember how the "cultural revolution" fiasco led to serious liberalization
and eventually to the "economic miracle".

~~~
fmajid
Chinese growth was slowing anyway. Now they have a convenient scapegoat for
that, big bad America. The long-term consequences of deep hostility against
America in the general Chinese population are hard to predict, but they are
not going to be favorable to us.

~~~
educationdata
The anti-American rhetoric has always been there, no matter what. The
Communist party can even blame the tiananmen square massacre on the western
world. This is called brainwash.

~~~
fmajid
They couldn't claim Chinese growth slowdown was cause by America then. Now,
they can, and it will even be the truth, if not the whole truth.

------
layoutIfNeeded
I always laugh whenever I remember how Zuckerberg was pandering to the
Chinese, like insisting to poorly speak Mandarin on some QA panel with Chinese
students and such.

The times they are a-changin!

~~~
darkpuma
> _" like insisting to poorly speak Mandarin on some QA panel with Chinese
> students and such."_

That's peanuts; check out this:
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/119106...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11910668/Chinese-
president-snubs-Mark-Zuckerbergs-request-for-baby-name.html)

> _The awkward moment reportedly arose when the Facebook founder, speaking in
> Mandarin, asked Mr Xi if could would honour him by giving his unborn baby
> daughter an honorary Chinese name. According to sources, Mr Xi politely
> declined, saying it was “too much responsibility”, reported Page Six, a
> celebrity news site for the New York Post._

------
peterwwillis
This is the turning point where tech has become a munition again. Rather than
export controls, it's business blacklists.

It's a weird switch. Before we would sell billions in arms around the world
with little risk of it being used against us. But digital munitions can be
used against anyone, anywhere, any time. The USG will have to tightly control
all tech used in the country to prevent cyber weaponry being used against us.

