@YC Leadership: The Chinese Article [1] reads synonymously to: YC China was RENAMED, not aborted. That's highly different from your English statement.
LOL: even the website ycchina.com redirects to MiraclePlus. http://www.ycchina.com/
They even have the YC logo on their website and claim to have funded Airbnb, Dropbox etc. Be careful to read their whole website. This whole website of MiracleMinus is extremely dishonest. I would be very careful not to be connected too much to dishonest and lack-of-integrity people like Qi.
"
YC's entrepreneurial methodology has produced a number of star companies such as Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox and more. After 14 years of practical tests, it has fully proved its effectiveness. In China, we implement the YC entrepreneurial methodology into local companies to serve our startups."
I had to dig up one of my old comments about YC China, because I specifically recall this one. I think the issue isn't one elephant in the room, it is elephants.
My comment from August 15, 2018:
"I would like to see a statement that YC China will not discriminate based on ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation and more importantly will not support startups which create technology which make doing so easier."
Gotta start somewhere. There wouldn't be as strong a push for equality in the workspace nowadays if it wasn't for (amongst others) YC backed companies pushing for it.
They probably have a significant investment from Chinese LPs. It could put those investors in a very awkward situation if YC was more explicit with their statement -- we've all seen how childishly defensive the Chinese government can get.
That money isn't that important. History isn't going to look back and think that YCombinator should have done more to look out for the wealth Chinese investors.
Business won't be the one to push the change on this attitude. It has to be people, or at best government. Most companies are morally agnostic, they only follow the money, you can judge them for it either way, but it's the truth.
In a sense, yes, but someone, somewhere had to be the one to say "we could be courageous, but let's softpedal this and come up with a lame excuse". They also (perhaps with others) had to build a culture where people know they can't speak up on it.
Of course, there's a question of causality. Are businesses "morally agnostic" because they choose to be, or because the ones that aren't don't survive? Companies that say "we don't do business with places that harvest organs from prisoners" will struggle against ones that say "we were able to cut the price of our phone 50% by doing business with (said regime)"
This would actually be a good reason to impose import duties on those places - to make goods from ethical regimes more competitive.
What do you think makes companies do what they do? Companies consist of people. There are still people making these decisions. Many companies have taken ethical stances wrt China. Many more have not. Companies don't just get let of the hook because they're companies.
You act like that doesn’t happen here...I just read a story in the LA times on how organs are being harvested from the recently deceased before a proper investigation can take place
The organs of members of marginalized groups detained in Chinese prison camps are being forcefully harvested — sometimes when patients are still alive, an international tribunal sitting in London has concluded.
they execute people solely to harvest their organs systematically, just because situations where organ harvesting happening before a proper death investigation takes place in the USA have occurred (and are likely illegal and irregular), does not in any way make them comparable.
What tells you there is nothing to gain? I was probably the only one to consider Google a degree above other GAFA companies because for a long time it resisted Chinese censorship and refused to give away access to the gmail account of Chinese activists.
In a world where so many companies' valuation is tied to the number of users willing to give you their personal data, reputation is a precious thing.
If a leader in the field were to say something like "we are withdrawing due to our revulsion at the atrocities commited by the PRC against the Uyghur people" it at least has the potential to start a preference cascade and a mass movement.
By that logic, they should withdraw funding for any US companies as US has committed the maximum number of war crimes and human rights abuses as compared to any other country.
> It’s understandable it’s a touchy subject. Why piss off China if you don’t have to? Only something to lose and nothing to gain.
Same sentiment for Saudi investors? Same for Israeli?
People have different lines and I'm sure soon founders will be doing a great more DD in this new age of outwardly conscious capitalism.
I'm patiently waiting for the tweet thread/medium article of a successful founder pointing out all the dirty cash they didn't take. Unfortunately, as of yet it is still a great deal of money that builds companies. Not unwaivering morals... One day.
Wouldn't it be an abandonment of their duty of care to portfolio companies for them to poke the bear, though?
I get that if PG tweeted something like, "We're pulling out of China because they're violently repressing pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong and they run a re-education gulag archipelago for millions of Uighurs and they murder political prisoners so they can sell their organs through their state-administered transplant market", it would be satisfying to read -- but I'm not a YC alum. I don't run a company that could get screwed if YC lands on Beijing's shit list. Sure, that's probably a small slice of the portfolio, but this is still the right call from a business perspective.
Actions speak louder than words, and this decision was pretty clear.
Why do you think it's political climate that changed YC's mind? With or without political climate being an issue, doing business in China is different and relies on of relationship building that takes a long time to nurture. It might just be hard!
Maybe GP actually referred to business cultural practices, which are indeed different in China. Have you considered this? Not everything related to China is black/white as you seem to portray it. There's more to it than a reductionist approach of thinking "they're mean communists and everything follows from that".
* I dislike the tendency of some people to prohibits others from looking at things in a nuanced manner.
Cultural differences might make business in China difficult for internationals; political differences are what make it both ethically and strategically untenable. There's no comparison.
I didn't say otherwise. But not everyone's reason for leaving the market is going to be because of evil governance. Always simplifying interactions with China and the people and businesses there to a black/white scenario is counterproductive and intellectually disingenuous.
I don't think there are ownership restrictions in this economic sector, and the Chinese government hasn't seized Alibaba, Tencent or Huawei. It sounds like you're talking more out of preconceived biases than actual knowledge of how business works in China.
> It also would be reasonable to come out and say they've changed their minds due to political climate or some other risks.
This is no different then when HR calls you in before you're terminated. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you so no point in saying anything.
If (when?) they decide to take another crack at things it'd be helpful to not be on the record about anything.
What elephant? Can you be more specific about what's controversial about this? Expansion into China would at least be a coherent basis for this stuff; then, sure, you'd want to know what compromises YC might be forced to make to stay in the good graces of their new host. This is YC withdrawing from China.
Beyond the merits of "don't do business with anyone in China because of the actions of its government", I think that YC has not been known to take such strong ethical stands in the past.
The simpler explanation is probably that the business climate is super risky if you're the foreign partner in any sort of JV with China, and they thought they could work through it through ... charisma and sweat and tears. And it turns out that in fact it is hard even if you're some techy VC or w/e.
I think few question what the gov't is doing, but the question is more whether YC in particular was affected by actions in the past year that caused them to reverse course.
They made a mistake of going into China. The abhorrent behavior of the Chinese government was highlighted in recent events, so YC decided to pull the plug. Perhaps change in leadership also played a role in this. There is definitely an up-tick in public outrange in the West vis-a-vis China.
If they overtly offend China this would negatively impact YC current portfolio companies, discourage current/future LP, and other make their business more difficult. So they went with an intermediate approach.
Your account has been using HN primarily for nationalistic and political battle. That's not allowed here, because it destroys the curiosity this site is supposed to be for. We ban accounts that keep doing this, so please don't keep doing this.
There is so much misinformation regarding China. China helps all sorts of countries against western aggression. I support socialist projects like China and do not support a straight "free market" capitalist system. I like that they have state owned enterprises. I do not support the Hong Kong terrorists and really no one in the international left does.
That would be like a company withdrawing from the US because of its killing of a million people in Iraq, global kidnapping and torture program, or instigation of coups in Latin America. It's not a likely reason.
I think you might be misinterpreting the parent. Nothing is controversial about the move itself, the elephant in the room is why they're doing it. They mention a change of strategy, but don't really spell out why.
It's pretty obvious why; everyone would be in China in a huge way if it wasn't for their trade abuse and/or human rights abuses.
I think it's reasonable to stick with what YC knows best: Startups in the US. Perhaps this will be an opportunity to use the capital that would've been directed to China for American startups.
I am also encouraged they are still funding Chinese companies and have a nuanced approach to China in this highly politically charged environment that reminds me of McCarthyism.
Oppositions to China's human rights violations does not equal to a blanket opposition to cooperation or involvement with all things Chinese. Doing so only highlights a biased view that is highly prevalent in our government today that is precisely reminiscent of McCarthyism.
Indeed one does not need to look far for such sentiments:
"The Chinese aren’t smarter than we are. They don’t work harder than we do.
"At one point during the dinner, Trump noted of an unnamed country that the attendee said was clearly China, “almost every student that comes over to this country is a spy.” " -Donald Trump
> Perfect example is the ridiculous spying bullshit that SuperMicro was accused of earlier this year.
Everyone, from the general public, to corporate America, to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, raked Bloomberg over the coals for that story. If anything, I think that's a sign that McCarthyism is hardly in play here.
That’s not a great definition of Mccarthythism. Here’s one off the top of my head:
”A political movement reaches great enough support that it can paint its minority opposition as persona non grata. Then they make even mere association with opposition into a crime against the State and force employers, housing authorities, and other institutions to block such ”sympathizers” access to their work, homes, and assets.”
You appear to have copy-pasted this definition from a blog article, and then added bullet points between the syllables to make it look more official. Yikes!
A real dictionary will show you that McCarthy-esque allegations are specifically treasonous.
Wikipedia pretty much defines it the same way: "McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence."
> specifically treasonous
Treason is one small dimension, use as a rhetorical device to make the real villain stand out - accusations without evidence.
It’s most likely due to the changing climate for companies (especially American and Canadian) operating in China. Check out this article: “how to survive an increasing difficult China”
Its a half truth divided by two, with the other two fourth’s being convenience of Qi’s own transition, we all know what we were expected to read and didnt which is the final quarter
Just have a little chuckle at what they chose to say and get out of a hairy situation
Where do you see this statement? I see, "change in leadership" and "now is not the right time".
I translate that to, new leadership (and likely those who put him there) think now is not the right time. That could be for any reason internal or external.
How is that different from the US having fuck knows how many migrants (and children) in concentration camps, or "terrorists" in concentration camps, or slaves in overcrowded prisons, etc etc etc.
I mean not specifically you, but why are people in these comments all moral policing a country halfway across the world while their own is just as bad?
The international community barely cares about what India is similarly doing in Kashmir, despite India being a democracy. In effect the most fundamental right in a democracy, the right to habeas corpus is suspended there.
There is much politically informed anti-China coverage in the MSM, so it is hard to take reports on China from them without much skepticism. Even in Hong Kong it is on display that the police are largely acting with restraint similar to what a western police force might behave, it is the protesters who have been violent.
The international community as HNers know is just part of whole international community, all western countries. There is another part ignored by English media audience. I would speculate that most HNers see the other part as naive , bribed by China , or evil while Western countries are the owner of final truth and stand on the high moral ground. Totally exclude other possibilities.
My speculation about YC is that there are always something beyond our understanding so they choose not to make judgement for time being. If that's the case I applaud their altitude. Modern human have serious cognitive defects in my view.
Quote
"...
Those that signed the first letter, criticizing China, include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
Signing the second letter, in defense of China’s policies, were: Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Kuwait, Laos, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
That line just proves how much of an echo chamber this place really is when it comes to international affairs.
I live in India. I just had lunch with my colleague who is a Kashmiri native. His parents recently arrived from that state, and his father has returned back to run his medical shop. Though the situation is not ideal, it is a far cry away from being a breach of democracy or humanitarian concerns. The government has evoked constitutional law to maintain peace and order, largely as preventive measures against extremist operations and organisation. This has certainly affected the lives of daily citizens, no doubt, but the way western media blows it out of proportion one can just wonder whether it is genuinely clueless journalism or ideologically motivated smear campaign.
Sadly the tabloid-style coverage of this horrific Chinese government policy is causing people to discount the broader issue.
The Chinese government sent government workers to take time off their normals jobs and live in the homes of Uighur Muslims suspected of disloyalty to the Chinese government. More than a million Uighur households had monitors sleeping in their rooms and watching their lives for troublesome signs like the children not using patriotic greetings or the parents wanting to keep Muslim dietary guidelines.
In this article "relatives" refers to Han Chinese government monitors and "little brothers" and "little sisters" refers to the Muslims they watched.
> The relatives were given written guidelines on how to conduct themselves. Based on reports from Uighur contacts in Urumqi and Khotan, such manuals provided guidelines and forms that needed to be filled out and then digitized for security databases. In a manual that was used in Kashgar prefecture, relatives were given specific instructions on how to get their little brothers and sisters to “let down their guard.” The manual, which was posted on the internet but taken down just as this story was going to press, advises relatives to show “warmth.” “Don’t lecture right away,” it suggests, and show concern regarding their families and bring candy for the children. It provides a checklist that included questions such as: “When entering the household, do family members appear flustered and use evasive language?” “Do they not watch TV programs at home and instead only watch VCD discs?” “Are there any religious items still hanging on the walls of the house?”
> The manual instructs the relatives to tell their little brothers and sisters that they have been monitoring all internet and cell-phone communication that is coming from the family, so they should not even think about lying when it comes to their knowledge of Islam and religious extremism.
> The manual also instructs them to help the villagers alleviate their poverty by giving them business advice and helping out around the household. They were told to report any resistance to “poverty alleviation activities.”
RFA is a US propaganda operation. Leave it up to them to make "sleeping with the wives of detained Uyghur men" sound like the job description of those government agents, rather than a consequence of poor people not having free guest beds on hand, so they have to share beds with someone, potentially with the whole household. Also clever use of "sleep with" to imply sex. (I don't doubt that some will abuse their power, but I'd expect Uyghur families to think far enough ahead to have another male relative in the same room, if not the same bed.)
EDIT: I posted this as a bit of an experiment. In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601613 I link to a TV program criticising the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs. Here I criticize blatant propaganda published by an organization funded by the US government for precisely that purpose. Almost an hour later, this comment is at -4 while the other is at +6. Agreement-based voting at it's finest, but I'm not going to let propaganda slide just because it pushes a viewpoint I agree with.
I know my comment will be downvoted for sure because it isn't a popular idea, but I'm still gonna comment on this.
Reading news about any foreign country, including China, only from US MSM, is inherently biased (sampling bias). Maybe consider reading news from Chinese outlets in this case?
I know people will start arguing that Chinese outlets are mainly propagandas because they are controlled by governments and they are not independent...
But, but are we sure that Deutsche Welle or Japan Times are unbiased?
For example, Deutsche Welle is funded by German government. [1], and the editors of the Japan Times were appointed by their government [2].
Yes, German and Japanese governments are more trustworthy than the Chinese government, but every country has its own foreign policy and political agenda. Are we sure that we are not being "brainwashed" by those media outlets?
This is happening within the US as well. Think conservative news outlets vs liberal outlets.
Basically the entire world except for China including independent non profits is reporting on the internment camps. At this point you have to be actively trying to excuse them to believe they are fictional.
I could get more internationally sourced coverage if you really need. More or less the only MSM not covering the Uighur concentration camps are the Chinese MSM.
I don’t think any major business in the world cares about this. They only care about things that affect their own revenue streams, and the average consumer isn’t boycotting companies for not doing anything about it.
Seriously. Show me one major corporation that cited this as a reason for pulling out of China. I’m not justifying the actions—I’m saying western industries don’t care about genocide. Because they don’t.
Loads of companies make political and social statements all the time. Whether it come to gay rights, protesting censorship, etc. None have said anything about the issues in Xinjiang.
For better or worse, it sounds a lot like Qi screwed YC here. Raising 55mn USD, leveraging the YC brand, and keeping all of the profits and upside to himself in China.
On a fairer note, I think YC got to ask: what unfair advantage do we have in this country?
Most of their advantages are network effects in SV and brand-awareness in the western world. Their advantages in the US are MUCH higher than in China, where you'd have to build much from scratch, rebuild the investors' and founders' networks. If Qi was supposed to bring all this -- which he undoubtedly had as ex-COO of Baidu -- why would he need YC at all?
I'm not going into the details of his personality or whether this is a gentleman's move or are the highest standards of honesty and integrity. You shall make your own opinion about Chinese business.
That to say, all of this -- just like any other comment here obviously -- is a hypothesis and nothing less. So take each comment with a huge grain of salt :).
OP here (no affiliation with YC in anyway), posted the link because was surprised it wasn't already on HN.
I first got to know about it on WeChat actually. There was an announcement from the official WeChat account of YC China in regard to the split-up (link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SnSsli_ZGo0yI58YD-ddaw), though the announcement took a much more positive and exciting tone than its English counterpart. The announcement from YC China talked a lot about 本土化 (which is not to be confused with sinicisation (汉化))。 As someone who has moved back to China recently, I noticed that 本土化 is actually a really big thing in China and it basically means localisation on steroid to become more similar to other products/services in China in every aspect (including HR, internal operations, etc).
Anyway I'm fascinated by all the comments here, none of which discussed the cultural and sociopolitical differences between that of the west and that of China, which I believe is one of the main factors that have enabled the disintegration between YC and YC China.
The Chinese government is one thing. But "the Chinese way" is another thing. And "the Chinese way" actually underlines how the Chinese society works and how the Chinese government functions. To understand "the Chinese way", one has to try to emulate a generalisation of how a Chinese person thinks and acts in this day and age after all these revolutions and wars and pandemonium that have shaped the land and the way people interpret things and interact with one another. Without great knowledge in the modern Chinese history and a good grasp of the contemporary Chinese language and culture (from a none-bias perspective as much as possible), it's extremely difficult to form a proper mental representation of "the Chinese way". The thing is not many Chinese people are aware of this too (since they are already operating under "the Chinese way", emulating it would be like running a meta-circular interpreter - not impossible just highly difficult for an average person). Perhaps this is why people (Chinese and none-Chinese) often resort to understanding China through the lens of the media (i.e. state-sponsored or company-sponsored) and that is akin to looking at a 2d projection of a higher dimension object.
It's the same narrative all over again. When no strong arguments are present to defend a viewpoint, the topic suddenly becomes a "cultural" thing. Sounding smart and mysterious. In Russia, it's "the Russian way", in China it is "the Chinese way" etc. It's just BS.
An ineffable, inexplicable thing, bound up in the mystery of 5000+ years of culture, that you can only understand if you are Han Chinese, as they are above the rest of us humans.
> Anyway I'm fascinated by all the comments here, none of which discussed the cultural and sociopolitical differences between that of the west and that of China
To be fair, you don't describe any particular difference yourself in the following paragraph. You say these cultural differences can't be defined and simultaneously expect us to discuss them.¿
The fact is, there are plenty of businesses who have successfully navigated the cultural and political waters of China-Western relations. Maybe it's not the right time for YC - that's fine.
I think we all understand that dealings between the West and China are complicated, to say the least, by cultural, language, and historic differences. That is why we look to the best of us to reach across these differences and make deals so that we can all prosper rather than be left behind as the rest of the world moves on.
> The Chinese government is one thing. But "the Chinese way" is another thing. And "the Chinese way" actually underlines how the Chinese society works and how the Chinese government functions.
"The Chinese Way" is a cop out, it points out the cultural differences between the West and China, but that does not change the fundamentals of political ideologies. Fascist and authoritarian regimes, all, justify their actions through the proxy of cultural differences.
It is not right to shut down discussion about political climates by reducing it to a non-negotiable argument, i.e. the other party does not understand "The Chinese Way" or they will never know the history of China. There are plenty of non-Chinese historians arounds the world who have studied China deeply, academically and by experience such as expats including myself who have spent significant time in China. We know "The Chinese Way".
> The Chinese government is one thing.
No, that's the elephant in the room here, don't be so quick to dismiss it. Ask yourself this - "Would I feel threatened to criticize the Chinese government publicly while I am in China?" If the answer is yes, you either A) Took allegiance to the Chinese nationalism B) or afraid to speak out. If it is B, then it is time to move out of China before it is too late.
> It dismisses, insults the argument that is pertaining to human rights, freedom of press, justice, freedom of speech, liberty, right to vote - some of the pillars of Democracy.
The more fundamental question here is: What if the modernist's definition of democracy which you have just laid out is extremely one-sided and full of grey areas and, when implemented into a society accordingly, would be full of vulnerabilities to be exploited for things the very ideology opposes?
> It is not right to shut down discussion about political climates by reducing it to a non-negotiable argument, i.e. the other party does not understand "The Chinese Way" or they will never know the history of China.
Firstly, I don't see how reducing an argument into a different form would end up "shutting down discussion". Secondly, this is not a non-negotiable form, actually it opens up more areas for research and there are many questions to be asked and answered such as "how does metamodernism manifest itself as we see a ~800% increase in middle class in China between 2000 and 2018"?
Also, read about the history of China so you can be more informed before discussing about China? I don't understand what do you mean by "they will never know the history of China".
> There are plenty of non-Chinese historians arounds the world who have studied China deeply, academically and by experience such as expats.
Exactly. So go read some books about the history of China. Or read a paper, say, about postmodernism in China. It really helps to put things in a different perspective.
The thing is that nowadays comments on HN have certainly diluted.
> No, that's the elephant in the room here, don't be so quick to dismiss it. Ask yourself this - "Would I feel threatened to criticize the Chinese government publicly while I am in China?" If the answer is yes, you either A) Took allegiance to the Chinese nationalism B) or afraid to speak out. If it is B, then it is time to move out of China before it is too late.
When you put people into two polar categories you are basically radicalising them just like on any other social media. The problem here is that "speaking out" doesn't change a damn thing. And it never will. Not in China. Not in the States. If you want to improve the system you first understand how the system works, then work hard and do things that will improve the system. When "speaking out" works that is merely an indication that the system has evolved and changed over the years. When LaToya Jackson spoke out in the 90s did it work? No, and that's because "the system" was still fucked. Criticising is only useful when it actually influences something. Otherwise you are just playing the devil's advocate in a Nash equilibrium that is not in favour of your proposition. And then there is the question: what is the proposition really? Can it be fine-tuned to satisfy the people's needs without shaking up too much the status quote, the legacy code? Ultimately I believe it is about improving people's lives. And it's a constraint satisfaction problem.
I like your grey area analogy. Why do we constantly feel the need to validate our own personal point of view as the only correct solution while completely ignoring or even considering the potential from an opposite angle?
Even in the worst scenario in which the opposite side could be in the wrong, but surely there must be at least a few good things come out of it. We ought to focus on those details. Our world is indeed full of grey areas, but human nature just tends to default to a black and white, us vs. them mentality. It probably helps to strengthen our individual identity, yet it hinders and limits our full potential at the same time.
Even the strongest ideology will never stand the test of time as it is only created by humans, for it must constantly evolve or be replaced by another one due to human limited life expectancy. It can never be true forever in a dynamically changing world.
The key to intelligence is being able to hold two opposing ideas together in our minds while still function perfectly well at the same time. This, by the way, is a teaching that comes from the West.
I agree: read books about China. Books like "Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962" by Frank Dikotter, and "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression" by Courtois et. al.
These are books you are unlikely to be able to read in China, and not because reading history does not comport with some imagined "Chinese way" but rather because the truth is threatening to totalitarians.
Preposterous to say that "speaking out" doesn't change a damn thing. So let's ignore the history of the entire world about "speaking out". Let's ignore struggle of every country that gained independence, let's ignore Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Nelson Mendela. Let's ignore the idea of free press.
I think you're circling around the main argument about authoritarian regimes and despite of evidence in front of you, some how twisting words to either avoid discussing the nature of authoritarism or subscribed to the Chinese government propaganda. Honestly, I plead you to sit down, and question the consequences of an impossibly powerful government ruling almost a billion people without representation. It is not about cultural differences, it is about co-existence of multiple cultures around the world in peace. Lately, the Chinese government is supressing free speech and using financial leverage to shut voices down - outside of China. Instead, you're arguging about what's the point of free speech which is worryingly obtuse.
Mother nature doesn't given a shit about these politicians, you're intelligent enough to not subscribe to propaganda. We have so many seconds to spend on this pale blue dot - let's do it peacefully, respectfully and with strong ideals about freedom, liberty and justice. Politicians are using nationalism to gain power over public, tapping into human psyche to rally up support. Question authority fearlessly.
We need an anti-nationalism movement on the world stage.
Personally I was really disappointed when YC opened up shop in China - to me it really revealed a Profits over People approach and was pretty brazen at the time.
Happy to see (for whatever reason) that they're recommitting to communities that (at least on the surface) don't support fascist overtures.
>>"recommitting to communities that (at least on the surface) don't support fascist overtures"
Sorry, but what you said is quite different from my conclusion from comparing a country which starts wars all around the world, with a country which build infrastructures all around the world.
Echoing another poster, people and individuals who are Chinese are not their government. You shouldn't equate working with Chinese individuals and talent as a tacit support of their government.
I really have no idea how "doing business in China" works. I thought I understood it but I still don't...
An interesting thread last year suggested that in some cases companies spent many years "doing business in China" as a form of ... de-escalation to avoid nuclear war, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17004546
Is it like that? I’m sure it’s true in some cases, but I have the feeling Chinese people are often much more their government than otherwise similar people in other countries.
Of course, all that’s based on hearsay, so who knows what the reality is.
You don't do business in China without supporting the government, and them supporting you, period.
Plenty of Chinese people call the communist party "The organization" because as far as they are concerned, its the only power structure that exists in China.
The nazi regime is very much comparable to the Chinese communist party in methods and death toll, about the only thing they don't measure up on is overt military aggression.
Why do you dismiss any comparisons with the Nazis out of hand? Seems like an exceptionally poor way to learn from history.
Because they're generally silly hyperbole, just like this example. If you put China in the same tier as Nazi Germany, you're missing the forest for the trees.
Even YC is cowed into silence by the might of China. Understandably so, even if somewhat cowardly. Does YC want China to boycott or otherwise disable YC companies? Does YC want to threaten any future relationship with China? No. So they keep mum as to their real reasons.
Why disturb waters unnecessarily? YC's statement seems more like "let's wait for a better time" than self-censorship.
If YC truly saw no chance for YC-China in the future, then I don't doubt they would come out and say so. However, that's a pretty strong statement, and I don't think anyone can make such a prediction. There is always a chance for a more serendipitous time in the future.
These criticisms don't even make sense. YC is announcing that they're not expanding formally into China, which is something China very much would want them to do.
I am sure China would gladly welcome YC and all the IP it has access to.
There is no question China presents an opportunity to generate capital returns on a scale that YC can no longer achieve in the more mature US venture capital market. They also present many risks that are hard to put in an equation.
China could still do a lot of harm to both YC companies and what and who remains of YC china/MiraclePlus. Its pretty obvious that the boss woke up one day and gee we decided to completely withdraw from a country isn't the whole story.
Edit: maybe I should add that we do moderate posts that are just political, i.e. don't have an intellectually curious angle, as well as threads that depart from the path of curious discussion and sink into flames.
The reason given was "change of leadership", i.e., from Sam Altman to Geoff Ralston. Interestingly, Geoff wrote: "we are just working on launching YC China and I'll work hard to make sure Qi Lu has everything he needs to make that go well" after he was appointed, so it doesn't seem like he started out with different ideas.
My observation is that Qi used the YC brand to help launch his MiraclePlus. After that they part ways. The first batch of startups are very different from regular YC companies.
While "As we worked to establish YC China, we had a change in leadership. With this, our strategy changed back " does give 50% of the answer as to "why", I'd be great to hear from otherwise transparent YC about why the strategy changed and why it didn't work out.
would be good to hear what they plan on doing instead.
YC China was a bet at doing something different. With that gone—and idk if it should have stayed or gone.. sometimes experiments fail—what is YCs plan?
Invite 200, 300, 500, 20,000 companies to SF? maybe it is the best option, but also maybe not the best thing to do. YC Seems stuck in an innovator's dilemma. Reminds me of Apple under Tim Cook. Keeping a good thing going, but nothing innovative.
No need. Even as a hongkonger. Support thanks but normal business sense — that comes the point. I find all these world venture is a bit naive. It is not going to pay in the long term. If want to, why not Russia. At least you are aware and have alarm bell rang.
The response to this is unfortunate. Consider the run-on effects it will have on other companies that the primary response to YC pulling out of China is negativity. Requiring companies to stake everything on an action like this only serves to discourage any of them from acting.
YC did the right thing here, the comments should reflect that.
GM, Tesla and Apple are making tons of money in China now. Even Google and Facebook are making over hundreds of millions of ads money each year from China. Yes, Google and Facebook still have branches in China and make a lot of money.
Unlike GM, Tesla and Apple, Facebook is not making money by operating in the Chinese market. Facebook is making money from Chinese advertisers via resellers. It's Chinese capital being exported to Facebook outside of the country, for a service operating entirely outside of China.
Equivalent to an advertiser in China going through a local ad broker that works with the NY Times, to place an ad in the NY Times in a paper sold in NYC.
I imagined this was going to happen. Lately PG has been more vocal on twitter regarding Human Rights issues in China.
I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects.
I'm torn on the China issue and I personally hope our two countries can work out their differences in a constructive way.
If he pulled out over China's human rights issues, I have a newfound respect for PG. Very few leaders today are willing to support basic rights of fellow human beings over personal profits.
What would you think of a VC who was investing with a thesis that enlarging+enriching the Chinese bourgeoisie (i.e. entrepreneurs) would give Chinese citizens as a whole more power relative to the Chinese state, and thus likely accelerate the shift toward more democratic forms of government that seems to inevitably come to "developed nations" once they have enough people who've "got theirs" and now want to signal their care for the working man, rather than rising on their backs?
Maybe people in the 90s assumed "prosperity" in general would be a panacea; but the hypothesis here isn't really to do with GDP more generally (because that can all be generated and captured by the state, as in middle-eastern oil-producing countries) but rather to do with a certain inevitable demographic shift.
China has already started on a shift called industrialization: a massive demographic shift from poverty-class subsistence farmers, to middle-class industrial workers (e.g. construction workers.)
The next shift after industrialization is a mass promotion out of the working-class and into the middle-class (a.k.a. the bourgeoisie: small-business owners/entrepreneurs), where industrial jobs dry up, people mostly live in cities, and everyone goes into business for themselves to serve a specialized role in a city. Accompanying this is, also inevitably, a massive rise in political consciousness, because you need to study the political climate to effectively run a business.
Now, that second shift is far from happening in China yet. Their industrialization phase only just started 10 years ago, with a construction boom analogous to the one that the US went through in the late 1800s. It'll likely be decades more before there are no more Chinese public-infrastructure projects; before the average Chinese citizen is rich enough that everyone turns their nose up at working in the trades; before the average Chinese citizen's life-goal is to be a vlogger or whatever kids in developed countries want to do now.
But, despite that phase being a ways away, it's also seemingly inevitable. We've never seen a country get stuck in the industrialization phase once it's truly begun. It's finite by definition—the same forces that create this phase of growth, push a country through and past it.
The only deciding factor on how long it takes a state to become democratized, in this theory, is how long it takes to reach the industrialization phase. It took China a long, long time (probably because Communism put them at a standstill in accruing the necessary resources and talent to begin having a working class at all; they had to relent and do some top-down state capitalism just to get anywhere at all.)
And many states are stuck lower down the development path, where they'll likely never reach industrialization without outside help. That "help" usually coming in the form of the world deciding to target them as the newest cheap labor outsourcer. (Luckily, once China is post-industrial, it too will be a labor outsourcer, not a labor supplier.)
> But, despite that phase being a ways away, it's also seemingly inevitable. We've never seen a country get stuck in the industrialization phase once it's truly begun. It's finite by definition—the same forces that create this phase of growth, push a country through and past it.
No, no, no, each and every country that deindustrialised, did so for their own, individual reasons.
And you have Japan, Germany, and Switzerland — all developed countries with substantial industry.
Most countries that did deindustrialise, did so because they lost industrial competition. Their industries were too uncompetitive to stick around for anything else, but cost. This is how US lost its steel, in which it once was a global leader.
But China are still making construction workers into nuveau-riche at a prodigious rate. They're creating the proto-Rockefellers and proto-Carnegies of China, right now. Those people, and especially their children (who would become the actual Rockefellers and Carnegies of China), are going to have some impact. China might "manage" (i.e. suppress) that impact, but a large bourgeoisie class is uniquely powerful in terms of its ability to throw money around to influence foreign politics as a knife against the throat of the local state.
Consider: the Napoleonic Wars weren't a consequence of the French Revolution; they were the second phase of the French Revolution. Sometimes the best thing to do to get your government in better shape, is to convince every other major power that your state is the bad guy and needs its ass kicked.
Right now, China is (barely) keeping a lid on global unrest against them—but a big part of that is that right now, Chinese citizens are still mostly positive and patriotic about their homeland, as you'd expect of people who just went through an industrialization boom. Take that coefficient and flip the sign the other way, though...
That's one of the more odd assessments of China that I've heard. These proto-Carnegies and their children you speak of are a well defined class. Specifically, the children are the "princling" class, Xi is one of them. They have been raised to understand the source of their wealth is the state. They are quite happy with the status quo and greatly value the power of the state as an instrument of suppression.
Please stop using HN for nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for. We've already had to ask you this, and ban accounts that won't stop, so please stop.
I would say that VC is naive and doesn't understand the lengths that the CCP goes to prevent a free democracy. The current regime understood what happened during the fall of the Soviet Union and are extremely keen on not allowing that to happen again. We have already given China many decades to free their markets and their people based on the principle that "free markets lead to wealth and wealth leads to democratization" and look where we ended up. Furthering this line only emboldens the CCP.
They’re delusional and insane—the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That model is exactly what the last 30 years of cooperation with China was meant to be, but all it has done is strengthened a kleptocratic, increasingly paranoid, bloody dictatorship.
I read the GP's "from the perspective of investment" more like a sort of "corporations, despite being made of humans, are inhuman paperclip-maximizers" attitude. You can't convince a corporation to "do what's right", because caring about "what's right" requires a human definition of "right"†, and corporations don't have that, instead having other conceptual preferences in its place, that you have to appeal to instead.
You can't convince a paperclip-maximizer to preserve human life because "it's right"; you have to convince it that doing so will somehow get it more paperclips. You can't convince an investment firm to stay out of China because "it's right"; you have to convince it that doing so will somehow make it more money.
>I understand this is a very difficult decision. I'm not sure if its right or wrong. From the perspective of Human Rights its probably right, but from the perspective of investment its difficult considering China's growth prospects.
I can't believe a human being would actually write this. The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts.
I don't really appreciate that. I would argue I'm pretty well informed on China. I've traveled to China, I've worked with the Chinese for over a decade across various roles, my grandfather helped industrialize China, and I've read many great books on China. Personally I retweeted Hillary Clinton's support of Hong Kong protestors while I was in Beijing, so I put myself at personal risk in doing this.
But lets address your comment directly: "The level of cognitive dissonance would be off the charts." Is it?
One book I recommend is Graham Allison "Destined for War".
One question that specifically stands out from his book - is that the West believes in Universal Human Rights. China obviously does not. This is a point of conflict and we have some very difficult questions to address in the future. Suppose China attacks Taiwan. What if China has a second Tiananmen in Hong Kong? Do we sanction China? What if China responds with more violence? What do we do? Do we go to war? This is an obvious point of conflict. And these are questions that we will have to work out in the future.
From the perspective of an investor, these are also difficult decisions. We can see this in how the NBA has responded, and how South Park has responded - each differently. Is it really wise to Balkanize the world if our goal is to encourage China to adopt Human Rights? How would a second cold war help?
Obviously I don't have the answers. But I can recognize the conflict from the perspective of a VC whose goal is to make money.
> ...the West believes in Universal Human Rights. China obviously does not.
This is probably a case where more precision is warranted. The CCP and the nearly synonymous PRC government obviously do not believe in Universal Human Rights [1]. However "China" can be interpreted as the Chinese nation/people, and many of them do believe in human rights [see Hong Kong] or have been deliberately kept ignorant of the concepts. It's not like rejection of human rights is part of the national character, or anything.
> Is it really wise to Balkanize the world if our goal is to encourage China to adopt Human Rights? How would a second cold war help?
The Cold War was basically about containment, and it's an acknowledgment that no good options are available. Recent history has shown that trade and investment don't necessarily lead to liberalization, and military attacks are out of the question. Besides containment, the only option left is acceptance/appeasement.
> One question that specifically stands out from his book - is that the West believes in Universal Human Rights. China obviously does not. This is a point of conflict and we have some very difficult questions to address in the future. Suppose China attacks Taiwan. What if China has a second Tiananmen in Hong Kong? Do we sanction China? What if China responds with more violence? What do we do? Do we go to war? This is an obvious point of conflict. And these are questions that we will have to work out in the future.
We don't need to go to war with them but we also don't need to invest in their suppression.
Here's an attempt at interpretting it graciously: if China's economy grows, more Chinese people may be lifted out of poverty. This is obviously beneficial to their lives directly, but could also result in political shifts as the rising middle class becomes more of a stakeholder in society. More developed countries can also afford to have more environmentally friendly laws. There are a bunch of potential benefits to China and the rest of the world that could result from continued growth. Sacrificing these benefits to bring attention to human rights might actually be harmful in the long run by a wide range of metrics, and whether it's desirable to do so might depend on which metrics you value more and how you typically respond to trolley problems.
You have missed as the original posting about china not care about universal x. China do. We do. Always. We have enforced our harmony way to our labour for several thousands years now. We would.
At least I quite the Open source founder has used the chinese way of colonialism to describe open source. Look at how the top leader talk in international forum on things like internet.
China will impose its view. And if you are not civilised per china view you are barbarian to be crushed. It is in our gene.
They will play nice then when not colonised you will be see.
*
Still I believe it does not make commerical senses. China does not allow others to make money unless they can’t replace you. Learning and turn ... The nasty part will come.
Our whole place is an example. And we are chinese according to them. Still ... hence good luck.
I'm not actually arguing that this is the most desirable course of action, I'm arguing that OP's original comment can be interpretted in a manner that isn't putting personal gain above human rights. I felt like there were a lot of angry voices piling on over a potential misinterpretation.
No it can't. You believe an acceptable response to Schrodingers Cat is that even if the cats alive maybe killing it is ok if it means you can sell the box. You then justify it by saying a lot of good things could come from the money we might get if we can sell the box.
None of those potentials are sacrificed, they just as much both exist and do not exist as they did before a hypothetical intervention based on human rights abuses.
A noble view but giving China too much credit. The more that US invests in China, the more the US is supporting the atrocities in Chinese concentration camps, mass surveillance and censorship, and military expansion into international territories. This is not at all just an economic issue. China is acting without impunity and it is up to world leaders to step up and put a stop to their aggressive tactics.
I think most people would be sold on decoupling from China or at least entertaining the idea of enacting punitive actions on China the moment they realize that more than 1 million Chinese citizens are being detained against their will and having their organs ripped out from them while still being half-conscious. All the while, their family gravesites are bulldozed [1] and the CCP sends Chinese men to sleep with their wives [2]. Unfortunately, the insane amount of influence through bribery, censorship, and propaganda exported from China has made people completely unaware of Holocaust-level atrocities.
Lets not bash on one person when the worlds largest companies have been fine doing business with china for decades, knowing the HR situation. There was always the hope that growth would help improving the HR situation ( which may be what OP is referring to) , but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards with Xi
Did some people in the comments forget what happens to Blizzard? It would be better not having a branch in China unless they are 100% sure they can be free from any political issues around China, and we actually don't need to hear "why" from YC.
Technically, there are two governments that claim to be China: the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China. Both claim to rule Taiwan and mainland China. "China", then, is underspecified, because no one means to claim that the ROC is running concentration camps.
It suprises me that intelligent, reasonable people like Andrew Ng and Sam Altman were willing to help develop and invest in the Chinese Communist Party's AI/ML capabilities helping to create an authoritarian surveillance state used to repress minorities (Uighers, Tibetans, Falun Gong) on a scale not seen since Adolf Hitler.
The CCP and private companies are hand-in-glove. The risks of working with state-owned enterprises are clear. The risks of working with private companies are are also great with "party cells" officially embedded into at least half of private companies.
Fortunately for the free world, China faces massive structural issues to growth over the next 40 years, which the CCP is unable or unwilling to deal with. I highly recommend [1] and [2] to understand the future of the brutal Chinese dictatorship.
Perhaps it is the enormous cognitive dissonance. Western companies also take military funding and their surveillance systems were always better and more invasive.
The US is using statutes for national security interests to ban Chinese companies for contributing to alledged human rights abuses. Meanwhile we have documented human rights abuses in the West, and a US that does not shy away to cover a trade war and skewed commercial motives with anti-China propaganda.
US companies and agencies surveil outside the US. Capitalism-commercialization gave our rights to the likes of Zuckerberg and Amazon, who will turn your door bell into a police camera.
The Godwin was also a tad unnecessary. Perhaps you are a bit caught up in the heat of the moment. The propaganda machine is definately turning up the heat, so I do not blame you. Try to pose your argument without claiming the moral highground of the "free world". It is never fortunate that an entire country and its people struggles.
Accusing Ng and Altman of helping build a fascist surveillance state is a nasty accusation, which I feel you are not allowed to make.
Remember when the US had concentration camps for Japanese-Americans? Countries can change even without pressure or backlash (the US did not face any). Can you think of a modern group of people in the US being secluded from participation, facing state racism, and being locked away in ghettos, with no hope of social movement? Would China be justified in boycotting or sanctioning US companies for contributing to ICE, Guantanamo bay, or police violence, or Flynt's water, or Trump's racism?
Freedom of religion gave the US scientology and TV pastors and schools preaching creationism. It gave Europe extremist Salafism and terrorist attacks and people using the Bible to go after immigrants. You have to see China in that context: they see religion as a dangerous memetic virus to indoctronate youthful people into believing something not of their own choice. Countries have a right to make their own laws and their own tactics for improvement and combating extremism.
Edit: you may also receive downvotes from people who hate to hear negative stuff on China, or are paid 50 cents to do so.
Comparing Uigher concentration camps to Nazi Germany is valid and accurate, not a frivolous example of Godwin's law.
Your comment has a lot of whataboutism that isn't relevant to the discussion. I'll mention that US presidents have formally apologized several times for Japanese-American internment (which was 75 years ago), and that I would encourage anybody (and any government) to boycott and sanction companies contributing to human rights abuse.
Doing business with a fascist state or in a fascist state is deplorable. The message should be loud and clear. China today shares many parallels with Germany in the 1930s. There needs to be open frank opposition because embarrassing them is the only way to stop them until the US is willing to park an aircraft carrier group in HK waters.
>...until the US is willing to park an aircraft carrier group in HK waters.
I'm afraid a single carrier battle group wouldn't be much of a deterrent these days. The US no longer has naval overmatch in that region. Barring any gross incompetence on PLA-N's part, or the US having highly classified tricks up its sleeve, USN would need several fleets to achieve anything but a pyrrhic victory in such a conflict.[0]
I otherwise completely agree with your sentiments, and living in a world where what amounts to essentially a fascist state having military supremacy—even if only limited in scope and regional for now—is quite chilling.
Causing PRC to lose face is the only way to stop them outside a war which nobody wants. If American companies started cutting ties and explicitly calling out their behavior it would make a real difference.
That might work for a smaller country like South Africa, but China too big for that. China could probably make everything it needs itself, or learn in a decade or two. So it sounds to me like a new iron curtain, leaving both sides poorer and the people caught in the middle suffering from the separation. (And good luck fighting global warming.)
But though there's a lot of pressure to choose your side, I doubt every country will do so. If forced they might choose China?
>That might work for a smaller country like South Africa, but China too big for that. China could probably make everything it needs itself, or learn in a decade or two. So it sounds to me like a new iron curtain, leaving both sides poorer and the people caught in the middle suffering from the separation. (And good luck fighting global warming.)
The majority of the US and Soviet population was better off with the iron curtain than without in real terms. The US median hourly wage only surpassed that of 1968 in the last 3 years.
I don't think that is correct. In fact 1) China is massive with huge labor class, 2) China is heavily export driven, 3) current generation in China has been affluent.
So, even moderate global sanctions will have a massive impact with both affluent class and the labor class revolting.
However, remember, oil embargo drove Japan to WW-2, I'm sure China will react similarly unless that internal revolt happens first. Too difficult to predict.
Yeah, about step 2b: Note that part of the reasoning behind the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the US's sanctions on Japan for their actions in China.
In my observation, for what it's worth, current China regime does not react well to losing face. They just dig in further. Not sure if it's a cultural artifact. We have seen that time and time again.
However, China will react to economic loss. As such pulling out of China, surely and quietly, is the best approach.
You can't say you're an apolitical organization when you work with China given the way running a business in China works.
The message is obvious that companies are afraid of angering the Chinese government by speaking ill of it as they commit increasing atrocities because that could potentially eat into their profit margins. Profit over people.
Virtue signaling doesn't work in business. Should yc do any business in the US which is mired in illegal wars and regime change operation all over the world? What about Saudi arabia? Should silicon valley and traditional media give up the billions in Saudi investment? Every major economic player is evil in some form or another. And the parallel with china isn't nazi Germany. It's with 19th century US.
I guess you're implying that certain bad things are happening in China. Do you really live in China and see those things happen, or just hear about them from the media?
And is it possible that some of the media in US are inhonest? Just as there're inhonest media in China.
I'm not fighting you on this topic; just don't understand why there's so much hatred towards our country.
There is plenty of non US media reporting on the camps in Xinjiang.
Why don't you travel to Xinjiang and do some investigating. If the camps there are really fabricated by the US media, surely the government won't mind you traveling around and filming the suspected sites?
>just don't understand why there's so much hatred towards our country.
I don't hate you or the other people of your country. I'd love to visit someday and relearn some of the Mandarin I learned in college. However, I do hate what your government is doing to the people of Xinjiang. Why wouldn't I be upset about this?
You have to choose your battles. China is literally building concentration camps. Comparing Xi to Hitler is not exaggeration.
Virtue signaling absolutely works with China. "Losing face" is a big part of their culture and if important business partners start dropping off like flies and calling out their atrocities, they will take notice. Just look at how much of a fuss that NBA manager's tweet made.
>What about Saudi arabia? Should silicon valley and traditional media give up the billions in Saudi investment?
The US can't take military action in Hong Kong, because its handover to China was completely legal. You can thank the British for their short-sightnedness on this one, but nothing the rest of the world can do, at least overtly. I see this fact repeatedly forgotten or overlooked in the brewhaha over HK.
Naive perspective: Is it possible that this language prevents YC from being blocked by the Great Firewall?
I'm not sure I'd advocate it, but I see the potential argument: It's better to let users see YC's independent decision to not conduct business in China, even with vague reasoning, as there's no realistic narrative that would put China in a great light.
The alternative is to be completely censored. If the intent is to spread a message within, I would think an uncensored message is better than no message at all.
I think YC has to be reserved because they are linked to all of these companies they have invested in. A bad statement could potentially harm some of their portfolio companies.
>What is your incentive in supporting an invasion?
Isolationism and appeasement post-WWI leading to the next, disastrous world war which could have been avoided or significantly diminished with early intervention.
By provoking people, threatening to send aircraft carriers?
The fact is this is just a leverage US is holding on to to win the trade war.
Human rights have been the excuse the US used to wage war against multiple middle east countries in the past 30 years, eventually for its own benefit, and causing huge sufferings to people in these countries.
No one can say no to 'supporting human rights', but you'd be naive to think the US cares about human rights more than it does about benefiting itself and inflicting suffering on other countries.
Also, maybe it's turning out that building the wall is not that profitable after all.
Yeah, California is exactly the same as a state that throws hundreds of thousands to millions of people in concentration camps, prohibits freedom of speech and religion, murders and steals the organs of political prisoners, and actively monitors everything you do.
How is modern one-party California fascist? Specifically, how does California advance an ethnostate under a conservative populist tradtionalist movement oriented at revitalizing a long-dead culture? I'm not sure that California does this.
Meanwhile, China operates death camps.
Good try, good hustle, glad you're here learning English, but you need to learn more about your culture's history and the nature of fascism.
user may be Chinese national, but name calling ("brainwashed") probably isn't the best way to encourage the sorts of open dialogue that will be necessary to change their views
brainwashing (n.)
"attempt to alter or control the thoughts and beliefs of another person against his will by psychological techniques," 1950, a literal translation of Chinese xi nao. A term from the Korean War.
In the US, as I go through the airport, I am physically violated routinely for my 'security'.
All of the data I transmit are recorded, for the agencies to go through them, if not now, then later, when they figured out how.
People who don't obey the leftist narrative are cancelled, have their jobs terminated, and so on.
China has always been independent. They pride themselves on that. Taking away investment money isn't going to influence them.
If you want to influence somebody, first you understand them, then you build a friendship and rapport with them, and then you influence them. Turning off the phone does the opposite.
I could see them hitting some roadblocks and wanting to try again to get into China, but that would be a reasonable thing to come out and say.
It also would be reasonable to come out and say they've changed their minds due to political climate or some other risks.
Instead its... the new guy is busy?
reply