Unrelated to article per se, but I’ve noticed a distinctive shift as to who tourism-dependent countries cater to. Thailand, Malaysia, etc. all shifted their tourism to cater to the Chinese tourist market, as Westerners don’t spend as big when travelling. Both places have big signs in mandarin in the airport going 友誼長存, meaning long lasting friendship (between our countries). Personally, I’ve never seen this level of glazing towards any Western country before.
Similar thing with luxury brands. While Louis Vuitton is closing stores in SF, they’ve custom built a huge boat-shaped one in Shanghai.
When it comes to luxury, some of this trend is even on the way out. If you at Estee Lauder's earnings calls, they are having serious issues because of the drop spending in duty free zones by Chinese.
Overall you're right of course, just thought I'd add an anecdote that I happen to recall.
> Unrelated to article per se, but I’ve noticed a distinctive shift as to who tourism-dependent countries cater to. Thailand, Malaysia, etc. all shifted their tourism to cater to the Chinese tourist market, as Westerners don’t spend as big when travelling.
I don't know about Malaysia, but IIRC Thailand is one of the few places Chinese nationals can travel visa free. Westerners have a lot more options.
If travel restrictions focus the the firehouse of Chinese tourists on a few locations, I'd expect those to end up catering to Chinese more than other nationalities.
Chinese citizens are prohibited from investing abroad and keeping money abroad. It might be that the signs you describe are more about getting around that prohibition than about hedonism.
I’m sure it’s some grey area. DBS Singapore saw some $6bn inflows from China in the first half of 2023. Regardless, I did see gold jewellery sold by weight in China too, which is much more indicative of use as an asset than a beauty piece
I'm not sure what time frame you're talking about, but I lived in Bangkok from 2019 to 2021, and Chinese tourists were all over the place then. That said, the mall next to my apartment no longer has the Incredible Hulk standing in front of it, so maybe you're right and the american influence is fading. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have always thought that this is largely due to the fact that Chinese people still cannot inherit their parents' wealth, and that is why Chinese middle class and upper-middle class people travel a lot more than their Western counterparts. Is it not the case?
Author bought a Huawei watch and found it to be an excellent replacement for his Apple watch.
That said, most the article concerns the below bit and I tend to agree with it.
The China challenge is much bigger than alarmists understand.
It’s not just about espionage or market share.
It’s about the United States and the West more broadly losing
preeminence and Chinese firms becoming reliable parts of life.
From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.
> From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.
I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc; otherwise your information or information that you have about other people could be used against you, people you know, your company, your government, your interests, etc.
Foreign intelligence doesn't always go after people in "important" jobs, they sometimes go after janitors or other people who have access to either facilities or people.
> I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage,
Why are we pretending that the US don't do those things?
The problem with security is that it's all stick based, not carrots. Nobody gets a raise for following good security practices -- just firing, fines, and jail time. Meanwhile "mass paranoia" masquerades as "security best practices".
The janitor example you bring up is a great example. A decade ago Frontline had a report on female janitorial staff being raped [0]. Instead of providing job security, wage security, and physical security to allow workers to do their job without fear, we threaten them to "be secure or else."
> I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc;
It's certainly conceivable that China-based entities might want that. It's almost certain that US- and Israel-based entities do. Hence their relative positions in the stack of risks.
this is so silly. if chinese intelligence tries to what, blackmail me?
Meanwhile silicon valley companies like Palantir are actively feeding information to cops in my county who don't like me because I walk in the pride parade.
" the latter is leveraging it against me. " Can you elaborate on how you think that the US entities are using your data against you? And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not? I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently.
> I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently.
This is precisely the point - it matters who the powerful people in your region are. For an American, the Chinese government has little ability and not much interest in persecuting people on the other side of the globe. The US government has lots of ability and moderate interest.
> I'm pretty sure if you lived in Taiwan you would think very differently
Well, I don't.
> And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
It's not that they aren't, but they can't really. What are they gonna do if I make disparaging statements against their dictator? Deny me entry to their country?
Meanwhile America is screening people's social media with immediate effect on careers and livelihood. I don't proclaim to know whether the US will use my data against me but they certainly would have more power to do so against their citizens.
Who you trust really depends on where you are and which countries exert influence in your region. I personally would rather nobody have my data and self host everything.
> how you think that the US entities are using your data against you? And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
Kinda pointing the obvious but...we're straight discussing this on a US forum managed by a US company. The major social media outlets used outside of China are US based. I'm writing this on a US designed device and OS.
If you live outside of the US and China, you're probably giving up tons of data to US entities for sheer convenience while China would need to go hack it. Getting a Chinese OS smartphone would change that a bit, but still not _that_ much IMHO.
There’s a smaller gap in smartphone makers, where Apple and Samsung dominate globally and in the USA, but once you look at the next manufacturers after the leaders you notice that names like Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Huawei together constitute a sizable global share. And, yes, those are all Chinese brands.
There were a lot more Chinese Android "brands" (most of them probably OEM'd, but I digress) around 10-15 years ago. Ainol, Blackview, Cubot, Doogee, Elephone, Gionee, Goophone, iOcean, Jiayu, KingZone, Leagoo, Meizu, Nckia (yes, seriously), NO.1, Oukitel, TCL, THL, Ulephone, Umidigi, UniHertz, Vivo, Zopo... how many of those still exist today? It's rather interesting that the ones which still do have gone the same user-hostile route as Apple and Samsung. The era of Shanzhai has unfortunately mostly passed.
Over 10 years ago we were buying a lot of camping equipment. We had purchased some items from Amazon which looked good visually and they were from one of these mashing-on-the-keyboard brands like "kjhghjdfh". When we received the items they were of AMAZING quality. I wanted to purchase more items from this brand but of course, they were gone.
A lot of Chinese manufacturers do not really have a fat profit margin (most goes to the distribution), so they tend to just get by and close shop when time is bad. Many of the smaller manufacturers simply do not have the mind to build a brand. The bigger ones are doing that though.
A lot of those "mashing-the-keyboard" names come from a company with a Chinese name translating their name into English using the first letter of each Chinese character.
Disregarding issues with politics or privacy, I find the rise of Chinese manufacturing quality astonishing. I ordered all kinds of consumer articles in the last 20 years and the improvements have been big and steady. In recent years they also leapfrogged on the service front, like how AliExpress offers Amazon-like return policy despite having fraction of the infra and the wares under tax sanctions. I see not only more chinese cars, but construction and medical equipment. Price/performance is always excelling.
One would think this would trigger some sort of revival and competing from US/EU industries, but not much had happened yet besides lobbying for sanctions.
I’m not sure why you’re surprised. Basically since large-scale industrial manufacture started, country industrialises, quality is initially poor, a few decades later it's international standard. 150 years ago the British were marvelling at this happening with Germany and the US, but you'd think at this point people would be used to it.
China has been making good for the rest of the world for decades. I thoughts it’s common sense that it’s only a matter of time before they replace the Apple logo on the phones they made with their own logo.
If we want to catch up, maybe we really need to work a lot harder, and to smooth the shocking pain, some redistribution of wealth to the working class is needed.
Readit News
Similar thing with luxury brands. While Louis Vuitton is closing stores in SF, they’ve custom built a huge boat-shaped one in Shanghai.
When it comes to luxury, some of this trend is even on the way out. If you at Estee Lauder's earnings calls, they are having serious issues because of the drop spending in duty free zones by Chinese.
Overall you're right of course, just thought I'd add an anecdote that I happen to recall.
I don't know about Malaysia, but IIRC Thailand is one of the few places Chinese nationals can travel visa free. Westerners have a lot more options.
If travel restrictions focus the the firehouse of Chinese tourists on a few locations, I'd expect those to end up catering to Chinese more than other nationalities.
There are other reasons besides China causing them to do that.
That said, most the article concerns the below bit and I tend to agree with it.
From a security standpoint: When my data lands in the hands of Chinese interests and USA entities, only the latter is leveraging it against me. In the stack of data risks to be mitigated, China is at the bottom and everyone tied to the US is at the top.I hope you don't work for a company or know anyone who works for a company or government that China might want to influence, steal secrets from, sabotage, etc; otherwise your information or information that you have about other people could be used against you, people you know, your company, your government, your interests, etc.
Foreign intelligence doesn't always go after people in "important" jobs, they sometimes go after janitors or other people who have access to either facilities or people.
Why are we pretending that the US don't do those things?
The janitor example you bring up is a great example. A decade ago Frontline had a report on female janitorial staff being raped [0]. Instead of providing job security, wage security, and physical security to allow workers to do their job without fear, we threaten them to "be secure or else."
If I were China, I know straight where to go!
[0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/rape-on-the-night...
It's certainly conceivable that China-based entities might want that. It's almost certain that US- and Israel-based entities do. Hence their relative positions in the stack of risks.
Deleted Comment
Meanwhile silicon valley companies like Palantir are actively feeding information to cops in my county who don't like me because I walk in the pride parade.
whos more dangerous to me right now.
As I read it, yes, parent does not have ties to that category of companies. TBH I don't too.
In contrast we are meddled enough by the US that actively following US national news makes sense from a work perspective.
This is precisely the point - it matters who the powerful people in your region are. For an American, the Chinese government has little ability and not much interest in persecuting people on the other side of the globe. The US government has lots of ability and moderate interest.
Well, I don't.
> And why you are so certain that Chinese entities are not?
It's not that they aren't, but they can't really. What are they gonna do if I make disparaging statements against their dictator? Deny me entry to their country? Meanwhile America is screening people's social media with immediate effect on careers and livelihood. I don't proclaim to know whether the US will use my data against me but they certainly would have more power to do so against their citizens. Who you trust really depends on where you are and which countries exert influence in your region. I personally would rather nobody have my data and self host everything.
Kinda pointing the obvious but...we're straight discussing this on a US forum managed by a US company. The major social media outlets used outside of China are US based. I'm writing this on a US designed device and OS.
If you live outside of the US and China, you're probably giving up tons of data to US entities for sheer convenience while China would need to go hack it. Getting a Chinese OS smartphone would change that a bit, but still not _that_ much IMHO.
There were a lot more Chinese Android "brands" (most of them probably OEM'd, but I digress) around 10-15 years ago. Ainol, Blackview, Cubot, Doogee, Elephone, Gionee, Goophone, iOcean, Jiayu, KingZone, Leagoo, Meizu, Nckia (yes, seriously), NO.1, Oukitel, TCL, THL, Ulephone, Umidigi, UniHertz, Vivo, Zopo... how many of those still exist today? It's rather interesting that the ones which still do have gone the same user-hostile route as Apple and Samsung. The era of Shanzhai has unfortunately mostly passed.
And Transsion which neither of you mentioned is number one by sales.
Strong brands are good for the consumer.
One would think this would trigger some sort of revival and competing from US/EU industries, but not much had happened yet besides lobbying for sanctions.
you can get a Nissan versa for $17k https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/cars/versa-sedan.html
Probably more reliable than a Nissan versa.