atr_gz (u/atr_gz) - Readit News

atr_gz commented on Huawei’s Revenue Hits Record $122B in 2019 Despite U.S. Campaign wsj.com/articles/huaweis-... · Posted by u/vo2maxer

roenxi · 6 years ago

> If I defrauded a Chinese bank I would expect to be arrested if I traveled somewhere with extradition to China.

Yes, but if the charge was that you were engaged in trade with Taiwan (or recognising Taiwan as an independent state) that would be equally outrageous.

> What do you mean about the US banks having a legal say? The government is the one doing the prosecuting.

I must have misunderstood what you said. I thought the banks in the US being fined was relevant.

> Are you saying that they should have known that Huawei was lying, therefore it’s their own fault?

Pretty much. Joys of capitalism. If this sort of thing is legal in the place where Huawei is sourcing their management from then they should have expected it. If somebody enters into an unenforceable contract and the other party starts laughing and ignoring it, that is on the parties involved.

> Maybe that’s the case, but it doesn’t have any bearing on whether a crime was committed.

It totally does have a bearing. America doesn't get to decide what a crime is for Chinese companies. The US can choose to hinder business between US companies and Chinese companies, can choose to restrict Chinese corporate activity on US soil and can negotiate for whatever they like. But grabbing people on a connecting flight as the opening play is going to stir up the nationalists for good reasons.

> Edit: And that doesn’t change the fact that your original comment was highly misleading. I’m sure you can come up with some argument against the US position, but you should have done that in the first place instead of posting a strawman.

US law is not some natural law of the world, and a US judge making a ruling is something that only US citizens should have to knuckle under and accept. If someone from China gets unhappy that suddenly their business leaders are being messed with on the orders of a US judge then it is totally understandable.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

Again, she wasn’t charged with trading with Iran. Since you can’t seem to understand that simple point, I don’t see this conversation as productive any longer.

atr_gz commented on Huawei’s Revenue Hits Record $122B in 2019 Despite U.S. Campaign wsj.com/articles/huaweis-... · Posted by u/vo2maxer

roenxi · 6 years ago

That is what the US wants the core of the issue to be. The actual core of the issue isn't automatically set because the US has a preference. It seems completely reasonable that the Chinese would see a different core issue related to the US throwing their weight around.

This isn't a case that is being put through the Chinese court system. That suggests that the Chinese government doesn't see a problem with Huawei's actions. The US banks getting to have a legal say beyond that is a very questionable position given that they presumably knew who they were lending money to. The fact that under US law nothing is out of the ordinary is cool and all, but Meng Whanzhou isn't meant to be subject to US law. She's a Chinese businesswoman running a Chinese business from China.

Call me crazy, but she should be subject to Chinese law. And I can easily see why Chinese people might think that.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

That doesn’t make sense to me. Of course if you do business with the US you are subject to US law. And if you travel to somewhere with an extradition treaty with the US, well, it shouldn’t be hard to guess what will happen. If I defrauded a Chinese bank I would expect to be arrested if I traveled somewhere with extradition to China.

What do you mean about the US banks having a legal say? The government is the one doing the prosecuting.

And if they were lied to, then how would they know that their money would be used to violate sanctions? Are you saying that they should have known that Huawei was lying, therefore it’s their own fault? Maybe that’s the case, but it doesn’t have any bearing on whether a crime was committed.

Edit: And that doesn’t change the fact that your original comment was highly misleading. I’m sure you can come up with some argument against the US position, but you should have done that in the first place instead of posting a strawman.

atr_gz commented on Huawei’s Revenue Hits Record $122B in 2019 Despite U.S. Campaign wsj.com/articles/huaweis-... · Posted by u/vo2maxer

roenxi · 6 years ago

> because of the absurd nationalistic view that the Chinese hold

Nothing absurd about it. The US government is trying to coerce the Chinese government. Great time for them to feel nationalistic.

> I tried to understand why, so I threw many arguments at them such as Huawei was actually caught sending data back to 3rd party servers in China and I even tried explaining maybe the sanction is on them because they broke the law/agreement w/ the US.

The core of that argument rests on the idea that Chinese people should accept that the US can dictate how they deal with Iran. And that the US can choose how to enforce compliance to that law. Both of those assumptions are flaky at a basic Chinese-people-should-agree-with-this level.

International rule of law would be nice, but the US doesn't particularly constrain themselves by rule of law in the international sphere - they've invaded a lot of countries on flimsy pretexts. That is much worse than trading with people. After that example, why should the Chinese worry about international rules that are inconvenient? For all the fact that their government is brutal and terrifying it hasn't invaded anywhere in the middle east in the last 20 years.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

Isn’t the core of the issue more that Huawei defrauded some US banks by promising not to use their money to do business with Iran, then went ahead and did it anyways, leading to the banks in question being fined by the US?

Your characterization seems a bit misleading.

atr_gz commented on The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen (2016) [pdf] bunniefoo.com/bunnie/esse... · Posted by u/BerislavLopac

peterburkimsher · 6 years ago

Could you suggest how to use Alipay or WechatPay as a foreigner without a local bank account?

Things like city bikes are great and very convenient. In Kaohsiung it used docking stations and a metro card. From what I hear, in China they are dockless, and use mobile apps (which means an expensive roaming data plan) and Chinese payments. These may be convenient for locals, but very user-unfriendly to foreigners. Locals probably have their routine figured out, whereas foreigners are probably going to visit new places, and will therefore use bicycles more.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

Alipay just started allowing foreign credit cards! Wechat will probably follow suit soon, if they haven't already.

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3036457/foreign-t...

atr_gz commented on Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer thedailybeast.com/blizzar... · Posted by u/minimaxir

morningseagulls · 6 years ago

>Independence is not one of the demands of the protestors. Please provide a source for that claim.

Point taken. But it was one of the demands of some protesters in the past[0], so I must have got that confused with the current demands of the 2019 protesters.

Be that as it may be, the comment I was replying to was echoing points made by the pro-independence movement in justifying their stance, in particular by highlighting Hong Kong's allegedly distinct cultural identity.[1]

I'd think, for instance, that Macau has a more distinctive cultural identity than HK, and in any case, harshreality's argument sought to portray China as a cultural monolith.

The reality is that there are at least as many cultural identities as there are provinces, and in Guangdong province alone, there are three separate dialect groups -- Yue (Cantonese)[2], Hakka[3], Southern Min (Teochew[4], Leizhou[5]) -- each with their own distinct culture.

You may see why, from a certain perspective, the cultural identity argument of the pro-independence movement is rather specious. But harshreality isn't the only commentator I've seen who's brought up HK's cultural identity as an argument.

Finally, perhaps I should let a Hongkonger speak for himself. Lewis Lau Yiu-man is a commentator based in Hong Kong, who writes for Stand News[6], a pro-democracy online news website, and contributed this piece[7] to the New York Times last month. After a historical preamble, he made this claim:

>That’s because — want it or not, know it or not — the Umbrella Movement planted the seed of separatism in the city. I don’t mean that the idea was entirely new: There had been some proponents of localism, at the margins. And I don’t mean that separatism is now the order of the day[...] I mean that the Umbrella Movement was, in fact, an independence movement — but an independence movement that didn’t know itself.

He even analyses Beijing's perspective:

>And so from Beijing’s perspective, when pro-democracy protesters and their supporters reject what it perceives as its right to intervene here, they are challenging its very sovereignty. In this, at least, Beijing is correct. It knows what many Hong Kongers don’t seem to have fully appreciated: Admit it or not, we are actually rejecting Chinese sovereignty — we are already an independence movement in disguise. And it all started with the Umbrella Movement.

So there's your source.

[0] https://time.com/4440708/hong-kong-independence-china-locali...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_independence#Reasons

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_Chinese

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_dialect

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leizhou_Min

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_News

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/opinion/hong-kong-umbrell...

atr_gz · 6 years ago

Thanks for your comment. I don’t see why Macau would have a stronger cultural identity than Hong Kong, but I haven’t been there, only to Hong Kong a few times.

It seems to me that there certainly is a distinct cultural identity in Hong Kong. Children are raised with less indoctrination in school, they have more access to Western media, and they have different values and manners. It’s obvious the minute you get to Hong Kong. Ask the mainlanders who complain about pretentious, condescending Hong Kongers whether there’s a distinct culture there.

I do think I see your point - there are many distinct cultures all over China and it’s certainly not a monolith. But I still have the impression that in certain ways the values of Hong Kong people are, on average, different. They certainly don’t seem to want to give ground on some of their individual freedoms.

Anyways, it seems hypocritical for Beijing to characterize this as a sovereignty issue, if your analyst is correct about their view. They agreed to one country two systems (for now), and the whole sovereignty argument seems more like a distraction to me.

It seems like they just don’t want to admit mistakes - easier to blame Western influence than admit that they’ve pushed too hard and made the people too angry.

Anyways, I really appreciate the discussion. I’m kind of starved for people to talk to about it.

atr_gz commented on China attacks Apple for allowing Hong Kong crowdsourced police activity app techcrunch.com/2019/10/09... · Posted by u/elsewhen

kwizzt · 6 years ago

I appreciate your level-headed response.

To address your first point: are most people genuinely outraged? That I do not know tbh. I can only represent my own opinion. However, I have Chinese friends that have voices their discontent with the NBA and Hong Kong situation. That's all I can tell. For me personally, I'm against Hong Kong protest, but again, it's my own opinion.

About the news reports in China, ofc they are biased. Most if not all media are biased imo. But that doesn't mean you can't get information out of it. By getting your news from multiple sources and cross checking, you can be more confident in your judgement. By multiple sources I don't mean from CNN, Fox, etc., I mean sources from China, US, Europe and all other places. This again brings me to the language barrier point. It's hard for you to access the Chinese media without it being translated and presented to you, that I don't know how you can solve.

For the media being controlled by the government point, I'd like to agree on the Chinese part. The US media tho, while they seem to be saying what they want to say, sometimes it's not true. Case in point: https://youtu.be/yUGPIeE9kMc

About censoring, I'm not denying Chinese social media is heavily censored. However, I find the situation in western forums and social media are rather interesting. Whenever people post anything neutral/good about China, they get bashed and down voted to oblivion. People call them wumao/50 cents to ignore their opinions. Just my observations. Maybe there's a name for it, but I think it's a different form of censorship, but I could be wrong.

Again, I appreciate your response. I don't know why I'm getting down voted. Just because I hold a different view or something else?

atr_gz · 6 years ago

But people in China can't really cross check things with sources that aren't controlled by their government. I've been in China for the entire duration of the Hong Kong protests, and unfortunately I often have to watch CCTV news at night.

They didn't even cover the protests for something like two weeks. They waited until they had some negative things to cover and their talking points all sorted out, then started hammering away about how violent the protestors were and how they were all that way because of foreign influence. It was truly absurd.

The Overton [1] window in China and amongst Chinese people is therefore very far from the truth. Combine that with social pressure, and poor reporting by Western sources, even overseas Chinese people have trouble understanding other opinions on the matter.

I don't agree about your different form of censorship idea. It's completely different to have the majority of people disagree with or ignore your opinion than to have top-down censorship of different ideas. I can easily find Chinese opinions on social media and educate myself about your beliefs. Not so easy in China. To me it just shows weakness - if the government of China can't trust their people to make up their own mind, what does that say about their arguments?

I haven't tried to bring up the Hong Kong protests with many friends here in China, just because I'm afraid of losing their friendships. How must it feel for Chinese people who have sympathy for them?

As far as the NBA, some friends have actually broached the topic with me. They tend to be upper-middle class, educated types, and while they might disagree with what that one guy said (and apologized for), they aren't angry at the NBA, and they feel the government response is ridiculous and counter-productive.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

atr_gz commented on Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer thedailybeast.com/blizzar... · Posted by u/minimaxir

morningseagulls · 6 years ago

>Hong Kong's entire value, as far as I can see [...]

Keep in mind that that's the perspective you've been conditioned to see by the media you've consumed.

>If it becomes a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen with sky high real estate, which seems to be what China wants, what's left of Hong Kong?

Well, for one thing, the unstable political condition is likely to change the "sky high real estate" bit.

>I thought China was smarter than this. I thought they would realize the value of Hong Kong. Apparently China doesn't want Hong Kong.

Oh, please. They do want Hong Kong. They just want Hong Kong in a different way from how the rest of the world thinks Hong Kong is valuable to China.

>They want to remove the painful reminder of the Opium Wars and British influence in the Sinosphere.

The Anglosphere wants to remove the painful reminder of the Opium Wars. You seem to. China doesn't.

As for foreign influence in their own backyard, ever heard of NIMBY ("not in my back yard")?

>There will never be another place like it, and China is destroying it out of spite and ideological inflexibility.

Not quite. For one thing, Hong Kong has lost its lustre as "a place to live or to do business or to visit". Recent IMF data show that its GDP per capita is almost half that of Macau SAR:

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/articl...

It's also fallen far behind as one of the world's busiest ports: Shenzhen now outranks it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port...

It's not a matter of whether Hong Kong becomes "a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen", but when, because Hong Kong is already heading down that road.

What you, and other commentators, seem to fail to understand is that China absolutely wants Hong Kong, but not for it being an SAR. No. Reread Carrie Lam's leaked comments again:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-carriel...

>Lam noted, however, that she had few options once an issue had been elevated “to a national level,” a reference to the leadership in Beijing, “to a sort of sovereignty and security level, let alone in the midst of this sort of unprecedented tension between the two big economies in the world.”

This has now been elevated to an issue of national security for China. Do you know why?

Because the Hong Kong activists are now demanding independence.

Set aside the issue of self-determination for a minute. Suppose you are playing as China in this game of Civilization and a city that you've got back is doing this. How would you react?

Would you fold to the demands of Washington and Elizabeth?

Or would you look at South Korea? At Taiwan? At how Mongolia got away with the help of Catherine?

Notwithstanding the rhetoric around the Opium Wars, Hong Kong is strategically valuable -- and not simply economically valuable -- to China because it's located on the other side of the mouth of the Pearl River from Macau. It's literally a physical gatekeeper to Guangzhou. Have a look at the geographic reality:

https://www.google.com/maps/@22.4267643,113.6415031,9z

(China does have detailed economic plans for the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Economic_Zon...)

Which is why China would hold on to Hong Kong tightly, as tightly as it'd hold on to Tibet or Xinjiang. For strategic reasons.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

Independence is not one of the demands of the protestors. Please provide a source for that claim.

atr_gz commented on White House Weighs Limits on U.S. Portfolio Flows Into China bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/chenzhekl

Traster · 6 years ago

The SEC. If your concern is that companies listed on US stock exchanges aren't correctly reporting their financials thats an issue for the SEC. It's not an issue for a blanket ban on Chinese companies being listed. Preventing Americans from being able to trade their investments easily on a reputable exchange isn't going to help them.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

Except the SEC has given Chinese companies an exemption from normal oversight. I agree that there shouldn't be a blanket ban - but the companies should have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/china-and-the-u-s-stock...

atr_gz commented on Gigantic Chinese telescope opens to astronomers worldwide nature.com/articles/d4158... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

SiempreViernes · 6 years ago

No, the no devices policy would have been there from the start, its as basic as forbidding open flames at a petrol station.

The need for X-ray machines due to tourists ignoring the ban is a more likely development.

atr_gz · 6 years ago

No, it wasn't there from the start. The no electronics policy only started within the last two years. I know someone who has been there and has the pictures on her phone.