As Beijing Takes Control, Chinese Tech Companies Lose Jobs and Hope (nytimes.com) 161
The crackdown is killing the entrepreneurial drive that made China a tech power and destroying jobs that used to attract the country's brightest. From a report: Like many ambitious young Chinese, Zhao Junfeng studied hard in college and graduate school so he could land a coveted job as a programmer at a big Chinese internet company. After finishing graduate school in 2019, he joined an e-commerce company in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, got married and adopted a cat named Mango. In November of 2021, he moved to Shanghai to join one of China's biggest video platforms, iQiyi. He was on track to achieve a much-desired middle-class life, documenting his rise on his social media account. Then barely a month into his new job, he was let go when iQiyi laid off more than 20 percent of its staff.
The ranks of the unemployed technology workers are swelling, as China's once vibrant internet industry is hit by a harsh and capricious regulatory crackdown. Under the direction of China's top leader, Xi Jinping, the government's unbridled hand is meddling in big ways and small, leaving companies second-guessing their strategies and praying to not become the next targets for crackdown. In place of the pride and ambition that dominated a few years ago, fear and gloom now rule as many tech companies lower their growth targets and lay off young, well-educated workers. Like their American counterparts, China's biggest tech companies are regulated to limit abuses of power and to mitigate systemic risks. But Beijing's hyper-political approach shows that it's more about the Communist Party taking control of the industry than about leveling the playing field.
The crackdown is killing the innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that made China a tech power in the past decade. It is destroying companies, profits and jobs that used to attract China's best and brightest. Even people within the system are alarmed by the heavy-handed approach. The former head of China's sovereign wealth fund urged restrictions on the power of regulators. Hu Xijin, the newly retired editor of the official newspaper Global Times and an infamous propagandist, said he hoped that regulatory actions should help make most companies healthier instead of leaving them "dying on the operating table." The damage has been done. Some internet companies have been forced to shut down, while others are suffering from huge losses or disappointing earnings. Many publicly listed companies have seen their share prices fall by half, if not more.
The ranks of the unemployed technology workers are swelling, as China's once vibrant internet industry is hit by a harsh and capricious regulatory crackdown. Under the direction of China's top leader, Xi Jinping, the government's unbridled hand is meddling in big ways and small, leaving companies second-guessing their strategies and praying to not become the next targets for crackdown. In place of the pride and ambition that dominated a few years ago, fear and gloom now rule as many tech companies lower their growth targets and lay off young, well-educated workers. Like their American counterparts, China's biggest tech companies are regulated to limit abuses of power and to mitigate systemic risks. But Beijing's hyper-political approach shows that it's more about the Communist Party taking control of the industry than about leveling the playing field.
The crackdown is killing the innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that made China a tech power in the past decade. It is destroying companies, profits and jobs that used to attract China's best and brightest. Even people within the system are alarmed by the heavy-handed approach. The former head of China's sovereign wealth fund urged restrictions on the power of regulators. Hu Xijin, the newly retired editor of the official newspaper Global Times and an infamous propagandist, said he hoped that regulatory actions should help make most companies healthier instead of leaving them "dying on the operating table." The damage has been done. Some internet companies have been forced to shut down, while others are suffering from huge losses or disappointing earnings. Many publicly listed companies have seen their share prices fall by half, if not more.
Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is 3T really the worth of Apple, or 2T for various tech companies due to ridiculous valuations? Is Tesla really worth more than $1T more than all the other EV companies combined?
Seems like China's valuations are more grounded in reality more so than anything in the West, which is currently being fueled by nothing more than fairy dust and pipe smoke.
Re:Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple's value largely comes from the app store. They are essentially one SCOTUS decision away from losing their cash cow and a lot of their value. However for the time being that value is real and will continue to be real as long as the app store exists as it does.
Tesla's stock is definitely inflated because their revenue and volume of sales simply don't reflect their valuation. I don't expect it to implode overnight but as more established makers continue to transition to EVs I think Tesla will start to lose market share and will wither. They only had until normal carmakers could figure out EVs for them to figure out cars in general. They have made strides but there are still QC issues and they have wasted time on strange design choices and self driving when they should have been focusing on perfecting the car. Because of that they are caught with an imperfect car, half baked self driving and empty promises on future products just as everyone else comes out with real competitors. Why would I buy a Tesla when products like the Porsche Taycan, Mercedesz EQS, Mustang Mach-E and Hummer EV exist?
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> Why would I buy a Tesla when products like the Porsche Taycan, Mercedesz EQS, Mustang Mach-E and Hummer EV exist?
Why? Price, range and charging infrastructure.
EV charging infrastructure needs to be open to all (Score:5, Insightful)
EV charging infrastructure needs to be open to all we don't have ford only gas stations.
Re:EV charging infrastructure needs to be open to (Score:5, Informative)
Ford used to run their own filling stations. Not sure if they were Ford-exclusive, but they were really a thing.
https://www.thehenryford.org/c... [thehenryford.org]
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>EV charging infrastructure needs to be open to all we don't have ford only gas stations.
No argument there. It's a massive failing of the US government in failing to mandate a single charging standard for US cars. Even if they managed that, they would make it different to China, Japan and Europe, ensuring another US-only format to go along with NTSC (Never Twice The Same Colour), IS95 and DRM (The digital radio, not the content protection).
Re: EV charging infrastructure needs to be open to (Score:2)
Actually by the late 70s, the color problems with NTSC were already solved with circuitry that could automatically adjust the color shift that gets worse the further away you are from the transmitter (which you were supposed to adjust with the tint knob.) And at the time NTSC came around, there were no international standards. Even within Europe, the monochrome standards that existed were for mechanical TVs, and were mutually incompatible. NTSC was a vast improvement over that. PAL came out 8 years later, a
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...the US government in failing to mandate a single charging standard for US cars. Even if they managed that, they would make it different to China, Japan and Europe, ensuring another US-only format to go along with NTSC (Never Twice The Same Colour), IS95 and DRM (The digital radio, not the content protection).
You left out feet, inches, pounds, fluid ounces, and degrees Fahrenheit.
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>He wants his monopoly.
All the other car companies are free to build charging stations. They seem not to want to. Being the only company to bother hardly makes it a monopoly.
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Tesla sold about a million cars this year so it's getting pretty late in the game to ask that as a rhetorical question having the answer you evidently assume.
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Yes they did and those other EVs have either just come out or are just coming out now. So it does change the conversation. Until now Tesla was the only company making an EV that wasn't a joke. Now most car makers either have one or have one coming out soon. So the conversation changes from either a Tesla or a shit EV to comparing them on merit. The Model S has to compete with a Taycan when it didn't have any direct competition before mid 2020.
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because you can't actually buy a Mach-E right now. You might be able to get a Hummer EV, but I am sure the QC issues with that will leave you wanting a Tesla. The Tycan and EQS are probably nice cars, PolStar has some things that seems worth a look too.
I am still super skeptical Ford and GM are going to be able to compete in this space ultimately. I really don't see them putting out mass market product that is turly price and performance competitive with their international big auto peers -or- Tesla's lower
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Why would I buy a Tesla when products like the Porsche Taycan, Mercedesz EQS, Mustang Mach-E and Hummer EV exist?
To begin with, the Tesla can beat all of those cars in a drag race.
Re: Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companie (Score:2)
Instead of asking is Apple worth 3T, ask me whether owning a share of Apple is worth 180 dollars to me. The answer right now for me is yes. I mean, do you have some less riskier suggestion of what to do with 180? I could hide it under the pillow, but given inflation itâ(TM)s could lose value and buying power. Previously I invested in my cousinâ(TM)s sure shot idea of a laser arcade for cats but that failed when it blinded a poor kitty. I am serious, what would you recommend I do with the 180 bucks
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Realistically many of those companies should be split up as monopolies, but it won't happen. Regulators have been swayed that they're mostly benign and that their products add so much value that whatever monopoly costs they impose are less than the consumer value they provide.
I think there's also a sense that these companies are such juggernauts internationally that there's a lot of risk that breaking them up could result in significant economic disruption and some real harm to an economy that's grown depe
Why wait 2 years (Score:2)
when you can buy 18,000 crypto tokens worth $0.01 each right now?
The total value after two years may or may not be $180
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The US government that has the force of law mandating that your taxes be paid in actual US dollars, you mean?
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Probably what fuels Apple's stock price is not the revenue to valuation ratio, but the idea that they have managed to make even more money despite the smartphone market growth leveling off. They were derided, and maybe rightly so, as a kind of one-trick pony of a smartphone company with a fading side business in computers, and the tapering smartphone growth was going to kill them.
So the fact that they've managed to diversify a bit and continue to attract loyal customers means that their stock price reflect
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Coal prices are definitely NOT super low right now, they're super high.
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I work in the coal industry and you're stupid if you invest in a coal company. For the last 10-15 years standard operating procedure is to run coal for 2-3 years then bankrupt and open back up with the same leadership under a slightly different name.
Re:Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companies (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they are not. Western (not just USA) valuations are based on high growth, not value stocks. You are using a value based pricing mechanism on the most extreme of the growth stocks. It is kind of like judging a sports car on it's towing capacity.
China companies are no longer allowed to grow. They are being forced to act like a value stock, and as such do not deserve growth valuations.
More importantly, China has a huge real estate problem. There are homes that have built and sold multiple times with no one ever living in them. Sometimes the homes are not even connected to electricity or water. Worst of all, often the people that own rural homes that no one has ever lived in are living in a city and paying rent because it is too expensive for them to own real estate in that city. This happens because most chinese are forbidden from investing in the stock market, so they invest in real estate instead. Fine if you invest in your own home.
It's not like real estate crisis took down the USA's finance in 2008. Oh wait, it did.
China is a financial disaster waiting to implode.
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Specifics for Tesla (Score:3)
Western (not just USA) valuations are based on high growth, not value stocks
The original question was for Tesla, so here's some specific background for that company.
Tesla is currently producing about 1 million vehicles per year, and has stated that they expect to grow 50% each year for the foreseeable future. That's an exponential growth, with a doubling period of 2 years. Tesla Berlin and Austin factories are almost ready to open, and Tesla is rumored to be looking to build more factories in Japan, Eastern US, UK, and India.
There are about 1.3 billion vehicles worldwide, including
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At some point Musk's lying to investors is going to catch up with Tesla.
In 2019, he stood before investors and told them Tesla's were ready for level 5 self driving, today. It's 2022 and they are level 2.
He told investors that it was financially stupid to not buy a Tesla because you could make $30k / year renting it out as a self driving taxi. Setting aside there is no place in the US you can do that... if that were true they wouldn't sell any Teslas. They'd keep them all themselves and rent them all out.
Th
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What you listed is just fluff
They are exactly what I said they are: statements made by Mr. Musk to investors that were gross exaggerations. The videos are all on YT for you too to watch if you have further questions.
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A third of Tesla's 2021 earnings came from selling energy credits to other automakers. As other automakers ramp up production of electrical vehicles, that market is going to go away. Minus energy cred
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living in a city and paying rent because it is too expensive for them to own real estate in that city.
This is not a problem that's isolated to China.
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Is 1 US dollar worth $1? These are some philosophical questions on value and worth.
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The value of any stock is literally defined by what people are willing to pay for it. I wouldn't pay much, if anything, for a Chinese tech stock right now either.
- Necron69
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Think it through though. If the state capitalists who run China can just seize your company or regulate it out of existence at any time, how can any investor even think about putting their money into a Chinese company?
If China were at all communist, there would be no valuation of companies because there would be no buying and selling of the means of production. A communist China would honor use rights, not property rights, and the workers would control the means of production.
Re:Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Think it through though. If the state capitalists who run China can just seize your company or regulate it out of existence at any time, how can any investor even think about putting their money into a Chinese company?
If China were at all communist, there would be no valuation of companies because there would be no buying and selling of the means of production. A communist China would honor use rights, not property rights, and the workers would control the means of production.
Sadly, it is the Party in control, not the workers. The Marxist theory breaks down because it didn't put the "ruling class" as a distinct class above all else. A society, in order to compete with outsiders efficiently, are always ruled by a minority and make the majority be ruled. The worker class being the mass, can never be the "ruling class". (Representative democracy in modern world are adding check and balance to the ruling class. It cannot change the true nature of ruling class either.)
Re:Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Oligarchy does not make society efficient. It makes it very inefficient at meeting the needs of the members at large, but very efficient at meeting the needs of the oligarchy. The true nature of the ruling class is hereditary incompetence. A person gets lucky, or perhaps has some skill combined with luck, they make a bunch of money. They pass it on, but regression to the mean means, even if they were exceptional, their kids are likely not.
However, their kids now have money, chich is power. They can use it to game the system, and maintain control by hiring smart people. These smart people then become dependent on the system of oligarchy, and defend it. Even though the top of the owning class are idiots, they can hire smart people to keep the system goin.
Oligarchs are not "strong" people. They are weak, emotionally damaged people. They are sociopaths, incapable of true empathy, friendship, or love. They do not deserve to rule. They deserve to be hugged and welcomed back into the arms of the tribe though. Punishment and vengeance are their game, not ours. Society as a whole would be better, but more importantly, their own lives would be immeasurably richer. The pleasure they have from being rich and powerful is like the pleasure from cocaine: false, empty, and merely borrowing happiness from elsewhere.
Marxism makes all this explicit. The idea of communism is that a vanguard of elites are needed to implement and direct the revolution. They are expected to step down once the revolution has succeeded. But the oligarchs in the rest of the world do not want that to happen, and so they fight communism, tooth and nail. Which means, the revolutionary elites need to be just as brutal to win. But then, why would they ever step down?
And thus, the oligarchs win. Communism is defeated. Even if it calls itself communism, it is not. It is just more oligarchs, playing the "I'm keeping you safe from that monster over there" games, all the while winking at that monster over there, who is saying the same thing to his people.
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Okay, let's not call it communism then. IDGAF what you call it, what I want is for the workers to control the means of production democratically. Why won't that work, in your opinion? Just that, the workers controlling the means of production through democratic vote of each who works at a particular place. No boss, hiring and firing done by vote. I've worked at co-ops run like this and it was GREAT. No downside. Why do you think that will not work on a larger scale, where other systems do?
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what I want is for the workers to control the means of production democratically. Why won't that work, in your opinion?
It will certainly work. All the workers need to do is buy the means of production and then they can control whichever MoPs they've purchased. This is a democratic method where a "vote" is equivalent to a "dollar" or whatever currency you prefer.
But if you're asking why can't a large group of people (call them workers or anything else) successfully control a whole bunch of stuff that they don't own, the answer is simple. Large groups of people don't have monolithic opinions. You will inevitably have many dif
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Wait, why would you posit people controlling things they don't own? They own the things, through the right of use ownership. The real problem is people controlling things they don't directly use. In order to do that, you need an apparatus of control, and a monopoly on the use of violence. You need a state to protect the assets you claim to own, but do not use personally.
And all you are saying is equally applicable to our current system.
But fundamentally, you are just ignoring my premise. You are talking abo
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You think the rich are rich because they predict future needs? Not from exploiting the working class and destroying the environment?
The rich are not superior, they are criminals. White collar crime and wage theft (actual theft, not theoretical) are the biggest dollar value crimes, yet never punished. And most of the rich did very little besides be born to the right family. Even the "self made" started with connections and a few hundred grand laying around.
The workers are not idiots. They just don't have th
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I will skip the discussion of kids of rulers part, because the term "ruling class" I used didn't imply it is hereditary. I am taking presidents / prime ministers / congressmen etc. elected democratically as "ruling class" too. They are a very small group of people in comparison to the total population.
Human communities don't live isolated. Competitions among families, villages, tribes, cities, nations, races etc. are everywhere (also for clubs and companies). When a conflict is intense, i.e. in some form
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Seems like China's valuations are more grounded in reality more so than anything in the West, which is currently being fueled by nothing more than fairy dust and pipe smoke.
Probably. But big valuations beget big investment. And those investments are real dollars that go into growing the company.
Re:Is 50% the real worth of Chinese tech companies (Score:5, Funny)
> The US rich have shiploads of money,
Thank you. This finally explains why they're back-logged unloading shipping containers at the US ports.
Xi didn't like his Musks (Score:5, Insightful)
Xi has recently decided that control is more important than economic growth. CEO's of big companies have recently tried using their wealth to influence the gov't, and in response Xi is trying to limit their size and power now in a kind of anti-trust movement. I don't believe China's economy will shrink, but its growth rate may start looking more like the Western world's.
Re:Xi didn't like his Musks (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't believe China's economy will shrink, but its growth rate may start looking more like the Western world's.
Business cycles are normal; the fact that China has not experienced them in the past decades is because they moved away from an grossly inefficient economic system. That created immense but transient opportunities as a vast country, rich in natural and human resources, levels up to something closer to its natural potential. Since you can't level up a huge country overnight, that transient period of guaranteed high growth lasted for many years. But if your source of *guaranteed* growth is your past underperformance, eventually those guarantees have got to run out.
For China never to reach a point where it weathers occasional economic contractions, it would have to be exempt from the economic forces that govern every other country's economy. So a lot depends on how much you believe in Chinese exceptionalism. Or more to the point, a lot depends on how much *Xi* believes in it. A leader who thinks that destiny trumps the consequences of his actions can do a lot of damage to a country.
It certainly looks like Xi is putting a lot of faith in destiny; either that or he just doesn't care about the consequences. His move to crack down on the real estate bubble is arguably something that should have been done years ago, but the way he is doing it doesn't make him appear concerned that 70% of Chinese savings might evaporate overnight. As someone educated in Communist thought, he probably regards that kind of wealth as an illusion, as mere "commodity fetishism". But even if that's true, the rapid collapse of a widely-held delusion can itself have catastrophic effects on political stability, which is something he clearly cares a lot about.
I think China *still* underperforms its economic potential, but not so much that it is immune from occasional transient contractions. The fact that China is completely unfamiliar with business cycles will make the first serious downturns it faces perilous to the country and to supply chains that depend on it.
Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:2)
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China goes through regular cycles of centralization and decentralization. When power gets too widely distributed, the central government gets nervous. An authoritarian government can't afford to let anyone else get too powerful. They start cracking down on all other sources of power, like private corporations and regional governments, and asserting their supremacy. That generally leads to inefficiency and economic stagnation, because China is way too big to be effectively managed like that. Eventually
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Not unless you seize the assets of the rich and lock them away in reeducation camps.
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Not unless you seize the assets of the rich and lock them away in reeducation camps.
That doesn't change things much. Capitalism creates a social hierarchy based on talent at making economic exchanges, which for the most part is talent at convincing other people that doing what benefits you benefits them (whether it does or doesn't). Communism, or more specifically Socialism, does the same thing, except what's exchanged are political favors rather than capital assets. In both cases those who talk the most, in the way all the others who also talk the most want to hear, are the ones who get t
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Re: Xi didn't like his Musks (Score:2)
So? In a Socialist system with a planned economy the exact same thing happens: the small set of members of the "Vanguard of the Proletariat" -- you know, those who rarely are actual proletarians themselves --, controls the means of production, force the real proletarians to do their bidding, extract surplus from them to get much nicer lives for themselves -- luxurious ones for the top dogs --, all while telling the actual proletarians that they're the owners of those means of production, that this is all fo
nice try, big tech (Score:3, Insightful)
Like their American counterparts, China's biggest tech companies are regulated
American tech companies are not regulated anywhere close to how Chinese tech companies are. American tech companies are regulated about as much as a lemonade stand. The point of this article is to spread FUD among US tech workers so we speak out against breaking up big tech monopolies at home.
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First of all, kudos for drawing the parallels — and getting the hint. Indeed, governmental intervention hurts business, making things worse not just for the businessmen, but for their customers too.
Where you're wrong, though, is in estimating the scale of US government's power over American companies — it is immense. Your comparison with a lemonade stand was apt indeed [nypost.com].
From Democrats forcing social media companies to silence opposition [washingtonpost.com] — on pain of "punishing regulations", to abruptly shut [vox.com]
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Where you're wrong, though, is in estimating the scale of US government's power over American companies — it is immense
Don't believe that at all.
Also, nice job linking to tabloid and opinion pieces.
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Also, nice job linking to tabloid and opinion pieces.
They did one of the better jobs of citing sources I've seen in a post. Would you feel better if they linked to the NYT or WSJ? Everyone has a narrative these days.
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From Democrats forcing social media companies to silence opposition â" on pain of "punishing regulations"
Democrats may have publicly threatened that, meanwhile Republicans went ahead and forced a deal [thedailybeast.com] to push conservatives and protect conservative users in exchange for avoiding regulations. Funny how what Republicans accuse Democrats of planning to do is always things they're already doing. And I don't want to fucking hear about being heavy handed with businesses from the party that banned businesses from implementing mask and vaccine mandates to protect their customers in a pandemic. That's some fucking nerve
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the government can make any corporation do just about anything.
And so they should. A functioning government enacts for the will and good of the people. You mentioned they make things worse for consumers as well, but proceed to list only complaints about businesses.
You never listed:
- Restricting the use of lead in children's toys.
- Banning the use of asbestos insulation in homes.
- Removing hard drugs such as cocaine or dangerous elements such as radon from our foods.
- Restricting the sale of alcohol and cigarettes to minors.
- Stop the dumping of dangerous chemicals into
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American tech companies regulates the government. Money FTW
Re:nice try, big tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Equating "regulation" in a country with the rule of law to "regulation" in a country with unfettered political power is an apples-to-oranges comparison.
China has a lot of regulations which it can ignore when it suits the party's agenda or enforce when it wants to punish political transgressions. In the US selective enforcement of regulations is a frequent subject of lawsuits brought by government watchdog groups like the ACLU. Although sovereign immunity limits the kinds of suits that can be brought against government bodies in the US, citizens and citizen groups can apply for injunctive relief .
This gives the Chinese government *unlimited*, *ad hoc* intervention powers with businesses. It can create regulations without any regard to the consequences and simply ignore them until needed. In the US the government does have *some* latitude in enforcing laws; it can cut deals or sometimes turn a blind eye to minor transgressions, but an independent judiciary means those actions can be challenged if they rise to a violation of 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
Having law enforcement being more *intrusive* doesn't make that society more *lawful*. If law enforcement is doing the unrestrained bidding of the political leadership, they're actually an instrument of lawlessness.
Communism! (Score:3)
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Self-defeating in every single way. I wonder if the Chinese people are chanting (under their breath of course) "Let's go Xi". Xi is in for a world of hurt when the citizens of China have finally had enough. Can't wait to see the stuffing ripped out of Pooh.
These are privately owned businesses. China has big problems, communism has big problems, but calling this a result of communism is fucking retarded.
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Spotted the CCP shill! (Score:2)
Re:Communism! (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if the Chinese people are chanting (under their breath of course) "Let's go Xi"
I think most Chinese people are bought into Xi's ideas of Chinese exceptionalism, which is just thinly veiled racism. That's the real type racism, not like dressing up as Mr. T on Halloween.
Those that aren't bought into it know enough to keep it zipped, lest they end up like Peng Shuai.
Let them join the revolution (Score:5, Interesting)
History has shown that revolutionaries come from frustrated elites, not from the peasants. China is creating its own revolutionary cadres by mistake by snuffing out the dreams of their striving class.
The system might change, and that change will start with them.
Leisure industry is superfluous (Score:4, Insightful)
The leisure/social-media industry is from a central planning point of view irrelevant unless it creates exports. Some social media site isn't like say Alibaba/Aliexpress.
This doesn't hurt China in any meaningful way, the people will find something else to do and those employees will find more productive jobs, win win.
Assuming people stick around... (Score:2)
It can hurt China if knowledge workers leave the country to launch their new ideas elsewhere.
If only the US immigration system wasn't so dumb, smart techies people could be next great import from China.
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Who says China would let them leave the country?
Remember, it's not a free country over there.
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Wasn't allowing free travel for its citizens a requirement for getting into the WTO? Of course for high value targets they can simply go after family.
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I don't think China would really care...and what's the WTO going to do? Show a backbone and kick them out?
And, how bad would that really hurt China?
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The New Great Leap Backward (Score:2)
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Winnie the Pooh is free from IP.
Long Live the Glorious Revolution of Piglet!
they do not want globalization to take over and wh (Score:2)
they do not want globalization to take over and when the cheap labor factory move to the next low cost place they want to keep as much IP as they can in china.
So? (Score:2)
I really don't care if Chinese tech companies are suddenly under the boot of more control. The CCP can't have it both ways, they can't have 11+% economic growth and full control of every aspect of the economy. Does all this growth represent a risk to the regime? yes. Do I care? fuck no.
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Anecdotal lead (Score:4, Insightful)
Any article that starts with an anecdotal lead is a "human interest" story, not a serious story about economics. Y'all can hope the Chinese stumble, but don't bet your farm on it.
"Like American companies" (Score:3, Informative)
Like their American counterparts, China's biggest tech companies are regulated to limit abuses of power and to mitigate systemic risks.
LMAO at the NY Times saying American tech companies are regulated like China's companies.
China directly controls, at an immediate whim and with near total discretion, the operations of anyone and anything in its borders. The US SEC, FTC, Justice Department, etc., have to build a case and meet proof burdens and litigate policy changes for years before then applying remediation or fines which are often limited by statute.
Cheap labor is the only reason they are where (Score:3)
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This is why India and Vietnam will rule the 2020s, while China will fade.
Chinese Cultural Values (Score:2)
Face. Face is always the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Asian culture cares so much about honor and 'face', that it has become a huge problem. Western culture had this issue to a lesser extent, but we seriously weakened it when we ceased being monarchies.
As a direct result, problems continue for too long and no one can tell the older, more powerful people they are incorrect.
Right now the general opinion is that China is successful because of communist Chinese culture, not the western tactics it let flourish, such as capitalism and freedom. They look at the decades of financial success and say 'we won'. So it is rooting out the capitalists and freedom from places like Honk Kong.
As a westerner, I believe that they are wrong. They had those years of success because they loosened up and embraced some western values. If I (and the thread poster) are correct, China is in for a rough decade.
Note, 'western' culture is not really western. We got the way we are by embracing OTHER cultures. Our music for example has strong African roots. Blues led to Jazz led to Big Band, Rock and everything else, That does not mean it is all African American, it has some European influences as well. It is a mish-mash from all around the world. Our food, well a typical American eats pizza that came from Italy, hamburgers and sausages (Hot Dogs) from Germany, and Chinese food from China. Note, none of these are like the originals found in the old countries. Instead we incorporated the best from the originals and changed them.
Whenever some group says "we are better than everyone else and do not need anyone else", they are wrong. Everyone needs everyone else. China needs western values just as the west needs Chinese values.
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China needs western values just as the west needs Chinese values.
I can't think of a Chinese value that has had significant impact in the West.
Or are you still talking about food? I guess moo shu pork's okay.
Re:Face. Face is always the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of Western Europe is around $45k - $60k. The cost of introducing economic inefficiency to assure better income equality [scientificamerican.com]. Not saying there's anything wrong with this (in fact I prefer it), just that forcing the economy to do something it doesn't naturally want to do comes at a cost.
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are at around $30k-$40k. They suffer from ingrained corruption (winners are frequently determined by who paid the biggest bribe, not who made the best product), and cultural conservatism which makes their companies slower to react to problems and changing economic conditions.
Most of Eastern Europe is around $20k-$25k. Again, likely due to ingrained corruption. For reference, Communist East Germany was around $25k in its heyday.
Below that are the truly corrupt nations, banana republics, and economically mismanaged. Corruption, incompetence, or excess control by the wealthy result in their economies being geared towards keeping those people wealthy and in power, not maximizing everyone's productivity. Russia is at around $11.5k because the country is pretty much run to keep Putin and several organized crime bosses in power. The same goes for China - also at around $11.5k due to the top priority being keeping the Communist party in power. The Soviet Union was at around $10k-$15k as well. (The U.S. left this state when Henry Ford began paying his workers double the prevailing wage. And inadvertently discovered that if you pay workers a fair wage, the economic growth it creates more than offsets the cost of those higher wages. And he became one of the richest people on the planet because his workers were suddenly able to afford to buy the cars they were producing.)
So yeah. China's current economic state seems good to them only because they're comparing to before they introduced market reforms, when their GDP per capita was down around $1000. It's currently about 10x that, but it's still less than half what East Germany managed to achieve under Communism, and 1/5 to 1/6 where the free market western nations are at. At the very least, if they ditched Communism I would expect China to be able to match Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan at $30k-$40k. (Hong Kong is at about $50k, but that's a city-state.)
They should Unionize (Score:2)
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All those UNDERPAID Chinese workers should for a union. That way they can fight back against the government abusing them. The AFL-CIO and SEIU should send leaders and organizers over there to help them out. What could possibly go wrong?
Way ahead of you there! They have one [wikipedia.org], in fact it is the only legal union allowed in China. It defines itself as "an important social pillar of the state power", so I suspect it isn't going to be arguing with the CCP though. Stability above all.
Serves as a warning to the US (Score:2)
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Wow..just...wow.
Do you actually really believe this or are you just having a bit of fun with everyone?
I'm no Trump fan, but even I don't believe that one.
And so far, the Dems/Left seem to be using fascist tactics the most...especially in suppressing speech.
Doom (Score:2)
For the US I am not so sure. If Trump gets re-elected weird stuff is going to happen probably beyond our imagination. Maybe the US needs to spend more time in introspection. You know, to make it great again. Show us how it's done US, heal.
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Hyperbole (Score:2)
Time to leave China for the real world (Score:2)
I recommend moving to the EU, Canada, or the US.
Not the UK, other than Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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What did whales ever do to you?
Did they spout water from their blowholes at you or were you swallowed up?
Oh you mean Wales.
England make sense but why is Wales a bad place?
Obviously, US lesson learned (Score:2)
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