Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Perd Hapley on November 20, 2019, 04:57:23 PM
-
https://boingboing.net/2019/11/13/hardball-w-chinese-characteris.html
According to this article, if you try to move your manufacturing out of China, there's a good chance you, or your intellectual property, may be kidnapped.
Background: Trump's tariffs have kneecapped Chinese manufacturing, and Chinese manufacturers are responding by slashing prices to their western customers. This has given rise to a wave of requests for discounts from those western companies, and Chinese manufacturers, already bleeding, are taking desperate steps to stay in business as customers leave or demand unrealistic discounts as a condition of staying.
The first one is plain old kidnapping (China Law Blog has written extensively about how kidnapping and ransom are a normal part of Chinese debt collection). Chinese manufacturers, working with local officials, have begun to kidnap representatives from western businesses, citing (possibly imaginary) debts or tax liabilities and holding those reps to ransom as a bargaining chip for keeping foreign business and/or extracting an exit payment from those that they lose.
Then there's product cloning: it's not merely that your Chinese manufacturer might steal your product dies and go into business cloning your product and selling it to your wholesalers (though that's happening!). It's also that your Chinese manufacturer might have taken out patents and trademarks on your business and its products. These don't just stop you from sourcing an alternative supplier after you part ways -- some western companies have found that their products are being seized at the Chinese border as counterfeits after anonymous businesses (presumed to be their former manufacturing partners) made patent and trademark claims with customs officials.
There's also ways that Chinese manufacturers can blacklist their former customers in China, reporting them as fraudsters, which prevents you from going to a rival.
-
So what is the upside of doing business with China?
-
So what is the upside of doing business with China?
If you're Google, it means you don't have to do business with the nasty US government and military and can give your bleeding edge tech to the Chinese military instead. SJW Google employee win!
-
If you're Google, it means you don't have to do business with the nasty US government and military and can give your bleeding edge tech to the Chinese military instead. SJW Google employee win!
And you can help them with AI tech the Chinese Govt can use to track dissidents.
-
So what is the upside of doing business with China?
Somehow it's cheaper. Which indicates how messed up and artificially propped up the global economy really is.