Now, onto the business. Nothing really to comment - everythings is rather self-evident. Greed and stupidity usually win.
There are two cooperating factors here - one is regular greed of the corporate business, which is after profit and doesn't give a flying fuck about anything else. Companies like Google, Macrosyph or Cisco have such positions theat even a great outcry at home won't hurt them much, unless it goes on and on. Single burst of emotions won't even be registered on the scale of income.
Second is the fascination with China - or rather fascination with a dream of China. Huge market, huge potential etc. Which is not so huge, if one looks closer at it; and by large goes on a strength of foreign investment. And foreigners allo themselves to be nicele milked - barely a third of the companies investing in China has a profit from it :) Yet China still has the "most favoured nation" status. Why? God knows. How come? The British had to fight wars to get such treatment in China. The Chinese got it in US for free... It could have been necessary when any help against Soviet Empire was necessary, but the Soviet threat failed 15 years ago, in case nobody noticed. But there is also - very pronounced in States - guilt towards the China, so badly treared in 19th cent. Which is true, but the same, or even more true it is about many other colonial countries and they are not getting such favourable treatment.
Trying to "grow up" a Chinese middle-class, which should be more open etc. like ou middle-class is, by stimulating their economic growth is a sensible thing, but... If we think that people will be more open, less xeno-nationalistic, demanding access to the gov't and believing in democracy and whatnot only because they earn more, that's a delusion. For China actually the reverse of the typical trend is visible: more educated people - because they were indoctrinated longer - tend to be less open and oten more xenophobic. Therefore of we - in this case mainly US - help the Chinese become richer without providing them tools for at least supplementing their education and having a contact with the outside world - then we're growing ourselves a great number of potential enemies, who not only will hate us, but also will have means to put this hatred into practice. And it won't be their fault - but rather ours.
And I do believe US gov't could coerce the IT firms into not playing into PRC's hands. Inland Revenue can do miracles, all within the boundaries of law...
Nothing really to comment - everythings is rather self-evident. Greed and stupidity usually win.
There are two cooperating factors here - one is regular greed of the corporate business, which is after profit and doesn't give a flying fuck about anything else. Companies like Google, Macrosyph or Cisco have such positions theat even a great outcry at home won't hurt them much, unless it goes on and on. Single burst of emotions won't even be registered on the scale of income.
Second is the fascination with China - or rather fascination with a dream of China. Huge market, huge potential etc. Which is not so huge, if one looks closer at it; and by large goes on a strength of foreign investment. And foreigners allo themselves to be nicele milked - barely a third of the companies investing in China has a profit from it :)
Yet China still has the "most favoured nation" status. Why? God knows. How come? The British had to fight wars to get such treatment in China. The Chinese got it in US for free... It could have been necessary when any help against Soviet Empire was necessary, but the Soviet threat failed 15 years ago, in case nobody noticed. But there is also - very pronounced in States - guilt towards the China, so badly treared in 19th cent. Which is true, but the same, or even more true it is about many other colonial countries and they are not getting such favourable treatment.
Trying to "grow up" a Chinese middle-class, which should be more open etc. like ou middle-class is, by stimulating their economic growth is a sensible thing, but... If we think that people will be more open, less xeno-nationalistic, demanding access to the gov't and believing in democracy and whatnot only because they earn more, that's a delusion. For China actually the reverse of the typical trend is visible: more educated people - because they were indoctrinated longer - tend to be less open and oten more xenophobic.
Therefore of we - in this case mainly US - help the Chinese become richer without providing them tools for at least supplementing their education and having a contact with the outside world - then we're growing ourselves a great number of potential enemies, who not only will hate us, but also will have means to put this hatred into practice.
And it won't be their fault - but rather ours.
And I do believe US gov't could coerce the IT firms into not playing into PRC's hands. Inland Revenue can do miracles, all within the boundaries of law...
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