That hypothesis made sense with trade before and it makes sense with technology now. Unfortunately, decades of waiting have yielded no positive results.
Yes, leave. The Chinese are more likely to be hopeful of freedom if they don't see Americans as equivalently bad.
What I want to say is that Apple does not only sell products in China, it also manufactures its products in China.
That rationalization is used for a lot of damaging behavior; the duty to shareholders is not the only duty, and does not take priority over all the others. He also has responsibilities, for example, to employees and to his community, and for Apple the community is everywhere they sell products.
Supporting the oppression of others in order to make money is wrong; it's evil. His job as CEO is to navigate difficult issues like this one; the easy questions can be left to the junior managers.
Do you suggest Apple leave Chinese market? I'm not sure Tim Cook could get away with that even if he wanted to. Board would replace him with CEO more aligned with profit oriented shareholders imho. Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs, he is certainly be replaceable.
That's not actually true, though I agree that it is often repeated and there is pressure from shareholders and others. It's not and never has required absolute obedience; and IIRC even that idea in the theoretical sense was developed in the 1980s, long after the advent of large public companies.
> Do you suggest Apple leave Chinese market?
His choices are not so extreme. He doesn't have to show up at this conference, for example, or he can make a speech that promotes the freedom of the Chinese people. There are many other ways to navigate the situation; see my prior comment regarding that subject.
I agree. But that would be mostly meaningful gesture as it wouldn't change anything.
> he can make a speech that promotes the freedom of the Chinese people
This might be more meaningful and would actually mean he is putting something on the line / has skin in the game. Which is why I can't imagine Cook doing that. He would be putting Apple's business in China in danger by doing that.
> There are many other ways to navigate the situation; see my prior comment regarding that subject.
Yes, but the more meaningful actions Cook / Apple could take, the more likely it would damage their business. So it is against their interest to do anything other than empty gestures.
> I agree. But that would be mostly meaningful gesture as it wouldn't change anything.
I disagree about its impact. He legitimizes the oppression of the Chinese people with his presence; he says 'this is ok'.
> it is against their interest to do anything other than empty gestures
It is against their immediate financial interest; my whole point is that there are other interests too.
> “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock” [0]
I don’t necessarily believe you are wrong in this case, but I don’t believe your path to supporting your statements was necessarily correct either.
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-companies-...
The "profit maximization duty" is a myth. There's no such duty and as long as the management acts in the interests of the company, with very wide margin (basically, everything that is not explicitly designed to hurt the company and benefit themselves, such as stealing company funds to private account) - they are legally fine. Shareholders can, in general, remove management if they don't like it, but prosecuting management for a business decision that did not immediately increase profit would be extremely hard.
In particular, the management is fully free (at least doesn't have legal duty to avoid it) to not help censorship in China, even if doing so would bring profit. There is no "duty" to grab every profitable opportunity regardless of morals.
Following that reasoning, communism, capitalism and international trade are emphatically not part of Chinese culture - not to mention the way people in China now dress and most of the technology and consumer goods they use. Imperial monarchies interspersed with periods of civil war, economic and cultural isolation, and all of it based around Confucianism - that's been the culture since around 250 BCE, and they forcefully rejected Western trade and technology when they encountered it in the mid-19th century (leading to some horrible actions by the UK and other nations).
Chinese people in Taiwan and Hong Kong believe in and live these universal values, and they are the most prosperous, free, and stable regions of China. The values of freedom and democracy apply to other cultures worldwide, from Europe to India to China (Taiwan and Hong Kong) to Japan to South Korea to South Africa to Brazil. It's very hard to argue that they are just one nation's idiosyncrasy.
And who is to say that the people of mainland China don't want these things? Why not ask them? If Xi is so sure that a communist dictatorship has broad support, why not hold a vote?
Just saying that something isn't working doesn't mean there is a better option, either. Do you think there would be a different outcome if everyone pulled out of China completely and they do everything on their own without any external influence?
Yes I don't think that bowing to blatant censorship is a good option. He is enabling the suppression of free speech to make sure his stock doesn't drop. There are some cases where trading with China would be fine but selling products to wall off free speech is not one of them
I think it's unfair to assume that if Apple was to outright leave the Chinese market that this would somehow change China's stance on censorship. Instead, it will just likely cause competition to fill the gap as already is the case with many things in China's tech scene today.
So what do people think is the right choice for them? Leave China all together and say "no way, we won't be here unless the internet is totally open" or "we'll accept it.. for now"?