Definitely something to keep in mind when reading pieces like this.
I worry when the FBI Director claims all Chinese student organizations are under suspicion because they have evidence that one university student club accepted donations from an embassy in order to fund a Chinese New Year party. Can you imagine if a student organization supporting American students studying abroad was deemed suspicious because the US Embassy bought them a turkey or two at Thanksgiving?
Let's not draw a moral equivalence between US surveillance and Chinese surveillance. Chinese surveillance is explicit, and profoundly more invasive and pervasive than the US's. It's also explicitly used as a political tool - to enforce the will of the party, not the state. These are extremely critical differences that it is irresponsible not to continually and stridently point out. What China is doing to its citizens is infinitely more frightening than anything the NSA has ever done.
As someone who grew up in the US and has experienced racism, I fear where this campaign could lead. Here, we have an article about a Singaporean company trying to take over a US company. And the entire narrative is about China.
no imagination needed. In Russia the organizations accepting foreign resources (private or public doesn't matter) must register as "foreign agents".
10+ years. NYT is at the frontier of American propaganda, as we saw with their Iraq lies following 9/11
Yes, I did actually read the article (unlike many commenters going on about China this or China that), which is why I found the title misleading, since Broadcom isn't even a Chinese company. I'm glad that the other commenter linked to that article because that author doesn't forget to remind the reader "However, Broadcom is not a Chinese company."
> The proposed acquisition by the Singapore-based Broadcom would have been the largest deal in technology history, creating a major force in the development of the computer chips that power smartphones and many internet-connected devices.
I mean, if the company is a Singapore-based company, then how is the author not reminding us it isn't Chinese? Broadcom is only mentioned twice in the article, so a 50% reminder rate isn't that bad.
> The clash erupted in public on Tuesday after the United States government, citing national security concerns, called for a full investigation into a hostile bid to buy the American chip stalwart Qualcomm — a review that is often a death knell for a corporate deal.
And the end of the third paragraph:
> But a government panel said the takeover could weaken Qualcomm and give its Chinese rivals an advantage.
If the US government panel wasn't making a fuss over this, the NyTimes would have nothing to report. The author is actually reporting the facts that exist (US concerns over this acquisition with a focus on China), they aren't making these facts up.
If you want to criticize about why this article is all about China, your beef is with the US government panel, not the author of this article.
Do you think you would be more surprised, less surprised, or about the same, if the situation were reversed? Let's try a thought experiment.
Hypothetically, say, a Singaporean company was trying to take over a Chinese company (both companies in this case have Chinese citizen executives), and the Chinese government was trying to block it. And let's say there's news coverage apropos of nothing, that American companies would be the indirect beneficiaries, so the US was (wink, wink) behind it all. What is your level of surprise then?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A thought experiment where you swap one variable and see how it sounds reversed is a very useful tool for detecting cognitive bias. Cognitive bias is a major source of racism. Racism is something I experienced growing up here, and one of my chief worries when reading articles like this.
* Broadcom is a Singaporean company, not Chinese.
* The article asserts that Huawei and other Chinese chip manufacturers will indirectly benefit from the proposed merger.
* Cfius, who is looking closely at the Broadcom-Qualcomm proposed deal, looks closely at other investment / merger deals from China for national security reasons.
.... and most readers will at this point incorrectly assume that Broadcom is a Chinese company, having forgotten what was read in the first 3 paragraphs.