> Name me one major US company that does not have close links to the US government.

Apple?

Has had a revolving door arrangement with the White House. Was fingered in PRISM. Was involved in the US Digital Services and 18F. Closely worked with the government to lower its repatriation tax burdens.

And if these specifics don't satisfy you, we all know that the Department of Defense was heavily involved with Silicon Valley since day 1. I'll wiggle my eyebrows vaguely, but suggestively at this fact, and let the audience draw its own conclusions, about the close relationship that the US Government has with SV tech firms.

I was unable to find references for any of your claims. What kind of "revolving door arrangement"? I looked at all of Apple's top management, and none of them are ex government with the arguable exception of their general counsel who was formerly a judge. As far as I'm aware there's no hard evidence of willing participation in PRISM. Apple denies it - the only link of any kind is a yellow bubble on that famous powerpoint slide, which could just mean they were hacked. And "worked with the government" on one or two things isn't the same as "close links".

I also find your eyebrow-wiggling an egregious rhetorical sin, employed only by those who have nothing more concrete to offer. Do you have anything at all to justify your vague insinuation that all of Silicon Valley is a giant government conspiracy?

Obama revolving door: Apple's top lobbyist to State department. Catherine Ann Novelli spent 8 years as VP of world-wide government affairs at Apple, and then three as Under-Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.[1]

Apple-NSA collaboration with PRISM. [2]

USDS & 18F involvement: [3][4]

Secret collaboration on tax burden reduction. (It's a longer word for 'lobbying'. If you think it's not secret, please share with me the minutes from those meetings. If you think it's not collaborative, why do these meetings always result in tax burden reductions for the lobbyists?) [5][6]

2 million dollars in direct campaign contributions, in 2018. It seems that to do business, you need to grease a few palms, eh? [7]

You cannot operate a multi-billion dollar company in the US, and not have close ties with the US government.

Not to mention the large number of congressmen, senators, and government advisers who, among their tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, have large financial stakes in Apple.

[1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-revolving-door-appl...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/17/apple-nsa/

[3] https://www.fedscoop.com/civic-leave-white-house-technology-...

[4] https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/03/20/one-year-in-and-looking-forwa...

[5] https://www.macobserver.com/news/in-2018-apple-spent-6-6-mil...

[6] https://www.fastcompany.com/40502636/big-techs-lobbying-splu...

[7] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000021754

What do you mean by "close links"?

The same thing that people talking about the Chinese boogieman mean.

A nebulous, ill-defined hand-waved general accusation, with no clear goalposts, that infers that there's an intersection between the company's past or present employees, and past or present employees, executives, or advisers in government, that the company at some point received government seed funding, investments, or government contracts, that secret meetings take place between the company, and the government, that the company is a special contractor for the government, building custom solutions for it, or that the company may be compromised by government meddling.

The beauty of accusing a company of having close ties with its government is that it can mean almost anything you want it to mean.

Is this to say that there is literally no noteworthy difference in the relationships Chinese and American companies have with their respective governments?

I'm open to the idea, what evidence would you propose supports this?

Maybe top government <--> Corporate executive revolving door.

I'm loving the new and improved HN where even asking a simple straightforward question gets downvoted.