As long as western companies can’t do unrestricted business in China, neither should Chinese companies be able here. The earlier we break the toxic relationship, the better.

But yeah, money over everything.

> As long as western companies can’t do unrestricted business in China, neither should Chinese companies be able here.

Well, they can't and they don't. They have to follow the local laws.

True, but it’s not like there is any parity between the laws. China now is not the China of twenty years ago.

There. Is. No. such. Thing. As. Local. Law.

There is a fine mist of ilusion of rule of law. But the party is outside of it. And the truth is, the laws is more similar to the law of network connections within the family graph of a mafia clan.

Its basically just used as a body wrapping foil, once the graph has decided to finnish of some node. Stop projecting western values upon a completely different scenario, just because its apt at mimicrcy.

What do you mean by “there is no such thing as local law”?

You mean in the context of China specifically or in general?

In the context of china. And its reflected in the sallaries. Its a decorative position of a society pretending to be ruled by law. But in the end its not. So why pay them as good as they do in the west.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-lawyer-in-Chin...

Who are you quoting here when you link to that Quora question, and what does pay have to do with anything?

I'm as lost as you. How did we land on a quora question about Lawyers salaries in China in a discussion about following laws. Go figure.

A lawyer in the west is basically a guidance councelor for CEOs or politicians, determinating how much and how they can move within the system to a position. It is paid accordingly, if work occurs in this capacity. The rule of law is detectable by the price that can be extracted for providing the service to move within the framework and not violating it, aka incur punishment.

If that pay is low, then there is no punishment for violations, or the punishment depends on different criteria entirely. Which could be formulated as a lack of rule of law. There might be invisible rules, ceremonys, within the party, but they are not enforceable, except by higher layers in court. And they are also not part of the discussion scope.

Honestly this is my main problem with TikTok. I know Meta and Google spy just as much as TikTok. However it is problematic that Chinese app companies have full access to Western markets while the reverse is severely limited.

I'm not sure why this point isn't rammed home at every opportunity. Reciprocity is a cornerstone of many trade agreements and tariffs/protectionism are a common answer to foreign government favoritism of domestic companies (e.g. CCP protecting its own).

No one should be able to do unregulated business anywhere. Trading with China is good but they shouldn't be able to influence our culture to conform to the whims of their government at all

Good luck buying any* kind of products when China is out of the picture.

I mean, doesn't the concept of a free society apply to private corporations as well? The government is not restricting you; the private company is exercising its right to run its business according to its own free will. The principle of a free society suggests that "if you don't like the company's policy, find another one or create your own." Is that wrong?

Or course, and their decisions are free to be scrutinized.

Scrutiny is justified. However, it should be within the scope of whether the product fulfills the need and should have nothing to do with "sovereignty" or "free speech rights," don't you think?

Can't believe how often I see this sentiment, and how nonsensical it is.

We're private citizens, nothing prevents us from criticizing them for a wide variety of reasons. If you want to restrict yourself and ignore everything except the literal function of the product, you're free to do that, but you can't argue everyone else has to do the same.

Or is your argument that we have some kind of social responsibility to judge products based on exclusively on what the product does, but the product has no social responsibility whatsoever? That's a double standard that can't have any justification.

No one is preventing you from criticizing them. I am just saying that criticism from the standpoint of free speech or sovereignty is inconsistent with the idea that you can satirize whatever or whoever you want.

> I am just saying that criticism from the standpoint of free speech or sovereignty is inconsistent with the idea that you can satirize whatever or whoever you want.

I don't understand what you are saying. Criticising a company on free speech grounds who prevent you from satirising someone is absolutely consistent. What inconsistency are you seeing?

> the private company is exercising its right to run its business according to its own free will.

Let's run with that.

Should a company be allowed to own slaves?

Should a company be allowed to do business with a company that owns slaves?

* * *

Additionally there is prison labor which is legal in the U.S. to force someone to do.

Prison labor allows companies to purchase labor at a rate the non-incarcerated worker can't afford to sell their labor at.

>Should a company be allowed to own slaves?

No, because slavery is illegal.

>Should a company be allowed to do business with a company that owns slaves?

They do, all the time. Manufacturing, mining (particularly of the rare earth metals that go into electronics) and agriculture all depend on slave labor.

Should the second one be illegal as well?

What is the functional difference between the two besides more paperwork and another middle man taking a cut?

It certainly should be illegal, but a lot of the comforts of first-world civilization would vanish and the velocity of modern capitalism would grind to a halt, so politically speaking apart from token gestures that don't threaten the status quo that isn't likely to happen.

I think generally owning slaves goes against the idea of freedom (let's discard the concept one has the freedom to sell themselves for once). Thus company does not have the right to own slaves.

No, that is not wrong. Nor is it wrong to dislike what a company does and try to get them to change.

People don't automatically be free if every western company stops doing business in China. Withdrawing from the market can't really do anything about that unless it can put a lot of pressure on the power holders.