“Not only has China’s Central TV been running regular follow ups to its March 15 expose on Apple’s iPhone repair policies, but on Thursday People’s Daily – the Communist Party’s official propaganda organ – attacked the company for the fourth day in a row, devoting half a page to negative articles.” This isn’t rocket science. The west treats Chinese technology companies like crap, so they treat western companies like crap. How exactly does this surprise anyone? And why is it okay for our governments to engage in political games to smear foreign companies, but we throw a hissy fit when a foreign nation engages in the same political games to smear western companies? It sucks for Apple to be the target right now, but had this occurred a decade ago, it would have been Microsoft.
And why is it okay for our governments to engage in political games to smear foreign companies, but we throw a hissy fit when a foreign nation engages in the same political games to smear western companies?
Who’s throwing a hissy fit? Plenty of folks in the west bash Apple on a regular basis, so it’s about time the Chinese join the fun
I also think that the article under-appreciates just how sceptical the local Chinese audience is of what their government outlets say – having been fed a steady diet of bullshit for 50+ years it takes a lot for most Chinese people I know to trust their government. End of the day China is just playing the economic nationalism card – they need to boost local consumption as to move away from an export dependent economy but god forbid the idea of the masses choosing an Apple device over ZTE or Huawei or a GE or Maytag washing machine over purchasing a local brand like Haier.
I’ve run across two opposite groups when talking to people concerning government propaganda (and that includes the western governments as well). One, the group that you and I obviously belong to, is the one you describe. We take everything the government outlets say with a boatload of salt and trust nothing until we can verify at least the basic facts. The second group and, at least where I am in the US by far the more common one, are people who lap up the bullshit and spew it back as fact. I don’t know how the demographic is in China as I’ve not been there, but I can tell you that just because some know they’ve been fed a diet of bullshit doesn’t mean others don’t eat their fill. It doesn’t help that, in more repressive governments, even those who puke the bs back up don’t dare talk about the fact that they’ve done so. You’d best look like you’re feasting on what the government says or you won’t ever have to worry about hunger again.
A lot of people are throwing a hissy fit. Specifically those that are on the forefront defending Amercian companies from the evil foreigners… like EU.
Actually I’ve found the Chinese to be a lot more flexible than some western companies. They can make quality stuff provided that you are willing to pay for it.They may lack technical expertise in some areas but are catching up.
There is no reason to cringe about dealing with them.
There are plenty of reasons to cringe when dealing with China.
Edited 2013-03-31 21:59 UTC
Yet you provide none.
I provided no reasons because I thought none were necessary. Most know the legacy of ‘Made In China’ stamped stuff. It doesn’t last very long assuming it even works in the first place. It is often way over priced. Anyone familiar with the Foxxcon incidents know the Chinese factories drive their laborers to suicide. Do you need more reasons?
What is considered “common knowledge” is often a collage of truths and lies. First-hand experience is what counts and mine was good, really good.
Well, you keep buying your Made in China stuff and I’ll keep buying stuff made in my country to support businesses and jobs.
As long as what you need is still made in your country. In my case I had to buy from abroad the only thing was choosing a supplier.
Obviously you don’t own any electronic devices because the all have Chinese components. In fact every single PC, laptop, tablet and phone on the market is made in China.
What about South Korea and Taiwan?
Still mostly Made in China.
wow… tell it like it is and one gets voted down. go figure.
Didn’t “Made in Japan” have that issue some time ago? Made in China means nothing more than Made in USA. Crap can be produced anywhere and China can(and does) produce high quality products.(Every single iDevice is produced there)
A non-tech company example (just because it is still fresh in my mind):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls
So, are the Chinese the only ones that fuck-up? People may buy food for their live-stock that still has traces of DDT from south-america. Why would they buy from there? Because it’s cheaper.
Just recently a French company was caught using horse meat in products that were supposed to contain beef and blamed that on Romanian suppliers. Turned out that it was not the Romanians after all.
Western propaganda about “those nasty commies” is a wonderful thing.
Where have I implied such a thing? You seemed to be unhappy that the other poster didn’t provide a single example, so I provided one.
*Blink*
Thom this would have less to do with the Chinese government caring about its people. It is a trend from Asia, through Africa and South America. Don’t believe me travel to these places and talk to people and find out for yourself.
The western countries bring in the capital, machinery and know how. These governments then put pressure at any chance they can to get more taxes or special concessions.
My take on it anyway.
I like how you make it sound like these western countries are some kind of knights in shining armour.
Quite often though, it’s more about exploiting the cheap local labour and draining the local natural resources without giving much, if anything at all, back.
The fact is that a lot of folks in these regions are fed up with the hilariously overpaid westerners with cushion jobs that acts like they’re Gods gift to mankind (or at least mankind in those parts), living a life in luxury that they could never have managed to achieve in their own home countries.
We’ve had this coming for a long fscking time and rightly so.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment in your post. But you should be careful with assuming that you know what a Chinese citizen you have never met/interacted with directly, for example, cares about or thinks like.
I’ve lived in Asia for more than 10 years and I wasn’t necessarily talking about people in China.
I think that you have probably not spent a great deal of time in China.
It is the native Chinese who tend to act like ‘gods’, routinely denigrate underlings, and favor incredibly ostentatious displays of wealth.
Most foreigners in China act pretty much like they act in any other city, which is to say they don’t denigrate people and don’t go out of their way to display their wealth.
( Note that I am by no means suggesting all wealthy, or even most, Chinese are like this. However, there is certainly more wealthy Chinese then there is wealthy foreigners behaving ‘badly’ in China. )
You do know that Asia is bigger then China, right? The OP was talking about the region (as well as Africa and South America) and not China.
I think what I was trying to say is that this argument does not really apply to China, which this article is about.
It may Apply to other countries and so future hypothetical situation but that has nothing much to do with anything.
Lets see what Thom said:
China is obviously not the only “foreign” country.
I’m certainly not the one who defends Apple and its politic.
But on this one I would be curious to know what’s behind this campaign.
I wouldn’t be surprised that China tries to obtain something from Apple. Maybe access to iCloud data, censorship over App store, compliance with Chinese norms or whatever? Maybe they want an Apple datacenter in China (Also interesting for controlling data)?
Well… They defend their interests and Apple as one of the biggest single company in this market is a logical target. Knowing how Apple “fights” against other companies I can only hardly feel sad for them.
A full-fledged attack directed by a powerful government against a foreign company interest is nothing to smear at.
And no, i have never seen anything equivalent in my country and the West in general which comes even close to it.
Sometimes, there’s an attempt to blur the boundaries between highly different scales :
you can find some general crap about “China’s products are bad”, you can find people and private companies starting a smear campaign against a Chinese competitor (Huawei being a typical target),
but you can’t find a government-controlled highly accurate smear campaign using state-controlled media at full scale.
If you compare the two and pretend they are equivalent, then you lost your ability to compare. Take into consideration the scale.
The US government deliberately tried to destroy the Japanese PC industry in the 80s and 90s via sanctions and diplomatic threats.
Edited 2013-04-02 09:39 UTC
The European car makers have lobbied for very specific changes to emission laws which make European cars look better than Korean and Japanese cars – even though they are not.
And largely succeeded, it seems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_project#History
(relevant external links work via archive.org, also interesting is http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/btron.html )
Basically this great company has a different treatment for chinese and US customers. I think the chinese are right.
Apple CEO apologized: http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+CEO+Tim+Cook+Apologizes+Again++This+…
Coming from them and knowing their recent history, I don’t think those apologies matter to much. You do sh1t and when you’re confronted with your sh1t, you apologise. After that you continue to do sh1t again…