• Cyberwolf@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      If you think Xi Jinping is dictating what BYD does with their cars then you don’t understand the fundamentals as to why China managed to attract so much foreign investment and got to where they are now in the first place.

      • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Foreign investment was because of cheap labor and companies being subsidized by the communist government…

        BYD might make a better car than Tesla, but saying that a Chinese company isn’t “under the control of Xi Jinping”, the guy who crushed Hong Kong for having too much independence and wants to do the same with Taiwan, is laughable.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          1 day ago

          That’s actually a bit of a myth you know. Labour in China used to be dirt cheap 30 years ago but that’s not the case now. You need experts to build cars and they demand an appropriate salary. They probably don’t get paid as much as they would in the west but they’re not being paid pennies an hour either. However the idea that China is cheap has persisted.

          There’s a reason that Apple doesn’t make the iPhone there anymore. It was getting too expensive ie they were being asked to pay for a decent wage, and they weren’t prepared to.

          • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
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            24 hours ago

            I was more saying cheap “when companies moved in”. Now it just has the workforce and supply chain knowledge/infrastructure because of those investments.

            Corporate fucktard assholes are running out of cheap labor around the world. They keep moving it around, but eventually there won’t be any place to go.

        • Cyberwolf@feddit.org
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          1 day ago

          but saying that a Chinese company isn’t “under the control of Xi Jinping”, the guy who crushed Hong Kong for having too much independence and wants to do the same with Taiwan, is laughable.

          Just take that sentence at face value and consider the ridiculousness of actually believing the guy alone has that amount of crushing power.

          You’re just regurgitating unfounded US propaganda which, this being Lemmy, is very unfortunate to see.

          • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
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            24 hours ago

            “Unfounded US propaganda”.

            Are you saying China DIDN’T aggressively take over Hong Kong and all of the businesses that operated there?

            Xi is the head of the government in a totalitarian, communist regime. Just because he might be “leaving BYD alone” or whatever today does not mean that couldn’t change in an instant.

            The United States is its own form of screwed up and is an absolute mess. I’m not sitting over here going 'US good. China bad". I’m making the point they’re both bad in different ways.

            • Cyberwolf@feddit.org
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              13 hours ago

              Are you saying China DIDN’T aggressively take over Hong Kong and all of the businesses that operated there?

              Uh, i kinda am, yeah.

              Last time I checked, Hong Kong is still a tax haven in the middle of Asia. Western companies are still opening offshore subsidiaries and bank accounts there to engage in tax evasion, and the welfare system is still as pitiful as it was before China took over.

              Retirees living in literal cages or under bridges is still common, and the same 3-4 families that ran Hong Kong’s banking, industry and real estate are still in control like they’ve always been.

              China took control of Hong Kong on paper only. By any economic metrics, everything stayed the same.

          • iii@mander.xyz
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            1 day ago

            the guy alone has that amount of crushing power.

            Nobody of right mind takes this at face value. This isn’t a pro wrestling heavyweight championship belt, with Jinping suplexing the Hong Kong protestors.

            It’s obviously as head of an autoritarian communist regime, using corona measures and a militarized police to suppress people for the extravagant act of desiring freedom from the CCP.

            • Cyberwolf@feddit.org
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              1 day ago

              But even that is incorrect.

              Yes, Xi Jinping is powerful as the Chairman of the party, but the communist party of China is not the military, and there is a fair amount of decentralization in decision making.

              Further, the guy above goes “look at how Xi is suplexing Taiwan?!?!” even though he isn’t because guess what, he doesn’t actually have the power to do so.

              Also, none of this has anything to do with the topic of EV production, which is in the hands of a private company which largely operates independently of the government, much like millions of other companies that operate in China.

              Which is why I said the dude is just spewing brainless US state propaganda and Red Herring.

              • iii@mander.xyz
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                1 day ago

                Further, the guy above goes “look at how Xi is suplexing Taiwan?!?!”

                I think you’re the only one reading it that way. The rest of us understand that it happens within a context of an autoritarian regime.

                which is in the hands of a private company which largely operates independently of the government

                Independent untill the party decides they’re not independent. (Eg).

                • Cyberwolf@feddit.org
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                  1 day ago

                  Independent untill the party decides they’re not independent. (Eg).

                  Again another non-sequitor that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Nobody disagrees that China doesn’t like people publicly criticizing their government.

                  That has rigorously NOTHING to do with the normal operation of companies that do not engage with politics in China, which is what I was talking about before you barged in.

                  Also, it is the US that has been kidnapping people into unmarked vans and arresting people at airport, detaining them for however long, and deporting them to countries that aren’t their own for as little as having a meme criticizing the current US regime.

                  So really, which one is the dictatorship?

                  The sooner we stop seeing China as enemies, the better. We need them more than ever now that the US has decided to go full mask off.

                  BYD is free to operate as it wishes in China, along with several millions of other companies. And their products are good.

                  • iii@mander.xyz
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                    14 hours ago

                    that do not engage with politics in China

                    There’s no such thing. A person nor company can unilaterally decide “not to engage with politics”, as politics engages with them in thousands of ways. The best they can do is self-censorship, which, even when successfull, is in itself a form of political engagement.

                    which one is the dictatorship?

                    False dichotomy 🙄

                    We need them more than ever now that the US has decided to go full mask off.

                    Who’s “we” in this case? And why would they “need” someone now, because of stuff in the US?