COVID19 and boycotting Chinese made

[white belt]

Also slightly unrelated, but China is probably the most important factor in the equation to deal with the North Korea situation. Western countries and our allies should want to stay on decent terms so we have a multi-national response to deal with that shit show when/if it blows over. China shares a large border with North Korea, so they will bear the brunt of the humanitarian crisis along with South Korea.

[slowtraveler]

I guess white belt hasn't heard of the Mongolian empire, the opium wars, or the fact that China has constantly alternated between a single country and many fragmented smaller countries. Its collapse in power is common.

The dictatorship has millions of people in concentration camps, is starving millions of people right now through dams on the Mekong and attacking boats fishing in their own waters (ie - Vietnam, Philippines), and breaks nearly every promise they make. They don't respect other countries, they do what they want with North Korea so it's of no use trying to buddy up with a murderous psychopath.

We're already in a cold war with them. In 2018 it was declared officially in Chinese media.

Dog meat is far more common than you seem to know, available very readily in any city. The only times I saw dog meat in Vietnam were along the Chinese border. It's disgusting.

Aside from Huawei, I don't know of any products regarding as high quality designed by Chinese in China.

Also, democracy is a Middle Eastern, not Western idea. The first recorded instance was in Sumer.

[white belt]

@slowtraveler @thrifty++

I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that I agree with Alphaville that it's probably more useful to focus on the issues that are important to you, rather than throwing out blanket demonization for an entire country and its people. The reason is blanket loaded statements like I've heard in some posts on this thread tend to boil down into tribalism; us vs them, good vs bad, familiar vs foreign. I'm arguing that this mindset not only oversimplifies things, but also leads to more xenophobic rhetoric which is how we go down the path to armed conflict. China is not inherently evil, nor are Chinese people inherently evil, however both China and some Chinese people do evil things sometimes. The tone from thrifty's posts sounds like he believes China is an evil place and nothing good ever comes from the country. This has manifested itself as a fear of Chinese tourists in his country, which again is how we go down this slippery slope to xenophobia. How long until we have attacks on Asian people in Western countries?

If we look at things from the perspective of actual issues instead of just anti-China rhetoric, then you will find you are going to have to boycott a lot more places than just China.

-Human rights violations? Well you probably should also boycott Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia.
-Dog meat consumption? That means Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, Nigeria are on the list.
-No representative democracy? Well that's also the case in most of the Middle East and Africa.
-Aggressive/questionable border enforcement? Israel, India, and Pakistan partake in that.
-Mass incarceration based on race? Well the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world fueled by systemic discrimination against non-whites.

Certainly boycotting one country is a start, but it will probably take a systems thinking approach if you really want to follow a consistent philosophy.

I am quite familiar with Chinese history and delving deeper gets us into the realm of Chinese identity, which is quite complex and probably will just derail this thread. The one point I'll make is it gets tricky when you try to think of China as a 3000 year old country, because modern China has somewhat arbitrary borders drawn around regions that don't have a ton of historical precedence (such as Xinjiang, inner Mongolia, and Tibet). Minority groups in China generally identify with their ethnic group before identifying as citizens of the country of China.

[RealPerson]

I am quite familiar with Chinese history and delving deeper gets us into the realm of Chinese identity, which is quite complex and probably will just derail this thread.

Why not start a new thread with this topic? I would love to learn more about China and its people. If you are knowledgeable and would like to share, that would be great.

I visited China, including Tibet, the year before the Beijing Olympics. We traveled on our own, not part of a group. It was a great trip and interesting, but I have no desire to go back. I found Chinese people very rude and unpolished, at least as seen though western eyes. I am sure there is a lot of cultural blindness on my part here.

[slowtraveler]

Back to the originalbtopic-I found the answer to my question: Asus and Acer are Taiwanese brands and have some quality products.

For phones, Samsung seems the best. I previously wrote Oppo as well but upon further research, it is also manufactured in China.

@whitebelt
There is no forced organ harvesting or cultural genocide in any of those countries.

Never mind the fact that they aren't attacking our way of life within our own home. The Chinese dictatorship is literally attacking democracy from within universities and companies, stealing taxpayer dollars in the process through programs like the thousand talents and Confucius institutes, while stifling freedom of speech and inciting violence against pro democracy protestors.

Seeing most of Vietnam, I never once saw dog meat for sale except for along the border with China, and I went to many fresh markets. They're also not creating the demand for hunting rhinos, elephants, and many endangered animals to the brink of extinction.

Anti foreigner racism is applauded in China at the moment. You know we don't stand for that here and you and I both wouldn't eat at a restaurant that said no blacks but the Chinese are doing it every day. A McDonald's in Guangzhou was forced to put a sign up with those words. China has way more people incarcerated than their numbers show. They have far more crime. It's just not reported.

You seem sensitive, a lot of your points are tangential. You got a good heart somewhere in there, try to see past the propaganda.

[thrifty++]

@ White_belt - some fair points. However how do you champion your issues without boycotting?

The reason I am boycotting China is not just some of the issues mentioned that you have related to those other countries. Its come from what is occurring right now with the pandemic. Some of those things mentioned to have contributed to that. And how the Chinese government has behaved since this began. Those other countries are not a threat. So China is all of that AND all those other problems.

The west has made China rich. And it can turn that tap off. Which is the reason for the boycott. And Im not alone here. We can see this happening on a global scale both in production and consumption.

Armed conflict would be shit. Bigtime. That's why I would rather see the rest of the world turn the tap off. Which it is doing. Focus on the economics.

@slowtraveler - thanks for researching and setting out those details of not made in China products. That will be useful for future reference.

[thrifty++]

More than 110 countries have now backed the independent investigation into COVID19. China has been boycotting Australian products over initiating the push for this inquiry. The countries backing this inquiry include the entire EU, Russia and the entire African continent. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/l ... ca358f8e4b

[fiby41]

@slowtraveller is Aspire the same as Acer or is that a separate company and Acer has a product range with same name?

This is due to a high population density since ancient times, which also meant frequent famines.

Population density of China is lower than India. 80-20 rule applies. There is a city in Manchuria and one to their South West whose names I forget. If you join those, 80% of the population is to east of that line and 20% to the west while the area to the east is 80% and west is 20%. Population density of the Indian Subcontinent is even higher and China without the 'roof of the world' Tibetan Plateau slightly higher.

A third of the population of Bengal (10 million, today's Bangladesh + West Bengal) perished during the Great Bengal Famine by 1773. 3 million starved in Bengal alone in 1934.

High population density does not cause famines. Bengal was the first to fall to British so bad policy, 59% tax on food produce, tax collection in inflatable cash instead of percentage from crop actually produced, diversion of farmland to produce Opium for China caused the first while feeding troops in Egypt during WW2, all of the above minus opium plus policy of 'they're a beastly people with a beastly religion' ~Churchill caused the second. Yet none of these 'beastly people' slaughtered wildlife in say the adjacent Sunderbuns.

So neither of the points
1 population density causes famines
2 famines cause wildlife consumption
Stand on scrutiny.

[thrifty++]

Parts of Europe are also more densely populated than China as well.

Yes some westerners eat pork. But I think dogs is quite a different thing. Through years of targeted breeding we have made dogs what they are today, domesticated in the extreme and almost completely dependent upon us. So much so that dogs have a significantly greater connection with humans than other dogs and that human presence can considerably decrease their anxiety levels. I think we owe a greater obligation to look af5er them than any other animal. And I think you have to have an especially spectacular lack of empathy to slaughter and eat dogs. And its also the way it is done that is horrific. The dogs have their limbs chopped off while they are still alive and then blowtorched. And dogs wait in pools of blood in cages in the markets waiting their turn the next day.

[chenda]

@thrifty++ - For the record I assume you are vegetarian ?

[thrifty++]

@chenda - no I'm not vegetarian. I don't eat a lot of animal food but sometimes eat seafood and chicken.

[chenda]

@thrifty++ Neither am I, but for animal cruelty its probably the single best thing you can do, wherever your meat is from.

[slowtraveler]

@slowtraveller is Aspire the same as Acer or is that a separate company and Acer has a product range with same name?

I had a typo, I fixed it. You're right though, Aspire makes Acer. And I don't know how I thought Oppo was Korean. I'd heard that while in Thailand but upon further research, I was very wrong there.

The list below* is helpful but doesn't describe manufacturing. There's also a very high chance that all of the Taiwanese made brands are not made in China.

Do you know if Indian brands tend to be locally made?

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... by_country

[JuliusFC]

How long until we have attacks on Asian people in Western countries?

Verbal and physical assaults have been increasing in Vancouver (Canada) for months.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6859065/susp ... vancouver/

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/young-indigenous- ... -1.4943269

https://www.straight.com/news/anti-asia ... es-for-his

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british- ... -1.5568475

[jacob]

There's an entire and very long wiki page devoted exclusively to CV19 related xenophobia.

I'm not happy about this thread being on the forum.

I suspect the anti-country/nationality xenophobia is a consequence of the stress fueling some of the darker human tendencies that are getting stoked and directed by certain politicians and associated psyops/troll farms. Historically persecuting "the other" is not unusual during pandemics, but we should be better than that and stick to discussing policies rather than race, group, or nationality.

Also see forum rule #6 and 7.1. While this particular thread isn't targeting a particular individual, it is targeting a particular group and is therefore definitely in the grey zone.

[thrifty++]

@jacob - fair enough. Do you want to just delete it. I don't know how to delete a thread.

[Alphaville]

before he locks it or whatever i just quickly wanna add that projecting all the evil in the world onto “china china china china” is a) poor mental health, b) a cop-out to keep us from dealing with our own misdeeds, and c) a neocon propaganda mode designed keep people at war.

check out “the power of nightmares” by adam curtis. very illuminating. starts here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dTg4qnyUGxg

[chenda]

Agreed.

[Jason]

Deleting a thread because it's critical of China? What is this, China? (jk)

As I've stated ad infinitum, I think an honest appraisal of China's government and the Chinese government's response is in order. As is our's. Adding "phobia" to a criticism of every human behavior or identity or religion frames all criticism to ad hominem slinging and thus removes any possibility of objective and constructive criticism. We're going to paint ourselves into a corner. I'm not equating it to 9/11, but that event demanded a discussion of Islam as I believe this one demands a discussion of the Chinese government, not the Chinese as a people group. Especially since common wisdom says this is not a unique and one time event.

That being said, I can certainly understand why a moderator of a private message board would delete this thread.

[fiby41]

Do you know if Indian brands tend to be locally made?

Yes. India is the third largest smartphone market so not just Indian brands but some Chinese companies here- Oppo, Vivo, Xaomi- also manufacture about half the parts locally. However I'd hazard a guess no electronic gadget is 100% made in any single country.
Some products are upfront about it, distinguishing between made in and assembled in but there are only so many components big enough to print the name of the country they were made in.
Designed in the USA. Made in China. On the headphone box.
Designed in India on the router. Made in Vietnam on its box.
Although Asus is Taiwanese company atleast the batteries are made in China.
Dell laptop made in China with battery made in South Korea.
Acer laptop made in god knows where with charging cable made in China.
It's all over the place.
Some manufacturers are printing Made in PRC presumably to surpass such a boycott.
I appreciate the research you and thrifty have put in. There's a company mentioned in the strategies for selling Ayurveda products thread that's creating a platform to find locally made products that should be out in 11 days.