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China In the Habit of Copying and Redirecting US Sites?
Want to know why US web companies have trouble making it in China? gaz_hayes passed us a link to the blog commiepod, which suggests that successful US websites are targeted by 'Chinese government backed companies.' "These companies copy the site, deploy it on a .cn domain, and then DNS poison or forcefully lower the bandwidth the US site. Just a few weeks ago google.com and google.cn were DNS poisoned across the entire Chinese internet and were being redirected to their Chinese competitor Baidu. This probably explains Google's 3rd quarter market share in China." This is a fairly serious accusation; anyone else have first-hand experiences that would back this up?
It's almost like the Chinese are a little leery of the US having a very large amount of control over the Internet. Not that I condone their actions (if this is true), but I can't say I'd be totally surprised.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
This smells fishy, because if I remember correctly, Google owns a significant share of Baidu.
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
China proves that Fascism, not Socialism, works. China is a vindication of everything the post-Socialist Fascist movement thought was in need of change in Socialist ideology to make it work. As a result, China has many of the benefits of capitalism, but has the state control of the means of production that Socialism provides. If it's mostly high-ranking aparatchiks and military officers who own most of the corporations in China, it is only semantically different from the corporation, known as the "Communist State" in China, from owning it in its name.
Of course this would be a surprise to the morons who think that Fascism is just a dirty word you throw at someone you disagree with. Most people forget that Fascism was a movement with a clear-cut platform, that was a true hybrid of Socialism and Capitalism. It is "right-wing" in the sense that it is "to the right of Socialism and Communism." It is, in essence, where the "left and right" meet up on the spectrum. If you look at the Fascists' planks, you will see that they had many left-wing tendencies, such as seizing the war profits of the military industrial complex, heavy taxation of income, and strong government **control** of the means of production through counsels of industry and regulations.
Communism is utopian. It is built on 19th century pseudo-science, and it ought to be no more respectable to be a Communist than to be a Phrenologist.
I am not surprised at China doing this. It make perfect sense from the economic nationalism of Fascist policy.
i think the USA should pull the plug on them, (physically remove their intertubes from connecting to the US intertubes)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"Replacement of Google with Alternative Search Systems in China — Documentation and Screen Shots"
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/google-replacements/
Last Updated: September 24, 2002
On this basis: "Google censors itself for China" — http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm — Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Define ethics and business ethics within the context of a multi-billion dollar market. Do not be shy!
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
No surprise.
I used to work in China quite alot and found the only way I could get decent Internet access and get things done was to VPN back to the UK office and then surf from their gateway - the slight delay was quite alot better then the local service.
I got used to shitty performance, websites suddenly dying for no reason, 30 second delays on some sites and others almost instant.
As with most things Chinese, we may see this at dodgy behavior - to them it is a normal business practice. As I once stated on a thread about Chinese knockoffs the problem is not to "stop them doing it" but is rather "to make them understand they are doing something wrong in the first place".
Communism is utopian. It is built on 19th century pseudo-science, and it ought to be no more respectable to be a Communist than to be a Phrenologist.
All economic and political models are NOT true science anyhow. All economic and political models benefit different people in different ways and no math will tell you the "right" way unless you first prove that person X deserves more than person Y (or that there "should" be an imbalance in the first place). Plus, much of economic models depends on consumer psychology, which is also a fuzzy science. At best models may tell you how to maximize something based on assumptions, but those assumptions and the weights on them are usually subjective.
Table-ized A.I.
Works for whom? and in what sense?
I know some people in South Africa had this problem when going to yahoo.com they were redirected to Baidu. http://mybroadband.co.za/news/General/1678.html
They actually do worse things, like torturing Tibetan nuns, and you worry whether you can access your favourite search engine in China?
Someone has copied a number of pages from my site. A link to my original URL was included, though. When I finally found a mail address, the person replying was apologetic and claimed to only have done it because my pages were so slow to access from China. He/She removed the page, but there were copies later of other pages. I gave up asking for removal -- it cost me a lot of time just finding the mail address in that case. Everything is in Chinese. It's a bit annoying, but there's not much I think I can do and I don't think anyone's trying to steal from me.
You make an intelligent and well stated argument. The meaning of the word Fascism is misunderstood this days. The common unwashed masses have no idea of what Fascism is other than a word you throw around to discredit those you disagree with. I'm sorry to see this modded down as it really makes me question the actual average IQ of the /.er to which I assumed in the past to be well above the mean.
Excerpt:
Table-ized A.I.
How come there's no mention of this on slashdot.cn?
Mod up please.
'Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.'
'All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. '
Two descriptions of Fascism by Benito Mussolini which apply to today's China perfectly. Though as you rightly point out meaning of the word Fascist has been lost on those who nowadays use it merely as an insult. Those same people are those who usually cannot accept that China is the archetypal Fascist state, in my view even more Fascist than Italy ever was in the 20s.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Huh? Models are used to predict future actions and behavior, at least in so well as human behavior can be modeled. I think you meant "system," not "model." For example, neoliberal economic policies are a type of 'system.' Modernization or dependency theory, however, are models used to make predictions. Though I'll give you that sometimes they become confluent, but the system is what manfests in reality and the model is used to try to, well, model that system so as predictions can be made that might, just might, help policy formation (whatever your idealogy).
So, systems may have parts which are most difinitely subjective. Models, though, are kinda like throwing yarrow sticks in I Ching - they're around to predict behavior. But, even though I want to make a career of poli/sci, I've gotta say that modeling human behavior is sometimes as futile of a predictor as is the I Ching. You know what I'm talking about, we've all read Asimov's Foundation on here... right?
Also, assuming you disagree with my above diatribe, we does it matter that this is subjective. We're dealing with humans here. And when dealing with humans there are a host of value judgements which must be made. That's just the way it is. In criminal and civil law, in deciding what OS you like best, what politician you want running your little burg, etc. These crys of "everything is subjective and therefore of little value" strike me as fatalistic and overly relativistic - at some point you must make a decision, knowing full well that not everyone will agree with you (b/c that's impossible) and that you might be wrong. Really though, I am surprised that we're still around to argue about it though :) How's the saying go, "World War Three will be fought with nuclear weapons, while World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones."
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
I didn't know DNS was susceptible to lead. Maybe they're using GHB.
We (as a nation) still buy "Made in China" crap and help support their economy.
You really don't understand globalization, do you?
The Made in China "crap" is:
a) probably made by a US owned Chinese company or a Chinese company that bought technology/equipment from US firms, or licensed from a US company that gets a cut of the profits.
b) made for a lot less than any other country could ever DREAM of to produce it
The best bit is - China is only STARTING to become industrialized. They (along with India) have the potential to dominate the entire world economically. Sure, as an American you can "boycott" China. But Europe won't. Russian won't. The third world (which is starving for cheaper goods) won't. The only thing you will be doing is digging your own grave.
Globalization brings countries together. How can you go to war with a country that sells you the products you need, and buys the technology you produce, and imports raw materials from you, and exports engineers to you, etc etc etc.
Oh wait, war is about politics, and politicians are rarely rational. Sure, go ahead and call for a boycott then. Pardon me if I snicker when you shoot yourself in the foot.
Oh, and I'm Canadian, not Chinese. Not a drop of oriental blood.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
China proves that Fascism, not Socialism, works.
But for how long? I think Fascism is unstable on the scale of decades as long as trade is free and easy.
Modern economies depend on economic growth. If the elite capture all of that, you end up with terrible social stresses from the inequality, and you limit growth through lack of consumers and limited productivity. If you distribute the gains more widely, lots of people end up with luxuries like education, time to think, and the belief that the elite is no better than they are.
Once you have a comfortable middle class, I think it's hard to avoid ending up with democracy. South Korea could have been called Fascist during their period of military dictatorship, but they've turned out pretty well. I expect China will go the same route as the gerontocracy dies off.
This is unquestionable true. We see it everywhere in China. Tor saved our life!
This is an imbalance that was counter to the proclaimed idea of equality, and it was very real in the USSR. In Stalin's time, for example, a professor could afford a personal chauffeured car, a maid or two, and the best living accommodation - this was when people were paid for their worth. After Stalin things changed: a scientist went hungry (130 R/mo) and an uneducated metal worker at a factory (400-500 R/mo) started buying cars, dachas and tourist trips. This was one of those things that doomed the USSR; I can't imagine a more stupid idea than to herd your best and brightest into the lowest class. Many of them escaped to Israel and the USA as soon as they could; it was simply insulting for them to remain, be paid a pittance, and see their skills wasted on picking up potatoes in the field with locals just sitting around, smoking and crudely joking about it.
Communism goes even beyond that; but enough to say that Communism is based on the concept of unlimited availability of all worldly goods, and on unlimited consumption of those as your needs dictate. We can see Communism practiced on board of Enterprise in Star Trek, for example. Crew members can replicate anything they want and build whatever they like; use Holodecks as much as they want; and they are careful enough to take only what they really need, and not more. This is currently impossible because of many reasons, with unlimited availability of everything as one quite obvious example, and with a need for a "new human" as another concept that has no basis in reality.
Communism (or socialism) works for ants, but humans are possessive animals, with urge to own everything and control everything. You can't build socialism with those humans. But at least the basic capitalism can channel those human urges to the greater good of the society; socialism and communism just pretend that those urges do not exist. Capitalism is simply socialism with a working method of enforcing the rules.
I agree. This story smells extremely fishy indeed, and not just because the "news source" reporting this has only been around for a week or so. Read here for another possible angle about what's going on here. http://kschofield.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!4C58DDFAA6673C69!1362.entry The fourth comment down is the most pertinent information about what this may be about.
I can't imagine China would subvert such a large percentage of searches - that would be *really bad* for business (and public) relations with the west - also there would be a lot more information out there if this was actually happening on such a large scale.
China proves that Fascism, not Socialism, works. China is a vindication of everything the post-Socialist Fascist movement thought was in need of change in Socialist ideology to make it work. As a result, China has many of the benefits of capitalism, but has the state control of the means of production that Socialism provides.
No, it doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination. All China has proved that some organized method of industrialization proves an increase in the standard of living and wealth of a nation. Really, prior to the mid 1980s, China was so screwed up that just about means of exporting goods to the USA would improve them.
Seriously... this sort of myth was really born of the "Hitler Miracle", about, how the Nazi regime supposedly turned the German economy around in the midst of the Great Depression. Sure, Nazi propaganda would have us believe the in the midth of Hitler's German economic juggernaut, but the truth is, if you look at the statistics - EVEN THE BRITISH WERE OUT PRODUCING THE GERMANS. I won't belabor the point of American production, because the Americans had population and other advantages over Germany. Instead, let's look at the British, whom had less population, less natural resources, and still managed to produce more aircraft and more warships than the Germans, ultimately cutting Germany off from the sea and then taking Germany out of the air.
Essentially, all Germany could do was build a bunch of U-Boats that were just facelift improvements from World War I designs (the "modern" U-Boat came way too late to make a difference). Germany built two primary battleships - Bizmarck and Tirpitz. By contrast, the British built 5 battleships of the KGV class, more than a few aircraft carriers, and plenty of not only fighters, but also four engine heavy bombers. Germany could never build 4 engine bombers in number, becuase despite having an entire continent at her disposal, the Germans always had engine shortages...
And, why was that?
It's because fascism is a crooked and corrupt institution, and crooked institutions are not efficient. Tales of Nazi looting of other countries abound, but there was massive disorganization, massive crime... really, just imagine a bunch of thugs in a command economy, telling corporate bosses what to produce for war armaments... eventually, the whole thing would collapse... as indeed, it would have, under its own weight, had not the weight of a few million Allied soldiers and thousands of tons of Allied bombs not helped it along.
And that's ultimately what's going to happen with China. Already, rumours abound about problems in the Chinese banking sector, there's inflation being swept under the rug, and there's all sorts of inefficiencies creeping in that are just swept under the rug.
Bottom line is, fascist regimes always produce good economic results, only because we believe them when they tell us that we do. At some point, freedom really -does- matter, and that will catch up to China.
This is my sig.
Karl Marx founded communism on materialist principles, not utopian ones. It doesn't mean all of his theories are correct, but they are not utopian. In fact he founded his school of thought in response to utopian socialist/communist ideologies of the time. I don't know how rational our system is with the president talking about God all the time and appealing to his base with his supposdely shared belief that some Jew 2000 years ago had magic powers.
Marxism is scientific insofar as it is consciously built on materialist, scientific notions. It is not scientific insofar as when it is incorrect. I would say even most educated Americans I know have no arguments against Marxian thought since they know nothing of it. They say "People will not act a certain way because human nature is..." or something like that which is never a scientific, rational argument. There are strong arguments against Marxian thought, but they are more along the lines of "Marx's economic system does not translate values to prices correctly". But most Americans, even educated ones, know too little about Marxism to make arguments against them.
Also, while Marx's socialism involves a proletariat-directed taking over of the economy by the state, there are other forms of socialism, like the anarcho-syndicalists who think economic decisions should be made by workers at their place of employment. Or people who advocate workers councils and so on. Many on the left question whether the USSR was what Marx intended, and Lenin himself talked about pulling away from socialism during the New Economic Policy. Only to Americans does socialism mean big government versus small government, in Europe it means who will control the "means of production".
Give me a break. Just compare Google.com's top "tiananmen square" result to Google.cn:
This one is for China
This one is for the rest of us
I support China's inclusion into the global economy. It helps raise many millions of people out of poverty, while providing solid incentives to move forward politically. However, let's not fool ourselves... China has a long way to go.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Who are those alleged people you speak of? I use "fascist" as an insult, and I am totally with you on China being the archetypal Fascist state. You're even nice enough to explain why I think fascism is evil:
That is as good and succinct a definition of Fascism as I have ever seen, and it makes me sick every time I read it. It's the antithesis of democracy, and I, for one, quite enjoy my freedom thank you very much.
No it does not work the same in the U.S. and I wonder who modded you. There is no law specifically barring foreigners from taking control of American companies with the limited exceptions posed by national security issues.
In America they urge you to "Buy American". In China they put a gun to your head and tell you to buy Chinese apparently.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
1. Wikipedia is redirected to Baidu knows, which is a copycat (I would call it plagiarism) of wikipedia minus all "unwanted" information of the Chinese government.
2. youtube is redirected to 6 rooms, another idea copycat.
Like the exceptions which delayed Virgin America? I don't see the threat to national security they posed, yet they were unable to open for business until this year.
OSx86 FTW
Honestly, the more I hear about China, the more it sounds like the (stereo)typical massive corruption scenario.
I.e., no need to assume that there's some government hand behind it, or some meaningful form of protest against the west. It can be simply that some guy running their DNS servers/proxies/great-firewall/whatever got a nice bribe to redirect the lookups to someone selling the same kind of product, or an importer, or really whoever was willing to pay.
The way the kleptocracy/corruption scenario goes is, basically, it doesn't matter how much you're paid, it only matters how much you can steal/embezzle/get-as-bribes. Whole hierarchies are formed where any job worth anything (in loot/bribes/whatever) is essentially either given to party leaders' relatives or auctioned to the highest bidder. And then it's considered pretty much normal and expected that you'd get your money back, and a nice profit, by stealing/embezzling/demanding-bribes/etc. Whatever works, really.
My favourite example of what corruption _can_ do, and incidentally also is (A) about China, and (B) nicely illustrates that there is no need for it to even be motivated by some higher ideals or nationalism, is the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894.
Among various surrealism of it all, many shells used by the Chinese fleet were filled with sawdust or cement, because some enterprising souls in the navy had embezzled the funds for cordite and split the loot with the manufacturer. Or stuff as monumentally surrealistic as that a battleship was missing two main guns, which again had been stolen and sold on the black market. Yep, you've read that right: big f-ing guns off a battleship, simply dismantled and sold on the black market.
You also find such surrealistic stuff, as that the fleet's second in command -- no doubt, some fellow with either high placed relatives, or who bought the job fair and square -- deliberately didn't relay the order to deploy into battle formation. The formation where the big ships could fire at the Japanese was also the formation where the Japanese could fire at the ship he's on, and, you know, he wasn't going to do stupid stuff like risk his own life for his country. At any rate, someone felt protected enough to ignore a direct order, even if it cost the country a humiliating defeat.
That's the kind of thing that corruption can do. Someone didn't give a fuck about their country or about sticking it to the foreigners. They just cost their country a humiliating defeat, simply because, you know, there was something to steal or he had bribed someone powerful enough to ignore a direct order.
So, regardless of whether you wish to see a continuity of that in China or not, well, that's how far corruption can go.
And you don't even have to look one century back, the (ex)communist block provides a ton of more recent examples. And not even just the commies. Just about anywhere where some people were given enough unchecked power, some enterprising souls proceeded to sell their influence for cash. With similar results.
The more devastating result being that they invariably destroyed a whole country's culture in the process. The little guys were allowed to steal or get a bribe worth maybe 1$, so they wouldn't mind when the party leaders stole a million bucks in one fell swoop.
So now look at this particular incident, and you tell me if you really need some higher reason or motivation than bribe to explain it.
It's freakin' sad, that's what it is.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Pure, unmitigated bollocks. Capitalism does not channel selfish urges "for the greater good of society" it channels them for the good of the individual. Sometimes that benefits society as a whole, sometimes it doesn't.
Oh, and you might have an urge to own everything and control everything, but don't project your megalomaniacal tendencies onto the rest of us.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Last year and through part of this year, there were reports of some sort of DNS poisoning in China involving vnet.cn. See: http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=60083 for one report of the behavior. In the link I posted, the user was worried the problem was due to some sort of malware, but I witnessed the same behavior firsthand (domain names apparently at random resolving to a vnet.cn address) where the problem was not due to malware local to a particular user's machine. In the cases I witnessed, the DNS servers were operated by China Telecom.
*sighs* Germany's problem with production was that it kept trying to produce the best and strongest, which is no way to win a war you're in the middle of. Instead you just produce the stuff that's good enough for your needs. Because they kept attempting to keept their war machine on the bleeding edge in a war of survival, they kept having to do things like retool production lines and tech the workers how to build the new tech. Britain did no such thing, instead relying on technology like the flipping Sten gun. THAT is why Britain was consistently able to outproduce the Germans.
But of course you refer mostly to the modern situation, where F/OSS distribution model has certain likeness of Communism (from everyone according to his capabilities, to everyone according to his needs, and there is no Government.) I guess the p1rate scene also follows, including music, at least on the consumption side.
The expression "A == C" can incorporate ("A == B" and "B == C"). There is no need to elaborate on the obvious. Capitalism benefits the society more than it hurts, or else it could not survive; just ask the corpse of feudalism, for example. My original statement is true.
Oh, and you might have an urge to own everything and control everything, but don't project your megalomaniacal tendencies onto the rest of us.
References to humans in general are of statistical nature. I can imagine that some people will refuse a free check worth $100M, but I strongly suspect that majority of the population of this planet will grab it as fast as they can (the current exchange rate notwithstanding.)
OK, I see a lot of posts here with some misleading info. Just to clear the air:
1. Foreign companies can own 100% of China enterprises (in some industries), and this is called a WOFE (Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise)
2. For any company to operate a web site in China, they need an ICP (Internet Content Provider) license.
3. Only domestic PRC entities (citizens), can get an ICP license (any foreign ownership and ICP license cannot be issued)
4. There are ways around #2+#3, through a legal loophole which is quite simply, a) the foreign company has their in country manager or other domestic person setup a 100% domestic owned PRC company to get the ICP license. b) the foreign company has a proxy agreement and share pledge with the "official" shareholder(s) of that PRC domestic company which are side contracts giving control and management of the domestic company to the foreign owned (WOFE) of the foreign investors. c) The WOFE also has a contract with the PRC company to extract all revenue out through a "technical services and management agreements". d) The WOFE then is able to book all the revenue from the company, making it a synthetic subsidiary and thus getting around all the laws forbidding foreign investment in the PRC company. (interesting note, this structure was designed in the 70's to get around foreign investment limitations in petrochemical industries, and is now used by all the major internet and game companies listed abroad, ie: tom.com, sina.com, snda.com, Google, Yahoo etc.)
5. The telcos here (China Netcom and China Telecom) often seem to re-direct traffic as the post claims. I have seen google.com traffic redirected for an entire weekend to 114.cn, which is China Telecom's lame search engine! Baidu.com redirect I see much less often. There are also many others for instance ALL traffic was redirecting to Yahoo.cn on my cable broadband connection from my house yesterday, no idea why Yahoo.cn, but it was.
6. A lot of traffic to the China internet portal kings is fake, by fake think how gold farming in MMOGs works, people playing for gold and getting paid 0.50 cents an hour to play in China. I have heard *rumors* from insider friends saying that many portals pay people the equivalent to click on links all day.....think market cap and ad revenue reporting.....it would not surprise me in the least but I can't say I have seen it personally.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Back on topic: China's experience is not that of the West. The West looks back to the success of Athens, of the Roman Republic, and of the near-democracy of the northern European tribes (the Saxons, for instance; even the Iriquois Confederacy in America). China on the other hand looks back to many centuries of imperial glory that were far in advance of anything the Roman Empire ever achieved. Unlike the Romans, the empire wasn't degenerate from a republic. Unlike the Romans, posts under the emperor were largely based on merit - anyone who could score well on the exams was given authority to match their proven learning and intelligence.
The Chinese went wild for Mao because they have fond cultural memories of life under great emperors. Mao didn't work out so well, yet still their cultural memory has little place for democracy. The Nationalists - their one "democratic" leadership - were mobsters through and through. Mao was a relief after that. Even Hong Kong was only given democracy as the Brits left; it had been under thoroughly imperial governance up until then by the Brits - and quite prosperously and delightfully so as far as the inhabitants were concerned.
The saving grace for the rest of the world is that the Chinese have most often been an inward-looking, rather than expansionist empire. But what they're looking at as examples of progress are Singapore - not exactly a Western democracy in fact, despite pretenses - and what the Brits did with Hong Kong - an unelected government favoring largely-uncontrolled business operations. Taiwan would be a bright light, except Taiwanese businesses are so invested in the mainland now the last thing they want to see is a truly democratic government there that might do something drastic like expropriate their factories in favor of "the workers," or some other throwback to the Maoism that's still given some respect there.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Fascism is the opposite of liberty, not democracy.
Liberty and democracy are not the same thing. One is far more valuable than the other.
Good for the rest of the world, good for the powers that be in China, not so good for the average Chinese worker.
Is it really good for the rest of the world? China has been destroying so much domestic production in so many different nations that I have to say it is not. The U.S. may be the biggest target in China's economic sights, but it is by no means the only one.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When I was in China last April and went to slashdot I got redirected to some site all pink and pretty. If I remember correctly it was about ponies. I thought at the time it was strange but now I know it was the gvt.
using System.Awesome;
Note that some of the biggest corruption I have seen in China are orchestrated with the help of US and other foreign investors, corporations, etc.
Take for example a large NASDAQ listed company, that was under internal investigation last year. I can't name names, but this is second hand knowledge from someone I know involved as a customer to this company and questioned in the investigation. Here goes:
1. NASDAQ listed company founders and management write a huge option on their shares with a foreign bank. The shares are in lockup and due to be able to float in 6 months. The price that the bank pays, is based on a price they can sell (estimated) at the end of the lockup period in 6 months.
2. Investigation begins, because of revenues being booked through companies the auditors (and competitors) have never heard of. It comes to light in the investigation, that the revenues are actually the proceeds from the share option sale (management and founders), to drive up stock price before the end of the lockup period.
3. Underwriters, major investors (big names in US and Europe, can't say the names here) are all aware. Auditors are paid off. One board seat is changed. The truth is buried. The news never comes out because too many investors, banks would get burned.
4. Stock still flying to this day. Fact is the company is a great model, but a big part of the accelerated growth prior to lockup expiring was fraud. Investors, bankers, underwriters knew it. Corruption on a mass scale involving US and European banks and investors.
So, this is why I call China "the wild east". Things can go very backward fast and it is very hard to see the "real" picture in anything you do here.
That being said, there are companies, like GE, that do very well in China while staying for the most part very "clean". It is not impossible to succeed in China without being corrupt. But the stories of corruption I have heard involving foreigners number at least on par with those involving locals only.............its a human disease not a "communist" or "socialist" or even "democratic" problem.....its human.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
*sighs* Germany's problem with production was that it kept trying to produce the best and strongest, which is no way to win a war you're in the middle of.
But that's NOT TRUE at all. If it were true anywhere, it would be only true in the case of tanks, where the contractors were heavy machine makers and so treated each tank as a hand crafted thing. But even then, the Russian T-34 was a far better tank than the Panzers Germany entered the war with.
Beyond that, Germany sacrificed a lot for expediency. The entire U-Boat war was a concession to not build the best. The famed type XXI U-Boat, which could have been a game changer, was kept on the drawing boards to build the earlier designs. Germany cancelled construction of potential aircraft carriers, never built additional battleships... her whole naval strategy was to fight a sort of a guerilla war.
German infantry, for example, went to battle with a bolt action rifle, whereas her Yankee counterparts had the superior M1 Garand. And, you say, the "best"... German logistics trains relied in large part on steam locomotive engine and horse drawn transportation. Last time I checked, a truck was better than horse. The careful researcher will also note that the USA, incidentally, developed steam locomotives that significantly outperformed their German counterparts.
And have a look at aircraft, again.... the BF-109 and Spitfire were fairly close aircraft going into the war and throughout the Battle of Britain, but, again, the Germans had no equivalent to the Lancaster Bomber.
It goes on and on and on... Really, we have to look at the German Armed Forces for what they were. It had some modern tactics to help it early on, but, ultimately the whole thing was a mishmash of some misapplied high tech propaganda pieces to mask the overall inferiority of the whole thing. None of German's high tech weapons - the King Tiger, the V1 and V2, the ME-262, and the type XXI U-Boat, did a damned thing to change the outcome of the war, and her low tech weapons were simply not up to scratch.
Germany had an army that entered the war with tanks that weren't even as good as their French counterparts, a fighter aircraft that only matched the best the British could produce, had no real logistics support, a navy that lacked the capital ships to challenge its obvious rival, radar and signals intelligence nowhere near as advanced as her British counterparts. German communications was so bad that not only were all of their tactical communications read by the allies, the Germans didn't even realize that they were being read, despite obvious failures.
This is my sig.
I am currently in China, and I can say with certainty that the average person is not being forced to "buy Chinese." I have seen some TV ads encouraging people to buy Chinese brands, but that's it. Even some industrial goods are often bought from foreign producers--for example, nicer buildings have German elevators, and some bridge builders prefer to use higher-quality American-made joints. On the street, Chinese car brands predominate but I also see Buicks, Volkswagens, and BMWs.
Back to the issue at hand: while I haven't experienced the website redirecting scam described above, there's nothing to make me believe the Chinese government wouldn't do something like that in order to boost a Chinese company. I personally believe their blocks on blog sites and recently-lifted YouTube block are done in part to force Chinese citizens to use domestic companies which can be more easily monitored and controlled.
I basically agree. However, there are limited options. Who wants war with a nuclear armed China? Pretty much nobody. I think the best we can do is help China be stable and reasonably prosperous and hope that one day the children or grandchildren of today's leaders in China decide to grant human rights to China's people. It is very likely I will not live long enough to see that day, but I suspect that day will come. I think the path Nixon put us on with China is the right one.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.