Ask Slashdot: Is It Ethical To Purchase Electronics Products Made In China?

dryriver writes: A lot of people seem to think it's O.K. to buy electronics made in China. We get to buy products considerably cheaper than we otherwise would, and China by all accounts is growing, developing, and modernizing as a nation due to all the cool stuff they now make for the world. There is only one problem with that reasoning. 21st Century China has an atrocious human rights record, and almost all human rights watchdogs report that China is becoming more and more repressive each year. Freedom House put it this way in 2018: "It's worth noting that, in its attitude toward political dissent, the Chinese Communist Party has proven much harsher than the old Soviet regime of the Brezhnev era. Modern Chinese sentences are longer, the prospects for early release are far worse, and the Chinese authorities are generally unmoved by pleas for leniency from foreign diplomats." Basically, consumer dollars from around the world are not gradually creating a gentler, freer, more prosperous and more modern China at all. They are making the Chinese Communist Party richer, stronger, bolder and more aggressive and repressive in every respect. To the question: knowing what the human rights situation is in China, and that consumer dollars and euros flowing into the country from abroad is making things worse, not better, is it at all ethical to buy electronics or IT products manufactured in China?

Comments

Re:"ethical"?

[drinkypoo]

What is the proposed solution? Ban imports from China? Is THAT "ethical"? Drive prices up so high on products that poorer people here can't afford to buy anything? Is THAT "ethical"?

I think the answer is to place tariffs on goods from other nations based on how workers are treated in those countries. If it's legal and/or permitted to pay them slave wages, we should put sufficient tariffs on the products that it's not economically beneficial to pay them slave wages. If they get something in between that and an actual living wage, then the tariff should be somewhere in between, too.

It's not a perfect solution because that alone will actually encourage some employers to pay slave wages, but it's not really feasible to place those tariffs on a per-corporation basis, and the goal is to put pressure on the governments.