> What will it take to get Apple to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in China
Economically speaking, the standard of living for the average Chinese person has improved dramatically in recent decades, precisely because of foreign manufacturers locating operations there. Would you rather have the Chinese regime oppressing the people with their current level of wealth, or the same regime oppressing a people with 1% of their current wealth (e.g. North Korea)? Please note, I am in no way supporting the Chinese state or oppression of any kind. I'm merely saying that removing manufacturing from China would definitely have a negative impact on the people.
> They stand for rights and privacy only when it does not interfere with their revenue stream
Their "stand for rights and privacy" helps improve their revenue stream: it is marketing. Same story for any green initiatives, diversity initiatives, etc. It's all marketing to cast a positive corporate image with consumers.
Now for the flip side: if enough people raise a stink about Chinese manufacturing to the point that revenues begin to decline due to that fact, then the corporation will relocate its operations.
> Would you rather have the Chinese regime oppressing the people with their current level of wealth, or the same regime oppressing a people with 1% of their current wealth (e.g. North Korea)?
You hit the nail on the head. Every time someone brings up "human rights" as a reason to stop trading with China is just hiding behind a pretentious facade, and an obvious one at that. It's totally understandable to feel threatened by the rise of China, it's totally understandable to feel competitive pressure from a country that deploys many unfair strategies, but it's not ok to pretend to care about the "human rights" of a country's citizen while being absolutely ok devastating an economy of 1.4 billion people.
Someone on Reddit literally said because CCP doesn't respect human rights, we should send the country back to the middle age and cut off them completely from the rest of the world.
You know what, I bet even if China were a completely democratic country, there would still be many who hold extremely hostile/defensive attitude towards the them, for a myriad of reasons that I'm not going to spell out.
Economically speaking, the standard of living for the average Chinese person has improved dramatically in recent decades, precisely because of foreign manufacturers locating operations there. Would you rather have the Chinese regime oppressing the people with their current level of wealth, or the same regime oppressing a people with 1% of their current wealth (e.g. North Korea)? Please note, I am in no way supporting the Chinese state or oppression of any kind. I'm merely saying that removing manufacturing from China would definitely have a negative impact on the people.
> They stand for rights and privacy only when it does not interfere with their revenue stream
Their "stand for rights and privacy" helps improve their revenue stream: it is marketing. Same story for any green initiatives, diversity initiatives, etc. It's all marketing to cast a positive corporate image with consumers.
Now for the flip side: if enough people raise a stink about Chinese manufacturing to the point that revenues begin to decline due to that fact, then the corporation will relocate its operations.