Hi everyone, I have three questions to help start the discussion but please fee free to weigh in with whatever you want:
Zoom put out a statement Thursday admitting they censored and shut accounts after being contacted by PRC authorities. You can read it here - Improving Our Policies as We Continue to Enable Global Collaboration. I was sent the statement by one of Zoom’s PR people, I replied asking them to answer my questions. So far they have not. Does Zoom’s statement make anyone feel confident that they are telling us the full story?
The Trump Administration usually gets most of the blame for pushing “decoupling”, but hasn’t the PRC been pursuing a policy of “information decoupling” for many years, and is only intensifying those efforts?
What is really going on with latest round of China-India border tensions?
Thanks to all for yet another valuable and highly-informative exchange, and again to Bill for providing the vehicle for it. A small technical suggestion, if I may, however: would it be possible to add an "Oldest first" comment-ordering option to the "New first" and "Top first" options already built in? This would allow those, like me, coming late to the party to more easily follow the evolving conversations of previous posters, rather than having to read the entire thread from the bottom up. Conversely, it seems to me that there's little useful difference between "Top" and "New" in comment threads like this one that, unlike, say, Reddit or Facebook, generally involve fewer than a dozen active commenters and that only run for a couple of days or less (especially since "Liked by Bill Bishop" is a pretty good "Top" qualification in any case!). Just my US$0.02 (= RMB¥0.014 but ≠ RMB¥0.50 !)'s worth, if you follow me ;-) ...
I have done the same and urged a private college and graduate school to ceasing rely on Zoom for all virtual classwork during the shelter in place stuff
Facebook already blocks certain pages in Singapore under the government’s POFMA orders, so I suppose whatever Zoom is doing suits this global trend of governments asserting their authority within their jurisdictions. Zoom’s image will take a hit, but don't expect them to stop doing it, just work harder not to affect Americans.
Re: PRC’s “information decoupling.” Need to consider reframing: More significant than the CCP’s “information decoupling” has been the CCP’s “information convergence” as Chinese diplomats have decided to wage informational war on American tech companies’ home turf, esp. twitter.
Hi Bill... On your points above, (1) Zoom's statement is normal corporate deflection and reframing.. Consequently, it is nonsense and a clear indicator that surveillance and security concern remains and will continue. They are trying to justify a foundation for it. On Point (2), the Chinese have been decoupling the information sphere since the mid 2000's. I was in country in 2009-2013 and it was visible in '09 and has only worsened as "social credit scoring" becomes linked with presence data and social media engagement patterns and remarks, likes and endorsements. Point (3) is, on my part, sheer speculation. Perhaps they are aware dealing with an unstable White House and with Duterte continuing the visiting forces agreement, Xi is playing to his nationalist base by provoking in am area where he is confident we will not project. I recall decades ago an Economist cartoon with a drawing of Ghandi sitting with a bowl in his lap.. and a mushroom cloud arising from it (following the successful Indian nuclear development program).. I wonder if history will rhyme with Xi finding his soup bowl smoking if the Indians use all means to defend territorial lines. Note that while all this is going on, Taiwanese fighters aggressively chased Chinese fighters out of Taiwanese national airspace.
Quoting Kevin McSpadden: "But like the tech giants that have come before, Zoom is in a position where it has to defend its actions in China and choose its next steps carefully or risk losing customers.
In response to media reports, Zoom said, “The reality is Zoom operates in more than 80 countries and continues to expand, which requires compliance with local laws even as Zoom seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas.”
But what if local laws don’t allow the open exchange of ideas?
Google, YouTube and Facebook were unable to thread this needle and have been banished from the enticing Chinese market.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has played by the rules and thrived in China. It even created two versions of Skype – one for mainland China and another for everyone else.
After the news of the account suspensions broke, Zoom said it is now building a system that would allow for censorship by preventing people in mainland China from accessing meetings that would violate local laws.
Does Zoom want to be Google or Microsoft? The writing may already be on the wall."
(pulled from lead-in for today's issue of Inkstone, SCMP spin-off)
I think this is yet another example of businesses creating a "China-only version" of their product line in order to access the #2 economy in the world without offending the CCP.
On question 2, China certainly led the way on “information decoupling” in the common meaning of the term. At the same time, since 2015 it has officially pushed its information (ITC) companies to go out, and that continues apace. One thing that strikes me is how active non-Chinese, including US, capital and corporate partners are in working alongside Chinese partners, often state-controlled, to extend the Digital Silk Road infrastructure. For example, Huawei Marine (now on the Entity List), a major builder of submarine communications cables, has been and is still minority owned by Philip Falcone’s NYC fund HC2. (Huawei reportedly also still has a significant equity stake through its shares in Hengtong, the new owner of Huawei Marine.) SBSS, another major Chinese communications cable layer, is majority-owned by China Communications Services, whose controlling shareholder is state-owned CTC, but it is minority (49%) owned by J.F. Lehman Co, a US fund set up by former US Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. (Lehman Co specializes in US defense companies.) And then there’s Facebook, which has a joint project with state-owned China Mobile, among others, to build a very high-speed cable around Africa, connecting it to Europe. All three of these deals are from the past few months, a pretty full-on “decoupling” period. And yet.
One would probably follow Deng's "hide your strength, bide your time" if it is truly "security first"; in reality, wolf warriors are doing exactly the opposite: signaling non-security motives to the whole world and inviting more reprisals.
While I do believe that "China Standards 2035" is no less of a threat than those CCP disinformation campaigns against the West, it would be naive of someone not to view today's China in the context that currently there is a Mao/emperor who is sitting on the top of the supposedly post-Mao CCP and who has recently displayed a lot of backwardness and shortsightedness in policies.
Not a direct comment on the information decoupling question (by the way I completely agree with the point that China’s GFW was around long before this topic was even a buzzword) but I do wonder how disruptive Elon Musk’s Starlink (if successful) will be for censorship and or decoupling. I don’t quite understand fully how the ground-based architecture will work but if not connected to the local info grid that could be a real game changer for information flow, no?
I will bet a lot of money that there is no way Musk will allow Starlink to not operate in compliance with PRC laws for PRC users given the importance of the PRC market to Tesla
Don’t disagree with you but Musk is also exposed to US govt pressure with SpaceX (and Tesla as well) so it is possible he/his companies will suddenly find himself/themselves in uncomfortable positions should they find themselves in a spot similar to Zoom.
And if Starlink or other type companies could get genuine space-based information services to the global masses...what’s that line about bigger walls and longer ladders?
I agree with you, Bill. I really don't see big changes in the commercial relationships between China and the rest of the world by Western government actions. Moving manufacturing and leaving the Chinese market will only be done when multi-national CEOs get tired of having their proprietary information stolen, and also when they can't freely discuss events on calls, past or present.
Agree, but the White House's moves to force Chinese cos listing in the US to comply with US accounting standards is potentially very significant. The periodic threats to require US pension funds to not invest in Chinese cos are too. The Entity List is itself significant for some businesses.
I think we can foresee an awful lot of "cat and mouse" as the Chinese-based companies pretend they are going to comply, and then force the US government to prove otherwise.
The issue with jettisoning Zoom is knowing whether or not the alternatives [Webex, Skype, open source products such as Jitsi] have similar issues vis a vis China. Any thoughts?
NB:Given that everyone using Google Meet has to have a Google account, that is not a possibility for my organization's purposes.
My take so far is that Zoom is bearing the brunt of a general realization that all teleconferencing platforms raise political risks for individual users. Zoom flew under the radar in China for a while because it was small and limited to educational/enterprise settings, but anything that routinely bridged the GFW and gained critical mass was bound to be subjected to constraints. I'd love to see the conversation shift to the broader security challenges posed by forcing globalized education and commerce online, in a world where platforms try to satisfy multiple legal regimes' demands in a lowest-common-denominator fashion. I've had students and colleagues log on from the Middle East and China -- are we just no longer allowed to talk about countries' leaders if we're teaching online (many countries ban criticism of leadership)? What about religion if one of the participants is subject to blasphemy laws? And none of that even touches on the possibility of recording and editing comments for use in whipping up social media mobs, which in some places can become physically dangerous. We could play cat-and-mouse with these regimes by switching to lesser known communications platforms, but that doesn't address the fundamental problem.
Further to the Zoom question, let's be honest. If the issue is one of safety (in terms of those PRC nationals who study in the United States and elsewhere), this has long been a problem with users of WeChat and other platforms that link back to China. As one of my trusted interlocutors once told me, WeChat was designed by Tencent with the help of the Ministry of State Security. Everything on that platform is accessible if officials in China want access.
More to the point, Zoom, like Tencent and like every other publicly and "privately" held firm in China, is subject to the whim of the Communist Party. There are many officials in the Party who likely understand the hazards this poses for the prospects of those firms as they continue to build their global presence. But it is not an easy problem to solve, because it is in the nature of the CPC to behave this way.
I’m hoping someone can shed light on my question, which is, what does Zoom owe to Beijing? I thought it was a completely American company (US headquartered, US listed, but with a Chinese-American CEO admittedly). I get that Chinese-based and Chinese-owned companies will censor and oblige Beijing’s requests for their foreign operations (WeChat, Huawei, etc.), but for a completely American company to censor their American users at Beijing’s request seem outlandish and completely unreasonable...
I can't speak for Zoom other than that I know they have employees in China, but I can speak for other companies that have a local operation in China.
When the Chinese government wants something to go their way, they will threaten action against employees in the local operation. This is enough for some foreign companies to bend the knee, even if they do not make any sales in China - it's to protect their Chinese employees.
I used to think that foreign companies operating in China was a good thing, but now I am starting to think that any good is offset by the negative side-effect of providing the Party an avenue to export their policies.
I’ll also add that US companies operating inChina must comply to “Chinese laws” for their Chinese user base—unfortunate but at least understandable. But that doesn’t seem to apply here to Zoom either...
Ian Bremmer remarked if there is a real decoupling businesses would rather decouple from US than from China. I kind of agree given the interest rate differential, of all indicators, is here to stay. To what extent do you agree?
This is the key issue I think--don't often agree with Bremmer and don't here, either--obviously it will have to come as a US government push sanctioning companies that work with China or censor for China to force a choice between the two countries/systems (individual companies on their own will always censor so it must be a gov't action).
But foreign companies are not stupid, they know that the CCP is hostile to them, so if you totally hitch your wagon to China (i.e. disengage from USA completely and register your company in China) your only protection is the CCP flaunting you as an example of its benevolence to other companies/countries in order to gain propaganda points against the USA. If the CCP fundamentally wins, though--say, Trump is reelected, and the majority of the EU meekly agrees to submit to de facto CCP political control (veto over key elements of EU policy especially vetoing any EU economic actions to stop CCP tech theft or to limit ability of CCP-subsidized companies to take over EU market)--the CCP at a certain point will be powerful enough to have no need of propaganda points and can fully strip the tech of whatever foreign company is left and kick them out of the market.
The CCP is not a "win-win" type of organization which believes in liberal values (one definition of which is, what's fair for me is fair for you, equality in principle, whereas CCP values are, I tell you what's fair and if you complain we will coerce and ultimately torture and kill you although usually that's unnecessary, right). So we can complain about Trump or US foreign policy or whatever but at the end of the day it's all an obfuscation for what kind of values we want to have, and whether we will have the courage not to give absolute power of life and death and prosperity over our lives/the world to this ruthless, amoral, xenophobic group of people.
Lighthizer in Foreign Affairs this week: "Whether there will be a Phase 2 depends on whether China complies with the terms of Phase 1 AND whether it is willing to fundamentally change its model of state-run capitalism." The AND is important. Suggests conditions for Phase 2 can never plausibly be met.
I can't believe that anyone in a position of power in the United States government actually thinks it is possible that the Chinese government will agree to "fundamentally change its model of state-run capitalism." What is he smoking? Who is generating the notion that it's even possible?
I think we may be headed for a moment of reckoning when an American government says to leading American companies, You have a stake in national security. You are not just in business to make money. There are national security consequences to your actions and your decisions.
The hawks should consider using next flashpoints in HK to grab it for itself and bomb the sh*t out of Shanghai & Shenzhen. Don’t laugh, Rome did similar things to Carthage.
I’ve heard that some US multinationals are not interested in moving operations to the US because trade tensions might lock them out of the China market, where a large percentage of global economic growth is expected to take place in the next 10 years. Instead they are looking at third-countries where they can export both ways. Most likely they would not actually move operations out of China, but new investment might go to those third countries.
No specifics, just that one factor in relocation/new investment decisions is retaining access to the China market. That would be an advantage for a country like, say, Uruguay, which is less likely to get into political crossfire with China, and a disadvantage for countries like the US or Canada, which seem more likely to get into disputes that affect trade.
"The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China is an international cross-party group of legislators working towards reform on how democratic countries approach China. ..."
The establishment of this group looks like a promising development, involving legislators from around the world who will address with five key areas of Chinese behavior: international rules based order, human rights, world trade, strengthening security. and protecting national integrity.
Zoom is stuck between the American side of the operation, which features lawyers, publicists and marketers who understand how bad this could get for the company (or should do), and the Chinese side, which is probably well aware of all the hazards the company faces in the United States, but is constrained by the requirements imposed by it’s difficult domestic political environment. The thing is, Zoom’s services are not even that good. I think it might lose a lot of its customers over the coming months because of this.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this piece of news. The censorship of Tiananmen on international cyberspace, what else can surprise you?
Like many others, most of my professional works now take place on Zoom. Also, the institution I am currently serving, together with many others in the policy community, has this collaboration with Zoom, meaning teaching are conducted via this app. I can't help but doubt the decision.
The company has already failed to address a series of privacy concerns raised by the public, and now this. From what I see, it at least adds fuel to people's fury and possibly also motivates some market players to action. Zoom is still a public company, to my knowledge, and considering the current sino-us relationship, investors have many reasons to bet against it.
The interesting thing is the role of Chinese government behind Zoom's press-op. Had they reviewed it before Zoom released it? How do they make of it? For Chinese government, Zoom is one of a few entities that operate under their influence and also play a significant role in global communicational infrastructure; it is reasonable to believe that Chinese government may be pleased to include Zoom in their strategic plan.
Bill, since 1993, we have lived with a fictional Line of Actual Control, some 4,000 kms long marking our border. The problem is that there is a Chinese version, an Indian version, an Indian version of what the Chinese consider the line and finally a Chinese version of the Indian line. In short in many places whether the border lies across a rivulet or on the near bank, whether it is on top of this ridge or that is completely notional. Yet, a Confidence Building regime has ensured that the overlap was only in about 16-18 places and a well choreographed operating procedure in place to ensure that theyd be no clashes. All that seems to have come to an end, with Chinese moving in areas which were considered "settled". Just why they're doing this is a mystery. Everything as of now looks choreographed-- no one in the frontline is carrying weapons and sticks and stones have been the instruments of choice. But behind the frontline there has been a build up, now by both sides. While there has been some token move back in some places, the problematic ones remain in Galwan and Pangong Tso.
For present both sides say diplomacy is at work. But unless we can get to the bottom of the motivation for the Chinese moves, it will be difficult to predict anything.
Thanks, I have no insight. I got relatively close to Pangong Tso in 2014 when we did the Kailash Kora. What an inhospitable environment for military operations.
Bill I did the Mt. Kailash kora in 2004. At the time it was a highly restricted area including for Chinese and Tibetans. I picked up some PLA hitch hikers, of course they hated being up there. Very harsh environment to be sure. They was my third Tibet trip and was one of my best trips in China. I visited some villages and schools along the way. There was no power then and gasoline was scarce to come by.
I went to Ladakh on the Indian side of Pangong lake in 2008 (in the state of Jammu & Kashmir then, and an independent Union Territory now). We were headed to the Chinese line of control but bad weather stopped us. It was beautiful, majestic, serene, but ubiquitous military presence . On the radio I remember listening to Hindi language transmissions by China, offering Ladhakis a Chinese version of the good life as experienced by the Tibetans. Ladakh used to be a part of Tibet centuries ago until a rebellious Lama broke away and joined Kashmir. Ladakh which is Buddhist was the largest land area segment of Kashmir.
Any Buddhist areas in Tibet have been completely destroyed socially and culturally and replaced by plastic Chinese garbage culture. That is why keeping them in free India is so important. China does not deserve stewardship over a culture like Tibet.
I think China views India as a primary rival to its 100 year war for hegemony. The One Belt and Road has one specific goal of isolating and encircling India. Pakistan is already a satellite state (See: https://ayecapitalist.com/2017/05/21/is-china-about-to-gobble-up-pakistan/), and is willing to cede Kashmir to China for large economic aid. But Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Maldives are also targets and part of the Chinese ring around India.
Not coincidentally Nepal has also started questing Indian territory at the behest of the Chinese. Arunachal Pradesh has seen a Chinese military buildup just north of the border. Parts of Bhutan have also been unilaterally annexed by the Chinese because they do not recognize the Durand line, I believe set up by the British as the border between Bhutan and Tibet.
The Zoom story is weird. You would assume that they are complying with Chinese government requests in order to maintain their market position -- but if their service or reliability (and security for that matter - for corporate accounts) is compromised, they're going to lose the business anyway. On the other hand, what options are there for communicating with Chinese colleagues? Tencent Meeting isn't looking quite like the best alternative ;-)
How popular is Zoom right now in China? My understanding is that their compliance with PRC requests is mostly due to its large employee footprint in China. Zoom is not available for free in China IIRC.
Bill, there assertion is hardly credible... after all, how would the Chinese have been aware of the conversation content that resulted in the shutdown.
I have my queries about this. It appears that Chinese church meetings over zoom have been monitored and I've heard from a seemingly reliable source that at least one house church in China meeting over zoom had 6 members taken into custody during the service.
Zoom is obviously compromised. We all should stop using it as suddenly as we started using it. The Chinese party-state apparatus is so sophisticated that it knows how to create "American" companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges and persuade us that these entities are beyond the reach of the Communist Party. I suspect the same is true with DJI, the drone maker. As I document in my book, "The New Art of War," Chinese entities engage in a constantly shifting pattern of activities inside the United States. If we crack down on Chinese VC funds in Silicon Valley, then we discover that a California-based company run by two Iranian-Americans is buying a Boeing satellite on behalf of a Chinese state-run entity. We are facing a relentless, highly sophisticated adversary/partner. We need to become equally sophisticated.
I have cancelled my zoom account have asked my friends and family to cancel their zoom accounts. We need to stand up against those who seek to censor ideas.
Team is not better than zoom tho. Yes zoom has all the security and trust issues, but All things aside, zoom wins on user experience against all competitors period.
Thanks to all for yet another valuable and highly-informative exchange, and again to Bill for providing the vehicle for it. A small technical suggestion, if I may, however: would it be possible to add an "Oldest first" comment-ordering option to the "New first" and "Top first" options already built in? This would allow those, like me, coming late to the party to more easily follow the evolving conversations of previous posters, rather than having to read the entire thread from the bottom up. Conversely, it seems to me that there's little useful difference between "Top" and "New" in comment threads like this one that, unlike, say, Reddit or Facebook, generally involve fewer than a dozen active commenters and that only run for a couple of days or less (especially since "Liked by Bill Bishop" is a pretty good "Top" qualification in any case!). Just my US$0.02 (= RMB¥0.014 but ≠ RMB¥0.50 !)'s worth, if you follow me ;-) ...
I have done the same and urged a private college and graduate school to ceasing rely on Zoom for all virtual classwork during the shelter in place stuff
Facebook already blocks certain pages in Singapore under the government’s POFMA orders, so I suppose whatever Zoom is doing suits this global trend of governments asserting their authority within their jurisdictions. Zoom’s image will take a hit, but don't expect them to stop doing it, just work harder not to affect Americans.
zoom PR sent to you (nice!) but no reply from them? (weird, or...why?) too Chinese a situation...
Re: PRC’s “information decoupling.” Need to consider reframing: More significant than the CCP’s “information decoupling” has been the CCP’s “information convergence” as Chinese diplomats have decided to wage informational war on American tech companies’ home turf, esp. twitter.
And then the US should, in non-conventional ways, respond propositionally with novel attacks on key structural weaknesses of the CPC
Hi Bill... On your points above, (1) Zoom's statement is normal corporate deflection and reframing.. Consequently, it is nonsense and a clear indicator that surveillance and security concern remains and will continue. They are trying to justify a foundation for it. On Point (2), the Chinese have been decoupling the information sphere since the mid 2000's. I was in country in 2009-2013 and it was visible in '09 and has only worsened as "social credit scoring" becomes linked with presence data and social media engagement patterns and remarks, likes and endorsements. Point (3) is, on my part, sheer speculation. Perhaps they are aware dealing with an unstable White House and with Duterte continuing the visiting forces agreement, Xi is playing to his nationalist base by provoking in am area where he is confident we will not project. I recall decades ago an Economist cartoon with a drawing of Ghandi sitting with a bowl in his lap.. and a mushroom cloud arising from it (following the successful Indian nuclear development program).. I wonder if history will rhyme with Xi finding his soup bowl smoking if the Indians use all means to defend territorial lines. Note that while all this is going on, Taiwanese fighters aggressively chased Chinese fighters out of Taiwanese national airspace.
Quoting Kevin McSpadden: "But like the tech giants that have come before, Zoom is in a position where it has to defend its actions in China and choose its next steps carefully or risk losing customers.
In response to media reports, Zoom said, “The reality is Zoom operates in more than 80 countries and continues to expand, which requires compliance with local laws even as Zoom seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas.”
But what if local laws don’t allow the open exchange of ideas?
Google, YouTube and Facebook were unable to thread this needle and have been banished from the enticing Chinese market.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has played by the rules and thrived in China. It even created two versions of Skype – one for mainland China and another for everyone else.
After the news of the account suspensions broke, Zoom said it is now building a system that would allow for censorship by preventing people in mainland China from accessing meetings that would violate local laws.
Does Zoom want to be Google or Microsoft? The writing may already be on the wall."
(pulled from lead-in for today's issue of Inkstone, SCMP spin-off)
I think this is yet another example of businesses creating a "China-only version" of their product line in order to access the #2 economy in the world without offending the CCP.
Regarding Zoom, of which I have become a heavy user of late, I think we should all tilt toward MS Teams.
Amen!
Wondered if everyone thinks engagement is dead per https://www.thewirechina.com/2020/06/07/the-birth-life-and-death-of-engagement/
On question 2, China certainly led the way on “information decoupling” in the common meaning of the term. At the same time, since 2015 it has officially pushed its information (ITC) companies to go out, and that continues apace. One thing that strikes me is how active non-Chinese, including US, capital and corporate partners are in working alongside Chinese partners, often state-controlled, to extend the Digital Silk Road infrastructure. For example, Huawei Marine (now on the Entity List), a major builder of submarine communications cables, has been and is still minority owned by Philip Falcone’s NYC fund HC2. (Huawei reportedly also still has a significant equity stake through its shares in Hengtong, the new owner of Huawei Marine.) SBSS, another major Chinese communications cable layer, is majority-owned by China Communications Services, whose controlling shareholder is state-owned CTC, but it is minority (49%) owned by J.F. Lehman Co, a US fund set up by former US Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. (Lehman Co specializes in US defense companies.) And then there’s Facebook, which has a joint project with state-owned China Mobile, among others, to build a very high-speed cable around Africa, connecting it to Europe. All three of these deals are from the past few months, a pretty full-on “decoupling” period. And yet.
greed rules
Greed rules for the US, but not the PRC. Security first, combined with plenty of greed.
One would probably follow Deng's "hide your strength, bide your time" if it is truly "security first"; in reality, wolf warriors are doing exactly the opposite: signaling non-security motives to the whole world and inviting more reprisals.
While I do believe that "China Standards 2035" is no less of a threat than those CCP disinformation campaigns against the West, it would be naive of someone not to view today's China in the context that currently there is a Mao/emperor who is sitting on the top of the supposedly post-Mao CCP and who has recently displayed a lot of backwardness and shortsightedness in policies.
Not a direct comment on the information decoupling question (by the way I completely agree with the point that China’s GFW was around long before this topic was even a buzzword) but I do wonder how disruptive Elon Musk’s Starlink (if successful) will be for censorship and or decoupling. I don’t quite understand fully how the ground-based architecture will work but if not connected to the local info grid that could be a real game changer for information flow, no?
I will bet a lot of money that there is no way Musk will allow Starlink to not operate in compliance with PRC laws for PRC users given the importance of the PRC market to Tesla
On the other hand, if Musk decides that he wants to sell his Tesla shares and take the cash to do something else........
Don’t disagree with you but Musk is also exposed to US govt pressure with SpaceX (and Tesla as well) so it is possible he/his companies will suddenly find himself/themselves in uncomfortable positions should they find themselves in a spot similar to Zoom.
And if Starlink or other type companies could get genuine space-based information services to the global masses...what’s that line about bigger walls and longer ladders?
I agree with you, Bill. I really don't see big changes in the commercial relationships between China and the rest of the world by Western government actions. Moving manufacturing and leaving the Chinese market will only be done when multi-national CEOs get tired of having their proprietary information stolen, and also when they can't freely discuss events on calls, past or present.
Agree, but the White House's moves to force Chinese cos listing in the US to comply with US accounting standards is potentially very significant. The periodic threats to require US pension funds to not invest in Chinese cos are too. The Entity List is itself significant for some businesses.
I think we can foresee an awful lot of "cat and mouse" as the Chinese-based companies pretend they are going to comply, and then force the US government to prove otherwise.
The issue with jettisoning Zoom is knowing whether or not the alternatives [Webex, Skype, open source products such as Jitsi] have similar issues vis a vis China. Any thoughts?
NB:Given that everyone using Google Meet has to have a Google account, that is not a possibility for my organization's purposes.
Not necessarily:https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9303069?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en#:~:text=You%20don't%20need%20a,join%20using%20your%20mobile%20device.
My take so far is that Zoom is bearing the brunt of a general realization that all teleconferencing platforms raise political risks for individual users. Zoom flew under the radar in China for a while because it was small and limited to educational/enterprise settings, but anything that routinely bridged the GFW and gained critical mass was bound to be subjected to constraints. I'd love to see the conversation shift to the broader security challenges posed by forcing globalized education and commerce online, in a world where platforms try to satisfy multiple legal regimes' demands in a lowest-common-denominator fashion. I've had students and colleagues log on from the Middle East and China -- are we just no longer allowed to talk about countries' leaders if we're teaching online (many countries ban criticism of leadership)? What about religion if one of the participants is subject to blasphemy laws? And none of that even touches on the possibility of recording and editing comments for use in whipping up social media mobs, which in some places can become physically dangerous. We could play cat-and-mouse with these regimes by switching to lesser known communications platforms, but that doesn't address the fundamental problem.
Forget Zoom -- use Google Meeting, much better with noise cancellation.
Further to the Zoom question, let's be honest. If the issue is one of safety (in terms of those PRC nationals who study in the United States and elsewhere), this has long been a problem with users of WeChat and other platforms that link back to China. As one of my trusted interlocutors once told me, WeChat was designed by Tencent with the help of the Ministry of State Security. Everything on that platform is accessible if officials in China want access.
More to the point, Zoom, like Tencent and like every other publicly and "privately" held firm in China, is subject to the whim of the Communist Party. There are many officials in the Party who likely understand the hazards this poses for the prospects of those firms as they continue to build their global presence. But it is not an easy problem to solve, because it is in the nature of the CPC to behave this way.
I’m hoping someone can shed light on my question, which is, what does Zoom owe to Beijing? I thought it was a completely American company (US headquartered, US listed, but with a Chinese-American CEO admittedly). I get that Chinese-based and Chinese-owned companies will censor and oblige Beijing’s requests for their foreign operations (WeChat, Huawei, etc.), but for a completely American company to censor their American users at Beijing’s request seem outlandish and completely unreasonable...
I can't speak for Zoom other than that I know they have employees in China, but I can speak for other companies that have a local operation in China.
When the Chinese government wants something to go their way, they will threaten action against employees in the local operation. This is enough for some foreign companies to bend the knee, even if they do not make any sales in China - it's to protect their Chinese employees.
I used to think that foreign companies operating in China was a good thing, but now I am starting to think that any good is offset by the negative side-effect of providing the Party an avenue to export their policies.
I’ll also add that US companies operating inChina must comply to “Chinese laws” for their Chinese user base—unfortunate but at least understandable. But that doesn’t seem to apply here to Zoom either...
Ian Bremmer remarked if there is a real decoupling businesses would rather decouple from US than from China. I kind of agree given the interest rate differential, of all indicators, is here to stay. To what extent do you agree?
This is the key issue I think--don't often agree with Bremmer and don't here, either--obviously it will have to come as a US government push sanctioning companies that work with China or censor for China to force a choice between the two countries/systems (individual companies on their own will always censor so it must be a gov't action).
But foreign companies are not stupid, they know that the CCP is hostile to them, so if you totally hitch your wagon to China (i.e. disengage from USA completely and register your company in China) your only protection is the CCP flaunting you as an example of its benevolence to other companies/countries in order to gain propaganda points against the USA. If the CCP fundamentally wins, though--say, Trump is reelected, and the majority of the EU meekly agrees to submit to de facto CCP political control (veto over key elements of EU policy especially vetoing any EU economic actions to stop CCP tech theft or to limit ability of CCP-subsidized companies to take over EU market)--the CCP at a certain point will be powerful enough to have no need of propaganda points and can fully strip the tech of whatever foreign company is left and kick them out of the market.
The CCP is not a "win-win" type of organization which believes in liberal values (one definition of which is, what's fair for me is fair for you, equality in principle, whereas CCP values are, I tell you what's fair and if you complain we will coerce and ultimately torture and kill you although usually that's unnecessary, right). So we can complain about Trump or US foreign policy or whatever but at the end of the day it's all an obfuscation for what kind of values we want to have, and whether we will have the courage not to give absolute power of life and death and prosperity over our lives/the world to this ruthless, amoral, xenophobic group of people.
Lighthizer in Foreign Affairs this week: "Whether there will be a Phase 2 depends on whether China complies with the terms of Phase 1 AND whether it is willing to fundamentally change its model of state-run capitalism." The AND is important. Suggests conditions for Phase 2 can never plausibly be met.
I can't believe that anyone in a position of power in the United States government actually thinks it is possible that the Chinese government will agree to "fundamentally change its model of state-run capitalism." What is he smoking? Who is generating the notion that it's even possible?
Jokes aside, this is actually a case for WWIII
China changes when they more or less want to, these WH guys are totally clueless.
The same as Elon probably, hot stuff among US upper class I heard.
I think we may be headed for a moment of reckoning when an American government says to leading American companies, You have a stake in national security. You are not just in business to make money. There are national security consequences to your actions and your decisions.
As well told in Stealth War by Spalding.
The hawks should consider using next flashpoints in HK to grab it for itself and bomb the sh*t out of Shanghai & Shenzhen. Don’t laugh, Rome did similar things to Carthage.
I’ve heard that some US multinationals are not interested in moving operations to the US because trade tensions might lock them out of the China market, where a large percentage of global economic growth is expected to take place in the next 10 years. Instead they are looking at third-countries where they can export both ways. Most likely they would not actually move operations out of China, but new investment might go to those third countries.
Which third countries?
No specifics, just that one factor in relocation/new investment decisions is retaining access to the China market. That would be an advantage for a country like, say, Uruguay, which is less likely to get into political crossfire with China, and a disadvantage for countries like the US or Canada, which seem more likely to get into disputes that affect trade.
Bremmer said similar thing, saying 2020s would be decade of city-states
"The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China is an international cross-party group of legislators working towards reform on how democratic countries approach China. ..."
The establishment of this group looks like a promising development, involving legislators from around the world who will address with five key areas of Chinese behavior: international rules based order, human rights, world trade, strengthening security. and protecting national integrity.
See: https://www.ipac.global/about/
Zoom is stuck between the American side of the operation, which features lawyers, publicists and marketers who understand how bad this could get for the company (or should do), and the Chinese side, which is probably well aware of all the hazards the company faces in the United States, but is constrained by the requirements imposed by it’s difficult domestic political environment. The thing is, Zoom’s services are not even that good. I think it might lose a lot of its customers over the coming months because of this.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this piece of news. The censorship of Tiananmen on international cyberspace, what else can surprise you?
Like many others, most of my professional works now take place on Zoom. Also, the institution I am currently serving, together with many others in the policy community, has this collaboration with Zoom, meaning teaching are conducted via this app. I can't help but doubt the decision.
The company has already failed to address a series of privacy concerns raised by the public, and now this. From what I see, it at least adds fuel to people's fury and possibly also motivates some market players to action. Zoom is still a public company, to my knowledge, and considering the current sino-us relationship, investors have many reasons to bet against it.
The interesting thing is the role of Chinese government behind Zoom's press-op. Had they reviewed it before Zoom released it? How do they make of it? For Chinese government, Zoom is one of a few entities that operate under their influence and also play a significant role in global communicational infrastructure; it is reasonable to believe that Chinese government may be pleased to include Zoom in their strategic plan.
The CCP is like a monster octopus with arms sticking everywhere.
Bill, since 1993, we have lived with a fictional Line of Actual Control, some 4,000 kms long marking our border. The problem is that there is a Chinese version, an Indian version, an Indian version of what the Chinese consider the line and finally a Chinese version of the Indian line. In short in many places whether the border lies across a rivulet or on the near bank, whether it is on top of this ridge or that is completely notional. Yet, a Confidence Building regime has ensured that the overlap was only in about 16-18 places and a well choreographed operating procedure in place to ensure that theyd be no clashes. All that seems to have come to an end, with Chinese moving in areas which were considered "settled". Just why they're doing this is a mystery. Everything as of now looks choreographed-- no one in the frontline is carrying weapons and sticks and stones have been the instruments of choice. But behind the frontline there has been a build up, now by both sides. While there has been some token move back in some places, the problematic ones remain in Galwan and Pangong Tso.
For present both sides say diplomacy is at work. But unless we can get to the bottom of the motivation for the Chinese moves, it will be difficult to predict anything.
老共貪心無窮。就是這麼簡單喔。
中共像蝗虫到处飞把你吃光了！
Thanks, I have no insight. I got relatively close to Pangong Tso in 2014 when we did the Kailash Kora. What an inhospitable environment for military operations.
Bill I did the Mt. Kailash kora in 2004. At the time it was a highly restricted area including for Chinese and Tibetans. I picked up some PLA hitch hikers, of course they hated being up there. Very harsh environment to be sure. They was my third Tibet trip and was one of my best trips in China. I visited some villages and schools along the way. There was no power then and gasoline was scarce to come by.
I went to Ladakh on the Indian side of Pangong lake in 2008 (in the state of Jammu & Kashmir then, and an independent Union Territory now). We were headed to the Chinese line of control but bad weather stopped us. It was beautiful, majestic, serene, but ubiquitous military presence . On the radio I remember listening to Hindi language transmissions by China, offering Ladhakis a Chinese version of the good life as experienced by the Tibetans. Ladakh used to be a part of Tibet centuries ago until a rebellious Lama broke away and joined Kashmir. Ladakh which is Buddhist was the largest land area segment of Kashmir.
Any Buddhist areas in Tibet have been completely destroyed socially and culturally and replaced by plastic Chinese garbage culture. That is why keeping them in free India is so important. China does not deserve stewardship over a culture like Tibet.
I think China views India as a primary rival to its 100 year war for hegemony. The One Belt and Road has one specific goal of isolating and encircling India. Pakistan is already a satellite state (See: https://ayecapitalist.com/2017/05/21/is-china-about-to-gobble-up-pakistan/), and is willing to cede Kashmir to China for large economic aid. But Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Maldives are also targets and part of the Chinese ring around India.
Not coincidentally Nepal has also started questing Indian territory at the behest of the Chinese. Arunachal Pradesh has seen a Chinese military buildup just north of the border. Parts of Bhutan have also been unilaterally annexed by the Chinese because they do not recognize the Durand line, I believe set up by the British as the border between Bhutan and Tibet.
The Zoom story is weird. You would assume that they are complying with Chinese government requests in order to maintain their market position -- but if their service or reliability (and security for that matter - for corporate accounts) is compromised, they're going to lose the business anyway. On the other hand, what options are there for communicating with Chinese colleagues? Tencent Meeting isn't looking quite like the best alternative ;-)
How popular is Zoom right now in China? My understanding is that their compliance with PRC requests is mostly due to its large employee footprint in China. Zoom is not available for free in China IIRC.
Did Zoom provide personal user info to PRC when it shut down the account?
In its statement Zoom says it did not: "We did not provide any user information or meeting content to the Chinese government."
Bill, there assertion is hardly credible... after all, how would the Chinese have been aware of the conversation content that resulted in the shutdown.
I have my queries about this. It appears that Chinese church meetings over zoom have been monitored and I've heard from a seemingly reliable source that at least one house church in China meeting over zoom had 6 members taken into custody during the service.
Not the same story, but seems of similar flavour: https://www.christianpost.com/news/wuhan-pastor-interrogated-after-zoom-evangelism-event-i-will-only-live-for-christ.html
Zoom is obviously compromised. We all should stop using it as suddenly as we started using it. The Chinese party-state apparatus is so sophisticated that it knows how to create "American" companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges and persuade us that these entities are beyond the reach of the Communist Party. I suspect the same is true with DJI, the drone maker. As I document in my book, "The New Art of War," Chinese entities engage in a constantly shifting pattern of activities inside the United States. If we crack down on Chinese VC funds in Silicon Valley, then we discover that a California-based company run by two Iranian-Americans is buying a Boeing satellite on behalf of a Chinese state-run entity. We are facing a relentless, highly sophisticated adversary/partner. We need to become equally sophisticated.
I have cancelled my zoom account have asked my friends and family to cancel their zoom accounts. We need to stand up against those who seek to censor ideas.
我舉雙手贊成。老共早就宣戰了。商場就是戰場。可惜，很多美國人還不懂這個道理。
美国人根本不懂国际事情，又贪污腐败自大。 安逸现状。
哇！你好狠誒！美國人自大我同意，但是沒有老中貪心。老中貪心無窮。這當然是我個人的感覺吧。
Team is not better than zoom tho. Yes zoom has all the security and trust issues, but All things aside, zoom wins on user experience against all competitors period.