Factual Dispatch #37: Corporate Kowtowing For Fun & Profit

I don’t think any of the China watchers, hawks, or culture wonks would have believed you if you told them the first brand that would stand up to China would involve Eric Cartman. Companies far and wide have been brought low by the lure of the Chinese economy, but it’s only recently gotten the attention of the rest of us. This is just a quick reminder of the history of everyone’s favorite brands bowing so low, their heads touch the ground.

(Image by Wellcome Collection gallery 2018-04 05)

Back in August, you might have heard the CEO of Cathay Pacific, the flag carrier airline for Hong Kong, resigned after it came out that a handful of employees were supporting the protests against the extradition bill. What you might not have heard was that the CEO did so because the CCP wanted names to go after, so instead he is rumored to have just given him his. I’m not 100% convinced this is true and not just some psy-ops from Taiwanese & pro-HK forces, but I think it’s indicative of the pressure that companies all over the globe are facing.

All the way back in 2000, Bill Clinton made the case that China joining the WTO and the global trade village, it was also importing “economic freedom.” This idea sounded great to everyone that thought we were at the end of history and that liberal globalization was a foregone conclusion. As you recall, that belief was summarily dismissed by 9/11 and the dot com crash. The idea that China would culturally or politically liberalize after we began trading with it in earnest, was a similar neo-liberal myth, but it had a slightly longer shelf life. This argument’s parallel, that the internet would bring liberal culture was also snuffed out by the creation of the Great Firewall, as China became the first country to effectively censor, monitor, and treat their part of the internet like a corporate intranet.

Since then, various titans have attempted to conquer China, and all have failed. Google spent 4 years progressively censoring their services in obeisance of the CCP, until after a 2010 coordinated attack on US tech company offices in China, they finally closed up shop. With Dragonfly (the code name for Google’s censor-friendly search engine project) ostensibly shuttered after being discovered, Google has avoided making their reputation worse in China’s eyes by censoring a pro-democracy game on the Play Store. Facebook had spent years trying to get past the blanket ban of Western social media platforms in China, so they’d tried hard to keep their noses clean. However, they have found themselves mired in controversy after news that a Chinese employee was warned & then fired for reasons Facebook is debating. And to be clear, these are two of the most powerful, wealthy, and influential companies in the world, who are being laid low by the allure of the world’s biggest market. Other companies have been even more nakedly obvious in dashing their supposed corporate values on the rocks of Chinese shores. A redditor put together a great list, and here are some highlights:

• Tilda Swinton was chosen to be Dr. Strange’s mentor, specifically to erase the idea of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhist monks from the movie. To quote the writer: "He originates from Tibet,” Cargill said during the podcast. “So if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people who think that that’s bulls—t and risk the Chinese government going, ‘Hey, you know one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world? We’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political.’”

• In response to the NBA GM Hong Kong debacle, Nike removed all of the Houston Rockets products from their Chinese online store. Someone tell Kaep.

• Activision Blizzard not only voided the winnings of a pro Hearthstone player for expressing his thoughts on the protest, they also ended their relationship with the two casters calling the stream. Blizzard has tried to pretend that it’s a gamer-first, expression-friendly company, but that hasn’t been true for years after they were acquired, and they’re now in the middle of an international incident.

• Marriott straight up fired an employee who liked a Tweet.

• Mercedes apologized for “hurting the feelings” of China, because they quoted the Dalai Lama on Instagram.

• Gap, American Airlines, Delta, United, Audi, Muji, Zara, Medtronic, Ray-Ban, Qantas, Air France, Air Canada, British Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Japan Airlines and probably many more have been reprimanded for listing Taiwan & Hong Kong as destinations/areas separate from China.

• Apple downplayed how effective iOS exploits were, you know, the ones China as using to track Uighurs. They also took down an app Hong Kong protesters were using to avoid the police recently. For a company who took great pride in succeeding in China where Facebook & Google failed, they are now much more dependent on that market and revenue.

There’s so much more that can be said here, but it’s important to note that this isn’t going away. Tencent, a company that gets significant help from the Chinese government, has a powerful investment portfolio in the gaming industry, for example. Disney is now bent over a barrel, massaging comic book movie scripts to gain approvals to enter Chinese markets. This allowed South Park to dunk on them all.

The protests have taken a toll on the Hong Kong population, with nativist and almost xenophobic rhetoric emerging, which is immediately being weaponized by Chinese digital warriors, being used to brand the protesters as racist and deserving of what’s happening to them. But cracks are also starting to appear in the monolithic digital onslaught coming from behind the Great Firewall. Mainland Chinese people really like basketball, and the continued demonization of sport is a bad idea, even for the most authoritarian governments. People love them their football, love them their basketball, and if you take it away from them, like CCTV stated they would this week, you better be prepared for them to go around you to get their sportsball. Quartz also has a great write-up detailing how the NBA is acting like a tank (from WoW), provoking Beijing’s ire towards them and not the Hong Kong protesters, giving them a much needed break. Even the fiercest raiders need time to heal and re-stock their potions.

Eye-Watering Data Visualization of the Week: Did anyone tell you to buy into the Lyft or Uber IPOs this year? Don’t listen to them on stocks in the future.

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: Hurricane Dorian should have been classified as a Category 6 Hurricane, but we’d need to add that tier first. Also, the Yom Kippur shooting in Germany was broadcast on Twitch for half an hour, with over 2000 chan-assholes watching. And yes, the perpetrator called himself “anon” and denied the Holocaust before he started, in case you were wondering.

Annoying-But-Correct Take of the Week: We need to stop pretending we’re doing anything but supplying Mexican cartels with the weapons they need to destroy their country. Also, if anyone tells you that Ellen did the right thing by cloaking George W. Bush in civility and #BeNice, they’re either wrong, a class defender, or straight up forgot that Bush’s actions got almost 1 million brown people killed in the 2000s and birthed ISIS.

“Huh, Interesting” Read of the Week: We’re figuring out how to recharge drones, mid-flight.

Royal Sampler

The first “news chart” was published in the New York Times in 1851. It was love at first sight.

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This primer on journalism by two senior reporters who investigated Weinstein is a must-read.

You might have missed it with everything going on this week, but another 43 women have accused Trump of sexual assault. Forty-Three.

Phoenix is getting “driverless” autonomous ride sharing soon.

A mea culpa on globalization from some of the economists that pushed it.

Motivation of the Week: “When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.”

With the Fall chill brings reflection. What have you built this year that will survive the coming cold dark? You still have time.

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