China did not do this, Blizzard and the NBA did it. These are US companies/associations that supposedly support human and civil rights.
China can do whatever they want, Blizzard, the NBA, and others are voluntarily appeasing China (or act like they are trying to do so) and tossing their carefully developed facade of supporting human and civil rights out the window.
The US issued sanctions against Venezuelan government officials known to be be corrupt; the sanctions don't apply to all, or even most, of Venezuela. Adobe simply used those sanctions as an excuse to cut off support for everyone in Venezuela so they could pull out without having to refund anyone.
Also, with respect to both countries, we aren't trying to use our US economic power to force a Venezuelan or Cuban company to do what we want.
The US government has made its stance toward both countries clear for the last several decades, it's not like they tricked US businesses into going into Venezuela or Cuba and then tried to pull the rug out from beneath them.
Adobe changed their stance on refunds, I think. Unfortunately, it seems that the link on their site[0], which I read on Monday in English, has apparently been replaced with a Spanish version. Machine translation of relevant quote:
>If you purchased your products directly with Adobe, you will receive a refund before the end of the month for any license period paid and not received. We are working for our distributors to act in the same way.
I am with you on this. The story on the Canadian food truck being withheld money from Square Canada because JP Morgan asserted that the coffee came from Cuba comes to mind.
From my perspective, outside of the US and China, both are overreaching quite a bit.
One is standard international politics, with one government imposing sanctions on another. The other is a violation of Westphalian sovereignty.
Though it should be noted that the US has not been shy of such violations itself, and with them earned itself quite a bit of ill will - Venezuela is just not such a case.
China can do whatever they want, Blizzard, the NBA, and others are voluntarily appeasing China (or act like they are trying to do so) and tossing their carefully developed facade of supporting human and civil rights out the window.
In contrast, Adobe is following a US law.