Yup. Supposedly free american companies are forced to bow down to authoritarian chinese government demands because they can't afford to lose that market. The wonders of globalization.
Imagine what China is gonna do to Apple now that on-device wrongthink scanning is a thing.
You make it sounds like that's not enough? WHO in of itself would be extremely troubling. And its not just Apple, MANY fortune 500 companies have agreed to comply with authoritarian policies to do business in China.
My apologies, I was being a little bit tongue-in-cheek (which didn't come through as clearly as I hoped) while also genuinely soliciting more items for my list.
Hollywood - the movie industry more broadly - is also mostly gone now. They're all cowards, terrified of doing or saying anything critical of China (for exactly the same reason the NBA is, fear of losing the China market). They should be at the forefront of being critical of an illiberal superpower, given their supposed ideological leanings as an industry. Instead they're hiding in the back of the room, they'll be the last to say anything.
I don’t think this should surprise anyone. Hollywood has no ideological anything beyond “make more money,” and for some franchises China is not just a market - it’s the market.
The Transformers series especially wound up being money printing machines in China.
Even overlooking the pressure China doubtlessly applies to Hollywood, the execs greenlighting scripts would have to start hating money to approve anything that jeopardizes revenue from Chinese theaters.
> China corrupts any global organization it touches.
International inter-governmental organizations have always had members like China. That is the environment they are built for and function in, like the current, waves, and wind for a ship at sea.
The U.S.'s reputation isn't so hot, throwing it's weight around and under Trump and to a lesser degree, GW Bush, actively trying to undermine those organizations. Even the international postal organization was a target.
Global organisations are to nations what words are to individual humans, both in capability and purpose: they get used, not corrupted, by government action.
Actual corruption can still happen by individuals within organisations, but that (continuing the metaphor) is like coughing or stammering while you talk, and isn’t desired even by the user.
Imagine what China is gonna do to Apple now that on-device wrongthink scanning is a thing.