this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42676060

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (5 children)

China makes everything better & cheaper, not just cars.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

The secret is heavy subsidy, very little worker protections/safety, very little environmental protection, and slave labour from a demographic they're currently genociding.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 7 months ago

Don't forget the hundreds of billions that global capitalism funneled into China by "outsourcing" absolutely everything they possibly could over the last 30-40 years — devaluing developed world labour markets and environmental regulations, and winding back the clock to an unregulated slave labour market is what made it so attractive.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That was my first thought, but is that much different for say Tesla. They get tax breaks and pay as low as they can. Don’t get me wrong I not protecting China’s way, I’m rather against both. But it would be interesting to see numbers from both sides

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yes it's very different. Tesla certainly overworks their employees by basically expecting them to do overtime, and engages in anti-union shadiness, but that pales in comparison to utilising slave labour from a religious minority group they subjugate and have even been known to sterilise, as well as harm family members of those who aren't behaving as the CCP wants them to.

Tesla still has to abide by US environmental regulations, which while not as strict as you'd find in Europe, are a hell of a lot stricter than China.

Tesla still has to follow construction and safety laws that, again while not super strict like in much of Europe, is a hell of a lot stricter than China.

The US also doesn't subsidise exported Teslas in a move to exterminate foreign car companies before ramping up prices.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Did you just seriously try to compare China factories to Tesla? This place really is just an absurd bubble.

For reference in Mexico they are making 5k a year vs 50k. I'm sure it's rainbows and kittens over at byd.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

It's lemmy.ml. They're always like this.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's not how you spell "Xinjang camps" ...

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I don't see what this has to do with the fact that China utilises slave labour from a religious minority group they are currently genociding to aid in their construction and manufacturing sector.

To my knowledge, you go to prison in the US when you commit a crime, as opposed to a labour camp where you are sterilised then made to build Fords under threat of death.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

America also uses slave prison labour

And America has more incarcerated people than China, despite China having way more people.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Ok, putting aside for a moment China's totally honest and not at all fudged number of incarcerated people...

The US allowing prison labour is something I'm disgusted by.

But it's still a far cry from abducting people based on their religion, sometimes sterilising them so they can't have kids, threatening them with their life, threatening their family, and forcing them to work in factories or in construction, then using that slave labour to undercut and kill foreign competition.

Don't try to twist this into a "you're complaining about China therefore you think the US is great". I'm saying China is far worse. Because they are, and only a complete muppet would think otherwise.

Maybe you're ok with what China does (slavery and genocide), but I am not.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Everything you accuse China of, the US is guilty of the same or worse. How many people in the US are in jail for the crime of being black?

I never said China is great. They are horrible. The US is just worse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't want what you're smoking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (13 children)

this is how most americans react to being told that they are an authoritarian country.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

you go to prison in the US when you commit a crime

Gotta keep'em prisons profitable...

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Thank you for the reference link.

China has one hell of a note on that page:

b. See info about additional detainees, and alleged detainees, at Re-education through labor, Laogai, and Xinjiang internment camps.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There's no way in Hell a country with a population in the billions has lower incarnation numbers than one with a few hundred million. That is just statistically impossible. It all comes down to what you count as incarnated. This is like the US "solving" its unemployment crisis by not counting people who think about maybe looking for work sometime as not unemployed. These numbers are self reported, so they should be taken with a big grain of salt.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Because China executes at a rate 100x the US, that we know of, believed to be 1000x.

No person, no prisoner. --Stalin

Also, Tibet and Xinjiang.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

They also have 100x we many executions as we have, probably closer to 1000x.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You mean cheaper and worse, there are little to no regulations and if there are any, inspectors are paid off as China is corrupt AF. and the cheaper part is because the general factory workers are kept extremity poor to uphold the cheap labor, next to the Uyghurs in concentration camps who are forced to work for free. There are no rights or regulations for factory workers, so no protective clothing or gear, no safe work environment, while working with extremity toxic materials as those are cheaper then the safer alternatives. Working 12 to 16 hours per day, as young as 8 years old, 6 to 7 days a week, no sick days, no holidays. There is no quality control. There is media control, so every online post of a spontaneously combusted EV, which are maaaaany, is removed.

So you confuse quality with quantity. Yeah, it's cheaper. But at what cost. Not just the lives of the Chinese workers, those toxins are also in the products we use.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Not necessarily. China makes all the fancy stuff Americans are super proud of.

If safety were a real issue, the gov wouldn't have attempted to ban them based on tariffs

Ps: your entire first paragraph could have been about American meat processors and I wouldn't have noticed

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If safety wouldn't be a real issue those products wouldn't be banned in the EU. Regulations in the US are often very weird, loose and corrupt as well.

Nice Americans are proud of stuff. That doesn't make it safe. Remember, there are Americans proud of Trump, guns, the cybertruck, racism, etc. "Proud" isn't a safety standard.

Ps: Nice American meat processors are fucked up as well. The entire country is fucked up. Nice. Let's be proud of it and everything becomes safe again

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ok without devolving to ridicule every message, the point it that just because stuff is made in China, it is not necessarily cheap (as in crappy, low quality or unsafe).

I'd like to know what is unsafe about these cars and whether or not this is a real consideration. So far, all I seem to get is protectionism and platitudes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (7 children)

This is a nice video which sums it up pretty well, concerning EV's. Many are coming to the US and EU market too, like BYD is doing now for example. They are growing faster then Tesla, threatening to surpass Tesla sales soon.

There are many articles about Chinese EV's spontaneously combusting or exploding. And that's just the EV's.

There are many products containing extremity toxic materials which are imported anmass through Chinese digital market places like alibaba etc, but also as parts for American produced products. Products like cheap 3D printer filament, children toys, car parts, metals, food (with pesticides), etc. It's hard to check everything, it's hard to regulate everything, especially when loads of it is produced in a country where there is little to no regulations but instead loads of corruption. It's imported by hundreds of thousands of shipping containers per day. Sure, some products are fine. But there are many which are toxic and sometimes deadly and we often find out about it way too late. Regulating takes time. China finds loopholes. It's standard operating procedures.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Yea I agree with so much of what you are saying, China gets a pass to distribute cheap dangerous crap cause at least it was cheaper for the middle man selling it.
But also:

anmass

Enmasse its another French loan word.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think you got something mixed up there. The saying does not go:

If you want it to last, buy made in China!

It goes:

Buying cheap is buying twice

And China really sells the cheapest crap there is. It isn't even a competition.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Until the brand goes poof because China didn't like something they did and poof; now you have a ghost car. Good luck finding repair parts for your car; and fixing the server connection required features

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

You are correct, but that has happened with American brands (even cars) before

At half the price of other EVs, I bet an entire new class of service stores, half mechanic shop, half third party parts, half mods, would spring into existence if these cars are allowed in the market

Instead, we protect the horrible local brands

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Our tariffs aren't there to protect local brands they protect every foreign brand in the US too which make up 2/3 of the market.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

never had this experience before.

But I had exactly this issue many times with Google cancelling stuff I like.