What a hypocrite. Avoids the social and privacy issues when it comes to China. The guy is a BS'er that only believes in $$$$$ .
I got respect for China , they know exactly where they stand and don't kiss anyone's ass unlike cook
Yah... well... where China currently stands, is between a rock and a hard place, having adopted some of Western society's ways --including communications tech and a form of economic capitalism-- while still operating a top-down and highly controlled government, even though they mess around with local and regional councils having some elected members. They've instituted some economic reforms. Political change is their bogeyman, their third rail...
China has self-imposed limits on where and how they act out, or as you put it, fail to kiss ass. They don't run around talking like Donald Trump when they wish to buy a hog farm in Arkansas or six thousand acres of ranchland in Argentina. They find the seller's sweet spot and kiss it until he wants the deal as much as they do, like any reasonable business person would do when sitting down to talk turkey half a world away from home. It's not butt kissing, it's finding out where the deal is, where the room to negotiate is, what to leave out of the picture.
You think China talks about the politics of race in the USA when they come looking to buy a hog farm off some guy in Arkansas? No. They talk about where is the deal, what is the deal, how much if China oversees the breeding, the US guy raises the hogs and slaughters them and Chinese company just buys the land and imports the meat to China? And then China talks to the USA's overseers of foreign transactions politely so that Congress won't kill that deal. China only talks like Donald Trump when talking about turf issues in the South China Sea.
Tim Cook talking in China is not kissing China's butt. He's acting like the CEO of a multinational firm that wishes to continue doing business with China so long as it offers the prospect of continued manufacturing efficiencies using their skilled labor at their going wage (which is rising), and so long as it also offers the prospect of selling more Apple products in China. China wants to keep its middle class employed and happy at the improvement of their material prospects, including choice in the marketplace. China does not want to discuss human rights and Chinese politics with Tim Cook. It's not part of the deal. Part of the deal might be an extra American supervisor on the floor, or maybe an extra QA measure on parts that seem to be difficult to assemble correctly in a new line.
Once again I suggest that how one gets desired business arrangements is not by berating China for how it conducts itself on its own turf. There is a time and a place to have that kind of discussion. It's usually private, between our Secretary of State and his Chinese counterpart. And it's often framed along the lines of "it would be beneficial to both parties if...." -- not "you people treat your people like ****!". It can also be a private discussion between an American business owner and a Chinese supplier, about worker safety, about fatigue from overtime etc. Things did not suddenly and miraculously get better at Foxconn for Chinese workers because some American decided to curse out some Chinese manager.
To get Apple to change how it treats the money it makes is something else. That will require getting Congress to change the laws on how business may be conducted by companies based in the USA. We do live in a system that encourages oligarchy and the concentration of wealth. The oligarchs and the wealthy lobby Congress to keep it that way. The potential downside of making laws too harsh on businesses, of course is that a company may elect to depart the states altogether if the conditions imposed on it seem too draconian. At that point there would probably be a tariff put on the company's products if they are to be imported and sold here. Not sure how that helps anyone really. We have to pay more for the product, sales fall, it's still not made here...
It's better if we change our laws in ways that encourage industry to invest in educating the workforce it needs here at home, invest in technology to mitigate pollutants from manufacturing processes, give business incentives to create more profit-sharing for employees.
Also, not all of our job offshoring has been labor costs. Some of it was that we could not longer tolerate the pollution from old ways of manufacturing. We offshored that to countries with more lax laws. Now that's coming home to roost and those countries are making stricter laws
Sooner or later American companies have to quit pretending they can sustain double-digit profit margin increases and start investing in sustainable ways of doing business. Tim Cook is not in charge of that. Congress is. We are. Left to their own devices, companies will cut costs past bone into muscle, they cannot help themselves. They are in thrall to the investment houses of Wall Street that themselves have no skin in the game any more since they're publicly traded too. It's a shell game... and the worker, who is also the consumer, is the mark. We are the only ones who can force change. We're not going to get there by yelling at Tim Cook.
Congress must underwrite such changes for the little guy either by direct subsidy to construction of internships and apprenticeship programs between companies and schools, or by structuring our laws to cause industry and schools to make those happen more often by incentive. Right now there is a limited federal interest in doing that. Some states are better at helping schools and industry partner up to create a right-skilled workforce on a case by case basis (using parts of some federal block funds, yes).
To the extent Congress would rather fund proxy wars in the Middle East, meh, things will stay the same or drift to worse for the little guy here. That's true whether Apple maintains a US presence or not, regardless of who is its CEO and what he or she has to say about respect for diversity in the USA, or how he or she shows respect for China's sovereignty on its own turf while trying to cut business deals.
Want change? Don't just vote for president every 4 years. Pick up the phone and discuss what's on your mind with your congress critter. He works for you the same as Donald Trump is supposed to do, and the House member or Senator is more accountable to your will because he represents people living in your congressional district or your own state. Trump is supposed to represent the entire population of the United States. Your odds are better working with Congress. For that matter, so are Tim Cook's...
