Apple Hit With Criminal Complaints Over Congo Mineral Trade

[ThomasJL]

And I call BS on that.

Covid protests escalate in Guangzhou as anger over Chinese lockdown boils

Mainland China’s biggest wave of civil disobedience since the 1989 Tiananmen protests comes as its economy sputters after having grown at breakneck rates for decades.

www.nbcnews.com

The real problem is that the targeted lockdown approach that China tried to take with the COVID outbreaks ultimately didn’t work with the much more transmissible, though less severe, Omicron variant. I believe it was this growing discontent from being forced to stay at home with no endgame in sight, and not any pressuring from Apple or Foxconn, that ultimately forced the hand of the Chinese government into opening up.

That NBC "News" article is pure American corporate propaganda, which is no surprise considering that NBC News is coroporate mainstream media, funded by advertising dollars from several other corporations.

China has a population of 1.4 billion, while the people who protested the zero-COVID policy were wealthy students at elite universities who only numbered in the hundreds. They were upset that they couldn't enjoy their wealth and privilege because the zero-COVID policy prevented them from traveling freely without quarantines upon return. But the American corporate mainstream media decided to dishonestly portray those fringe wealthy student protestors, who only numbered in the hundreds in total thoroughout the entire country, as representing of the views of 1.4 billion people.

The overwhelming majority of China's 1.4 billion people supported the zero-COVID policy. For most of the time in most places in the country, people were free to go wherever they want and life was totally normal with the exceptions of mask mandates and scanning QR codes upon entering buildings (for contact tracing in the event of an outbreak). Lockdowns were only when there was an outbreak, and were relatively short but sharp most of the time.

The American mainstream media serves the interests of corporate greed (such as that of Tim Cook), not the health and well being of ordinary people.

In 100 years from now, when history is written about how places like mainland China and Taiwan were the best at handling COVID while America was one of the worst, I hope that it will be widely known that Tim Cook was in large part responisble for the deaths of at least 1.3 million people in mainland China due to Apple, via Foxconn founder Terry Gou, pressuring the mainland Chinese government to elimiate their zero-COVID policy.

 

[vantelimus]

That NBC "News" article is pure American corporate propaganda, which is no surprise considering that NBC News is coroporate mainstream media, funded by advertising dollars from several other corporations.

China has a population of 1.4 billion, while the people who protested the zero-COVID policy were wealthy students at elite universities who only numbered in the hundreds. They were upset that they couldn't enjoy their wealth and privilege because the zero-COVID prevented them from traveling freely without quarnites upon return. But the American corporate mainstream media decided to dishonestly portray those fringe wealthy student protestors, who only numbered in the hundreds in total thoroughout the entire country, as representing of the views 1.4 billion people.

It seems PBS agrees with NBC:

Thousands in China protest zero-COVID policy in largest demonstrations in decades

The largest protests in more than 30 years rocked China as tens of thousands of demonstrators across the country filled the streets to denounce Beijing’s zero-COVID quarantine and testing policies. But some of the demonstrations quickly evolved into demands for political change, including the...

www.pbs.org

The BBC also disagrees with your characterization.

China Covid: Protests continue in major cities across the country

Demonstrators gathered in the capital Beijing and the financial hub Shanghai, as well as Wuhan.

www.bbc.com

So does the South China Morning Post out of Hong Kong

Slogans and blank paper banners as patience over China’s zero-Covid wears thin

Demonstrations staged in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities following the death of 10 people in a fire in Xinjiang last week.

www.scmp.com

Why China’s lockdown protests pose an unprecedented challenge to Beijing

Last weekend’s demonstrations are a sign of growing public discontent over Beijing’s Covid controls but also pose a direct challenge to the authorities

www.scmp.com

Your assessment only appears to have support from CCP-controlled sources. Unfortunately, authoritarian communist governments are the only organizations which have a worse track record of lying than corporate-controlled media.

 

[I7guy]

That NBC "News" article is pure American corporate propaganda, which is no surprise considering that NBC News is coroporate mainstream media, funded by advertising dollars from several other corporations.
[...]

And "citations" you posted has similar issues with credibility. So this is another can't prove or disprove; e.g. hyperbole.

 

[transmaster]

Tim Cook has the blood of at least 1.3 million dead Chinese people on his hands. China had a zero-COVID policy that the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people supported (because it was life-saving). Due to pressure from multinational corporations such as Apple and Nike, the Chinese Communist Party abruptly ended their zero-COVID policy on December 7, 2022, causing 1.3 million deaths (according to Airfinity) in just two months by February 6, 2023.

Cook is an evil man who values profits over people. In late 2022, he knew full well COVID would spread like wildfire in China if the CCP canceled their zero-COVID policy, but he didn't care because, despite Apple making enormous profits during that time, it was never enough for him, and he wanted to make even more in profits. Therefore, I would be thoroughly unsurprised if the criminal complaints Apple was hit with over the Congo mineral trade are valid.

The ignorance of this statement is pure wumao I don't even know where to start. China welded shut the doors of entire apartment blocks, isolating the people inside without food. The food promised was sold on the black market by the officials who were supposed to distribute it. There are videos taken at night where thousands of people call for help; we are starving. Foxconn was locked down by the Chinese, and its campus became a concentration camp. Foxconn, a Taiwanese company, and Apple managed to feed their people. At one point before it was stopped, whole plane loads of Chinese arrived in Southern California directly from infected areas of China. The same is true in Northern Italy. Taiwan, to its credit, prevented this by turning around inbound passenger planes from China loaded with potentially infected people. It was China's draconian Zero-Covid policy that killed millions. It was not Apple and the big tech companies that caused China to lift the so-called zero-COVID policy it was because it destroyed the Chinese economy, which it has never recovered from. The long-term effect of this is that the Big tech companies have left China or are in the process of leaving China, this includes Apple. Samsung had a larger presence in China than Apple. It has completely moved out of China. Millions of Chinese have been put out of work, and in China, there is no social safety net or unemployment insurance to help out. It was also obvious that China is now using its dominance in control of rare earth metals to blackmail the rest of the world. This is also starting to fail as countries with such resources are beginning to kick out the Chinese. Tesla is in the process of developing the Iron-Air Battery. It will be cheaper to manufacture, does not use rare-earth metals, and is totally and easily recyclable. Toyota and Volkswagen have developed clean-burning hydrogen engines.

 

[transmaster]

And "citations" you posted has similar issues with credibility. So this is another can't prove or disprove; e.g. hyperbole.

My sources are not stateside MSM. Radio Free Asia, various Taiwanese, South Korean, and Japanese. Plus independent news sources like Chinese Observer. Vantelimus sources, if anything, are understating the problems in China.