HSBC Becomes First Foreign Bank To Launch Chinese Communist Party Committee (fortune.com) 83
One of the world's biggest banks, and Europe's second-largest lender, is showing that it's playing by China's rules. From a report: London-headquartered HSBC has become the first international bank to establish a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee, according to a new Financial Times report. China's companies law requires firms to set up CCP committees, but this rule has been loosely enforced among global financial institutions -- until now. HSBC's move could pave the path for other global lenders to follow suit, and underscores the delicate line that China-based foreign banks are now toeing between Beijing and the West. HSBC's China investment bank, known as HSBC Qianhai Securities, recently formed the CCP committee, as per the FT report that cited two people familiar with the decision. In China, company employees can initiate CCP committees, which are typically made up of three or more staff. The committees have two functions: to act as a workers' union, and to facilitate installing a party representative to a company's top ranks.
Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
What China is, is a fascist state, where the political ideology is dictated by authoritarian leaders, and there is no free marketplace of ideas, and all content and speech is regulated by the state. Whereas communism is an economic doctrine, fascism is a political one. The state ownership of the marketplace of ideas is fascism. They use the word communism to distract from this fact because communism is less repugnant. We have communist supporters like Bernie Sanders in our own senate, yet China and its sole political party adhere to almost none of the principles of communism. It is a fascist party.
Re: Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:4, Funny)
I read this in Dale Gribble's voice.
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And that's relevant how? HSBC is bending a knee either way.
Re: Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't this just a "no true Communists" fallacy? In fact, the same one that leads to the meme whereby every single communist power in history is deemed not truly communist by people convinced that if can only be implemented purely enough, it will work next time?
Re: Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the thing you are both right in a way. For practical cases you mrex are correct, for purist theoretical arguments no nation state has really been setup as a collective.
However its big world with a lot people and places in it and the lack of any Marxist workers paradises should tell us all we need to know. His theory is bullshit, because it ignores human nature and anything even remotely resembling the organization he imagined requires a great deal or coercive force over the public at large either by an autocrat or oligarchy of persons who are 'a little more equal' to achieve as sustain.
Karl Marx was the academic wanker of his day, similar to the dipshits telling us there are 100s of genders now. he did not understand jack or shit, and the world has spent ENTIRELY to much time and blood on his ideas at this point. Its long past time to stop asking students to read the Communist Manifesto (even economics majors) and start treating like a stupid mid 19th century curiosity like phrenology and make footnote of it. The sooner we stop treating it like its worthy of discussion the sooner it will stop hurting people.
Re: Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm sure the right wing loves to ban more books, especially from critical thinkers they disagree with.
Straw Men (Score:2)
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The only reasons to call the current Chinese government communist are to bolster its position by agreeing with its propaganda or to call up the Red Scare and get people to knee-jerk against it.
How about this other one: because accepting that people follow the ideology they study and recite and claim to follow is basically the only logical choice.
I think you'll find that communist theory is tightly engrained into Chinese society, including its education system, business culture, and entertainment media. In o
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China stopped trying to be communist in the 80s after Deng Xiaoping came into power. He famously said, "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice," meaning he didn't care about communist/capitalist ideology, he just wanted to grow the economy.
In the last five years or so, after Xi Jinping came into power, there has been a slight movement back to communism, but only in the sense that they want to reduce inequality, and kind of spread the wealth around.
Whether or not you consid
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In the last five years or so, after Xi Jinping came into power, there has been a slight movement back to communism, but only in the sense that they want to reduce inequality, and kind of spread the wealth around.
Yeah, reduce inequality, as long as you are ethnic Chinese and a loyal party member and not a Uyghur, for example.
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Whether or not you consider that communism depends entirely on how you define "communism."
Whether or not any description applies obviously depends on the definition, but there has never been a pure ideological implementation because Marxism is naive and unworkable at scale, in practice. All we have are a graveyard littered with the corpses of failed imperfect attempts, and China shambling forward out of it, wearing an RGB LED wearable dance hall t-shirt saying "we are communists".
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Sounds like you have an axe to grind. You have successfully ground it.
Or maybe not. According to my definition, communism has been tried, tested, and implemented successfully. So you fail.
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They are the Same Picture. (Score:1)
You said:
China is not communist. Communism is an economic doctrine whereby the state own the means of production and distributes the output accordingly.
Then you said:
What China is, is a fascist state, where the political ideology is dictated by authoritarian leaders
Wait I thought you said they were not communists...
In case you didn't get it, every single instance of communism has been fascism, it has to be because you can't "own all means of production" without rigid lockdown of the population preventing no
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In case you didn't get it, every single instance of communism has been fascism, it has to be because you can't "own all means of production" without rigid lockdown of the population preventing non-state production or distribution.
Jonah Goldberg strikes again! I've found that when it seemed that everyone before me in history misunderstood something, it was actually I who misunderstood. Seriously words mean things and Communism is not a specific variety of Fascism.
Once again I am asking you to think (Score:1)
Seriously words mean things and Communism is not a specific variety of Fascism.
As is usual with those who do not understand communism or fascism, you have things completely backwards.
I did not say that Communism was a variety of Fascism. I said Communism cannot exist without Fascism, which is obvious are true if you think over every single foundational point of Communism.
Fascism can exist without Communism, but not the other way around.
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I did not say that Communism was a variety of Fascism. I said Communism cannot exist without Fascism, which is obvious are true if you think over every single foundational point of Communism.
Fascism can exist without Communism, but not the other way around.
I don't know whether you are confusing totalitarianism with Fascism, but you would probably benefit from starting with that assumption if you ever try to discover the root of your misunderstanding of this topic.
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Well, China is not fully fascist. Fascist ideology requires you to conduct warfare in order to make the people stronger. All the rest is pretty much there though. Agree on the rest.
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Give it time. The only reason that's the case is that they can't get to anywhere they want to invade by land.
They've invaded and conquered other nations (Tibet) within living memory. They've all but announced their intention to do so with Taiwan, they just lack the naval ASW and sealift capacity to invade across the strait of Formosa if contested by a submarine force. And they've been trying to muscle in on both the Spratley and Senkaku island chains for a while.
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Yeah, probably. Well, with climate change getting more noticeable and starting to become a real problem, hopefully doing wars will get a lot harder.
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Re: Boot-licking sacks of shit. (Score:1)
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It's the greed, but sadly on target FP. HSBC coldly calculated that this "compliance" will lead to more money. Even worse if other greedy bankers follow the lead just because they don't have to go first now.
Citation to IBM and the Holocaust about the sad power of greed. However it's actually a rather poor book because the author doesn't understand the relationship between data and algorithms. Fundamental in such a situation where the algorithms were mostly in the heads of people massaging stacks of punch
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I've been trying to figure out where the idea of "smart greed" got into it. Not in my intention, but your use of the phrase made me think of "enlightened self interest", which is usually a disguise for chicanery. HSBC already has a bad track record for chicanery.
However I think I disagree with you on several aspects of your sentiments towards China. You see it as pressure from desperation on the side of Chinese leadership whereas I see it as more purely economic pressure from Chinese economic policies that
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Chinese economic policies that are basically working dangerously well.
Not sure where you're getting that from. Chinese banks are shutting down left and right due to the costs of zero-covid shutdowns, and the national policy of diverting national resources into speculative real estate development projects hasn't really slowed much. Unemployment is spiking and, ironically, there is no real safety net in an allegedly Communist country. Meanwhile the closing noose of sanctions against Russia and its accomplices has Beijing increasingly reactionary and paranoid about its level
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You sound quite irrational and biased to the edge of racism, and therefore I see no reason to continue the discussion.
Insofar as I can remember your identity, I'll try hard to ignore your comments in the future, and I'll thank you to reciprocate. Too bad your handle is so meaningless and forgettable.
Belligerent bot is belligerent. (Score:2)
Can't even stick to the subject of the thread, let alone my points on it.
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NAK
This is the future (Score:2, Insightful)
Feel free to mod my comment down using your Chinese phones and your Chinese computers.
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The Chinese are already winning the next war. before a shot has been fired. They won't need an army to conquer the world.
Yes they will. Unless our shitty representatives succeed in disarming the American populace first.
Bubba and his arsenal of AR-15s and AK-47s won't do anything to prevent China from winning the next war.
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The Chinese are already winning the next war. before a shot has been fired. They won't need an army to conquer the world.
Yes they will. Unless our shitty representatives succeed in disarming the American populace first.
Bubba and his arsenal of AR-15s and AK-47s won't do anything to prevent China from winning the next war.
No, but they help keep us fighting among, and killing, ourselves. And most Bubbas don't really need an arsenal, but it makes them feel good.
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What makes you say that? .30-06 is a legacy cartridge. Yes you can still get some modern firearms - along with historical reproductions - that chamber and fire it, but .223 and 7.62x39 weapons are probably more common, especially in the sub-$1k rifle market. Cheap AR-15s and AKs (and SKSs) are pretty common.
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People hunt deer more than each other. And .30-06 is a better deer round than 5.56mm (note that hunting deer with 5.56 is illegal most places).
Do try to remember that just because it makes the news doesn't mean it's commonly used. Rather the reverse - what makes the news is the unusual stuff - man bites dog is more likely to make news than dog bites man...
Re: This is the future (Score:1)
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You think gangs of weekend warriors would stand even a small chance against an organized invasion? It's like 10,000 years of warfare has taught 2nd Amendment types no lessons. Gun ownership didn't drive out the British during the Revolutionary War. It was the alliance with the French.
Re: This is the future (Score:2)
Uh huh. And they French didn't come
To the party unarmed.
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I'd argue the actions of the French Navy were pretty darned critical. Let's be blunt, without French ships, weapons and coin, the War of Independence would have ended differently. And, of course, any chance the French had of kicking the the Brits in the balls was one they were going to take up with great enthusiasm.
There's a mythology of the War of Independence that began before it was even over of brave Colonial patriots beating the snot out of the Red Coats. It fed into the 2nd Amendment, but the industri
Re: This is the future (Score:2)
As I said, the French didn't come to the party unarmed....
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The colonies had plenty of guns, didn't have enough gun powder. Placed empty cannons and bluffed the British into retreating during the Battle of Boston (1775).
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Re: This is the future (Score:1)
Re: This is the future (Score:1)
Because a China-based bank licks boots? (Score:3)
I'll skip the part where I accuse you of being a Chinese concern troll. You've done all the work.
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How by any definition at all is China a 'third world country'?
"Third world country" is a deprecated term relegated to the Cold War era; the modern equivalent is "developing country". Developing countries are those countries whose standard of living, income, economic and industrial development remain more or less below average. And China is definitely on that list [worlddata.info] (courtesy of the International Monitary Fund), most likely because the majority of its nearly 1.5 billion people live in abject poverty with limited access to the things that make life more bearable. On avera
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Third world country" is a deprecated term relegated to the Cold War era;
China as part of the communist block weren't a third world country even during the cold war, they were a second world country.
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"First world", "second world", and "third world" were terms coined in 1952 by French demographer Alred Sauvy, and referred to political divisions, not economic. "First world" was the US and Western Europe and their allies; "second world" was the Soviet Union, China, and the other communist nations; "third world" was everything else. Because many third world countries were poor, "third world" came to mean "poor country". China was not classified as "second world" because of its economic status, but because i
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (Score:5, Informative)
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HSBC has its roots in the old colonial Hong Kong and the opium trade and is pretty British through and through. The bank was originally founded in HK and moved into a UK holding company before the transition of HK to CCP rule. They have lots of subsidiaries now, including the 90%-HSBC owned "Qianhai Securities" and have to bend to a lot of different cultural and political desires where they operate. This is not the CCP getting to stick its nose into the center of HSBC; it's just regional politics. I'd assum
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No matter how well it's firewalled, the CCP now has a toehold in HSBC.
Whatever this "committee" proposes should be considered suspect by all. And even if any of the committee members, in their capacity as HSBC staff proposes anything, it should also be considered as suspect.
And last I checked, these "committees" in other organisations can push the organisation to do things that they want. Or do business in a manner that they want.
So I consider this whole HSBC sub as suspect, and any dealing they are doing i
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The old HSBC was effectively taken over by the Midland Bank decades ago. It's a UK company.
Sure why not (Score:1)
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They were only the largest bank to ever launder billions in cartel money with a slap on the wrist. White collar crime pays well. We should have dismantled that firm when we had the chance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No surprise there HSBC started out bank for the British to put their drug money that the British East India Company had from selling their Indian opium as a financial offset form their Chinese exports. It was a mob bank and continues to be mob bank. it just happens to be a 'respectable' mob bank.
Nation security threat. (Score:5, Interesting)
This means HSBC has decided to become a national security threat for all other governments. They should be treated accordingly.
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Bullshit. Don't go panicking about. It is unbecoming.
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Found the CCP shill.
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Found the village idiot...
Hmm ... (Score:2)
HSBC has become the first international bank to establish a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee, ...
Aren't banks and Communism antithetical (directly opposed), as "there is no government or private property or currency, and the wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need." [from Google] /ya-right
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The CCP has decided to allow it to exist in a sandbox. So long as they control all the systems outside of the sandbox, they aren't threatened.
Name means nothing. (Score:3)
CCP is just an organization name; the past meaning may have aligned with the name but not now. The differences between what they were and fascism are only a few extreme opposing positions some of which are shifting.
Just look at today's GOP which stands for nothing (Guns Over People?) and appears desperate to have a god-chosen king (the opposite of the definition of republic.)
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There's a difference between private property and personal property...
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Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our n... wait, whaaat?!? COMMUNISTS? Like, actual Chairman Mao communists?
Guys, I've welcomed a lot of new overlords in my day, but I have to draw the line here.
I do NOT welcome these new, communist overlords.
The right bank for the job (Score:2)
In 2017, HSBC was told to pay $1.9bn (£1.4bn) to settle a money-laundering probe by US authorities - the largest penalty of its kind ever paid by a bank. The investigation found Europe's largest bank failed to prevent Mexican drug cartels from washing hundreds of millions of dollars.