03 Apr 2006
The Lenovo smear: Grossly unfair on all levels

Uh, no, it's not.

Even Mr. Kay admits that Lenovo is 27% owned by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China. The actual percentage may be closer to 40%, but the practical percentage is nearly 82% - which leaves the 18% held by IBM alone. What I mean by "practical" in this sense is those shares that can be legally required to vote with the majority shareholder - which is the Chinese Communist Party.

People here are deluding themselves with the notion that China has "gone capitalist" - what they've done is switched from an outright collectivist nightmare to one of "state socialism with a stock market". Which is a classically "National Socialist" position: China's gone fascist, not capitalist.

It really gets my dander up when I constantly hear how American companies can't compete against foreign firms, when most of those "firms" are owned by a foreign government, with all of the protections and advantages available to it. Remember Japan, Inc. and the television and auto industries? Of course they can't compete in those circumstances: and our government should take measures to insure that they don't have to.

Endpoint Technologies president Roger L. Kay says xenophobia is factor in accusations against Chinese-founded PC maker.

(link) [CNET News.com]

23:00 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link