I just got back to Hong Kong from a trip to Silicon Valley, where it was clear that a red scare has washed over SF. Some takeaways:
Some tech execs openly worrying that China's approach to censorship and authoritarianism is bleeding into the U.S., posing a severe threat to America (1/10)
Bankers confused around working on financing for companies that could be blacklisted by US (2/10)
VC funds not taking money from Chinese GPs or in some cases, LPs, asking folks for copies of passports to prove US citizenship (3/10)
Startups wondering what happened to the the Silicon Valley outposts of China's Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu, which have all gone dark (4/10)
Despite claims of China's tech prowess, met with Chinese developers, scientists and students who won't leave the US to go back to China. They want to keep research in the US, even if they are working for Chinese companies (5/10)
And all of these meetings came on the backdrop of the NBA's decision to kowtow to China, underscoring the question -- what should American companies do? What are the wider implications of this? (6/10)
Do you keep the wait and see attitude and keep tiptoeing in or near China with the hopes that one day things will change? Or do you call it quits and leave? I just don't feel like waiting is a viable strategy anymore (7/10)
I think you either have to call it quits or you commit and say, hey, we're a company and our goal is profits for shareholders so we don't care to claim a moral high ground and will fully embrace the China line. (8/10)
The other worrying factor was how much China-bashing I found bordered on racism, causing the US to create this sense of other and retreat deeper inward. As a Chinese scientist, inventor, technologist, how does that make you feel? (9/10)
Ok I'm done, thanks for reading. (10/10)
