Foxconn workers at the world’s biggest iPhone assembly plant clashed with police after protests erupted at the factory in central China, where the “iPhone City” employing more than 200,000 people has been under the Chinese Communist Party’s quixotic COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions for weeks.
Selina Cheng and Wenxin Fan for The Wall Street Journal:
Videos circulating on workers’ chat groups Tuesday showed chaotic scenes at the factory in Zhengzhou where Foxconn Technology Group assembles most of the world’s latest iPhone models. One video shot near the factory buildings on the northeastern side of the site showed more than a dozen police officers and men in white protective suits surrounding and repeatedly punching a man and beating him with batons.
Employees at the plant said protests started in a dormitory area near the factory on Tuesday evening, after they learned expected bonuses would be delayed. Protests spread to at least one other dormitory district as videos of the incident circulated, workers said. Workers pulled down tents that had been set up outside and the glass entrance doors of a building were smashed, videos showed.
Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment on the protests, but last month said shipments of its high-end iPhone models would be lower than expected because of the disruptions. Foxconn’s Zhengzhou facility had been expected to make more than 80% of the latest iPhone 14 base models and 85% of the high-end Pro models, according to Counterpoint Research.
Apple has recently told suppliers to more actively plan on increasing production outside China, citing the country’s strict pandemic controls among other reasons.
Foxconn has this month been offering bonuses for new recruits as it seeks to restore operations after tens of thousands of workers were quarantined or confined to their dorms as part of China’s zero-Covid [restrictions]…
MacDailyNews Take: Human nature abhors tyranny. Especially when it’s clearly illogical.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
The problem isn’t COVID. The problem is the illogical, unworkable, delusional, self-defeating authoritarian response to COVID.
The average age of a Foxconn worker is 23 (before the CCP drove them away with the threat of more quixotic lockdowns). A 23 year old who gets COVID might not even notice they have it. Protect those with co-morbidities who might be at risk of serious complications (don’t compel older retirees into a closed factory setting, CCP Cuomo impersonators).
Letting COVID simply wash through a population of healthy twenty-three-year-olds (many of whom have already acquired natural immunity) is the rational decision. — MacDailyNews, November 16, 2022
There’s no such thing as zero-COVID, but this year is the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th party congress, so the farce will continue until the politics no longer dictate tilting at windmills. Then COVID will be allowed to wash through China, as it already has around much of the world. – MacDailyNews, May 9, 2022
Clearly, Apple under Tim Cook had, has, and, for the foreseeable future, seems like it will continue to have far too much exposure to China and the CCP’s overbearing and often irrational whims.
Memo to China: There’s no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
As we’ve said for years now, for better and worse, Apple is wedded to China. It will take many years to even begin to extricate itself from this relationship, at least the the point where the company has some meaningful leverage that the CCP understands. – MacDailyNews, April 8, 2022
In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It will very likely become endemic, yet pose less danger over time. People will acquire immunity via vaccines (effectiveness TDB) and naturally as they contract and recover from variants like omicron since the partially-effective vaccines permit not only transmissibility, but also breakthrough infections. Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are, of course, also endemic, but a combination of annual flu vaccines and acquired immunity means that sane societies tolerate the unavoidable seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks, social distancing, indefinite return-to-work delays, etc.
At which point, if ever, will some people decide that wasting away their short lives in abject fear of a bad flu, very likely engineered by China and partially funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a hysterical self-defeating overreaction? – MacDailyNews, December 16, 2021
The COVID-19 data is clear: Stop the panic and end the total isolation… A severe economic disruption will very likely provoke the immeasurable costs of widespread unemployment, social isolation, and increased mental health issues, suicide rates, bankruptcies, civil unrest, crime, and war. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2020
There are any number of countries where, prior to this ongoing COVID-19 collective behavior experiment, we could have imagined a compliant population capitulating to the random, illogical, and ever-changing whims of so-called “experts” and ignoramus politicians – actually allowing themselves to be quarantined, locked-down, restricted, put out of business, deprived of family and friends, tagged and tracked, digitally and otherwise, but not America. Obviously, we were wrong.
“The land of the free and the home of the brave?” Pfft. Seemingly just empty words today.
Yes, COVID-19 is real. Yes, COVID-19 is a contagious disease. Yes, COVID-19 can kill, especially those with underlying conditions who should be protected as best as possible. However, the reaction to COVID-19 has clearly been blown out of all proportion and the ramifications of such overreaction will be long-lasting and difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.
Those who have lived through this period (in other words, the vast majority of people) and who are still capable of rational thought, will understand implicitly how easily fear and bad data, especially as amplified, massaged, and repeated ad nauseam via mass and social media, can be used to control even so-called “free” people who, it seems, will cede their freedoms en masse with nary a bleat. – MacDailyNews, December 28, 2020
And you thought sheep were herdable animals. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.
not a good look for Apple
If human nature abhors tyranny then those war mongering super pooper countries are pretty abhorrent, not to mention that many demonstrate the insane feature of invading other countries again and again and expecting different results.
Road Warrior = Commie alert