Dear Andrew, China’s regulations are different. Even in Taiwan, haven’t you heard of forced vacations? Ad students and old ladies work for less that 100 NTD an hour and no work benefits out of desperation. They need those jobs to eat. So it Is huge for them. People here work way past retirement age not as a hobby, but because laobao is pitiful.
I’m not denying the importance of jobs like that for people in terms of needing money in general, just that in this particular instance losing a job as the cashier at 85c shouldn’t be the end of the world. Certainly not to the degree of a person losing a corporate job they worked in for 10+years. they are the the least competitive jobs to get and one should be able to bounce back. It’s more concerning small business owners who have enough money to franchise and brand with 85c and can employ people get hurt.
Maybe the whole idea of a franchise is the problem. What do we even need franchises for? Is it anything more than a marketing gimmick?
And even Elon Musk questions the utility of a publicly traded corporation.
If 85C goes under, these poor franchisees will have to change their signage and their uniforms and maybe their suppliers. Very annoying, but not the end of the world.
I mean they get free marketing, a brand people know, menu, recipes, inventory and equipment kinda figured out. My uncle had multiple KFCs and pizza huts in Asia and later became the head of the YUM corporations in Asian and made a crazy amount. But he did later quite the significantly higher paying job to open his own restaurant.
When being a franchisee of 85C pays off, by all means be a franchisee of 85C. If for any reason it should cease to pay off, then bail out before the plane crashes.
That’s business.
(I understand the notion of the turnkey organization, but I do think it’s overrated.)
Beijing is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
I don’t disagree. I’m just saying being a franchisee can be extremely profitable, idk about 85c. Like all businesses there’s calculated risks. I wonder if they have a contract that prevents this kind of thing.
That’s why McD in the US owns the properties of their franchises. They need to pay rent to McD, franchise fee and more. They can bail out, but lose all.
McDonald’s can get away with that… for now.
The powerful can get away with anything up to a point. They tend to forget the “up to a point” thing, leading to them no longer being in power.
(In another thread, some guy is berating me for not worshiping a has been. If you’re gonna proselytize, you need to make a better case than “he used to be Arnold Shwarzenegger back in the day and now he’s all Special Olympics.”)
Life is change.
For the TRULY powerful, there is no possibility of brinkmanship. Good luck finding a nation that will forgo MacDonald’s or KFC. They could kowtow as much as humanly possible to China, but I doubt that this would influence their TW sales. For some cases, there’s no point of no return. Boycotting TW businesses due to kowtowing to China is simply ineffectual politics. Otherwise, you end up sounding like a protectionist like Trump (a president I admire, but only in the US context).
What Taiwan needs is a better negotiating position.
US to the rescue? Trump isn’t taking Xi’s shit quite as much as his predecessors. With a good enough publicity campaign, Taiwan can rise from a bargaining chip to a place Americans have heard of and care about.
Taiwan needs to get on the radar in the US culture. That’s the bottom line.
Ang Lee could have made that happen. Somehow he never got around to it.
I have a problem with that. China squeezes Taiwanese business people in the Mainland and they let go, some cadre takes over and China feels powerful. Win win. No one to stop them, no bad consequences. They do not care about winning heart’s and minds, it is Destiny for Taiwan to fall over, and they are actually hoping it won’t so they can make a show of action.
So what is China’s motivation to deal fairly with Taiwanese businesses there in their territory? None.
Precisely, no motivation no matter what the TW businesses “say.” It seems there’s no advantage to 85度 saying anything, so why punish local workers at those stores?
Destiny is what you make of it.
Those who don’t make their own destiny are destined for failure.
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You did not get my sarcasm. They are the ones claiming it is destiny…because we all are a Chinese family.
A very dysfunctional family if you ask me.
If the Taiwanese believed it was inevitable, they would have already all jumped off a bridge. Keep on rebelling, even if it is just to piss the naysayers off.
Looks like the ChiComs just poached another one of Taiwan’s “allies.” Pretty awkward timing considering Pres. Tsai’s recent trip to the region.
That sucks.
Back of the envelope calculation here says that the combined population of all countries formally recognizing the Republic of China is less than 50 million. Or less than 0.7% of the globe.
The number of countries formally recognize Taiwan is zero. Including Taiwan, which also does not formally recognize Taiwan.
It sucks but its true
Yeah, the Mainland does not mess around. Tsai has two stops in the US, you say? Alright, let’s strike another country off the ally list.
Well, they could’ve made it two countries…
The day is not over…