But also not working towards liberating yourself from nonfree software is also counterproductive. China has the best opportunity to obtain digital sovereignty and it does have a responsibility as a socialist state to do so and not squander it for western silicon valley cash.
China has been doing that before and since they started banning Western tech companies from operating in China who don't comply with their laws. Domestic tech industries were able to grow and develop, growing the tech and IT sector in China organically. Sure Chinese companies still participate in the same unequal exchange supply chains that stem from illegal mining in Africa to factory workers in Chinese Taipei, but that's just today. Things like belt and road have shown that new supply chains not based on uni-polar control are possible and should be worked towards.
Apple is popular in China now, but the US capitalist-imperialist class will inevitably fumble their own bag and manage to get their leverage banned in China and that hole won't be left as a wound for China but as an opportunity (just how they are fumbling with Chinese EVs, paper-thin sanctions on Nvidia GPUs, and managing to get all their programs banned or neutered in China).
Most Global South nations are nowhere close to this level of sovereignty. If Whatsapp stopped business in South America or Europe, entire industries would halt, China would feel it and then hit back with WeChat or whatever technology their now highly trained and independent engineers can create. Of course, that's just a hypothetical to show that large parts of the world technological infrastructure depends on nonfree software maintained in the US.
Obviously the USA wouldn't promote free software and all the GNU good stuff because nonfree software is one of the ways they make the rest of the world bend the knee to them.
using windows is an evil that has been forced on 99% of the world and blaming anyone for using it is victim blaming
But also not working towards liberating yourself from nonfree software is also counterproductive. China has the best opportunity to obtain digital sovereignty and it does have a responsibility as a socialist state to do so and not squander it for western silicon valley cash.
that requires the construction of what amounts to an entirely new supply chain though
China has been doing that before and since they started banning Western tech companies from operating in China who don't comply with their laws. Domestic tech industries were able to grow and develop, growing the tech and IT sector in China organically. Sure Chinese companies still participate in the same unequal exchange supply chains that stem from illegal mining in Africa to factory workers in Chinese Taipei, but that's just today. Things like belt and road have shown that new supply chains not based on uni-polar control are possible and should be worked towards.
Apple is popular in China now, but the US capitalist-imperialist class will inevitably fumble their own bag and manage to get their leverage banned in China and that hole won't be left as a wound for China but as an opportunity (just how they are fumbling with Chinese EVs, paper-thin sanctions on Nvidia GPUs, and managing to get all their programs banned or neutered in China).
Most Global South nations are nowhere close to this level of sovereignty. If Whatsapp stopped business in South America or Europe, entire industries would halt, China would feel it and then hit back with WeChat or whatever technology their now highly trained and independent engineers can create. Of course, that's just a hypothetical to show that large parts of the world technological infrastructure depends on nonfree software maintained in the US.
Obviously the USA wouldn't promote free software and all the GNU good stuff because nonfree software is one of the ways they make the rest of the world bend the knee to them.