There is something to this argument, but it's ruined.
The author and many others don't like Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's the main reason for advocating a boycott of their investment money, because while the author mentions the poor human rights records of those two countries as the reason, there are plenty of other countries with such records. The main example of which is China, which is of course not mentioned.
The US itself has a poor human rights record on many things, and especially given our current president, had the author been writing from any other country, the US might have been on the list of countries whose money should not be accepted.
I'm not saying the US is as bad as China and Russia and Saudi Arabia. I'm not even saying China is as bad as Russia and Saudi Arabia. I am saying that if you care deeply about this, you should mention more than the easiest targets, if only to avoid the appearance of bias.
The bias also shows itself by considering an entire country as a single entity, when the author says we should not accept Russian investors' money. To justify it, the author says that if a Russian investor has ties to Kremlin-backed companies, they should be off limits. But that probably encompasses a large number of Russian investors. Same as the group of investors with ties to companies funded by US government money (DARPA, NSA, CIA, etc.).
I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line?
I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good:
badness country
100% DPRK
90% Saudi Arabia
80% Dubai
70% Russia
60% China
50% USA
40% India
30% Japan
20% Australia
10% Norway
0% Antarctica
So where do you draw your line?
Stating "My line is 65% bad or less" is a reasonable argument.
And how do we make countries high up on that list go down?
Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Recent developments, like allowing women to drive and encouraging more women to work are still ridiculously backwards by the standards of the Western world, but represent steps in the right direction
Your assumption is that economic cooperation makes "evil" countries become more like the "good" countries they cooperate with. I don't think that holds true. Just take China and Russia, who have very strong economic ties with almost all of the world. Human rights in Russia certainly are not getting any better, and I doubt they are in China. In fact, taking recent relevations into account, those ties might just as much be corrupting the "good" countries, and not (just) working the way you assume they are.
While these countries are definitely more oppressive and have less human rights than much of the Western world, do you really think that they've haven't gotten better in that regard with greater connections to the West? I don't think many would agree that these countries had better human rights and living conditions a couple decades ago.
As others have pointed out international pressure was instrumental in dismantling Apartheid in South Africa. That is one clear example.
As said, with Putin, I think things have only gotten worse. And China seems to be settling on a benevolent dictator, too, these days. So at least recently, I don't think things are getting any better in those two countries.
It isn’t about ties but about history, culture, traditions and wealth.
Take my home country Norway, since we are on the list ;-) It is one of the richest countries in the world as well as most equal which tends to lower corruption. Poverty and inequality raise it.
But of course history and culture matters too. Norwegians have had a reputation for honesty for hundreds of years. In some ways it is self perpetuating. There was a story about a Norwegian sailor who had cheated a prostitute in a foreign city. This angered the other Norwegian sailors who made him go back to her next time the landed to apologize and pay her compensation. To them this guy was risking the reputation of all Norwegian sailors. Something they benefitted well from.
When you got a reputation you become invested in it.
You make good points. Encouraging closer two-way ties might indeed do what you say. It certainly might make your "death to america!" chants a little less enthusiastic if half your country's pension fund was invested there. "Destroy the Great Satan! Except, uh, San Francisco!"
Another factor of course is "How much is this country actively trying to undermine/is a potential enemy of my own?" which probably for most countries we'd think of as "western" puts Russia, and to a lesser extent China, at the top of the list.
There is a reason that countries like South Africa would be substantially less high on that list than they used to be 25 years ago, and increasing economic -and political- isolation is definitely one of the reasons it changed.
We see in political science that the definition of nations is somewhat circular - for a country to meaningfully exist, its recognition of a significant number of other countries is almost an essential feature. This is the reason that projects like Sealand fail, and also why revolutions attract so much international meddling.
It's a very approximate list! But since you mention it.. the migrant issue is an outlier I think. It's shameful, but an outlier (I'm Australian btw). Generally we mostly do a decent job. Manus Island makes my blood boil, but we've spent billions trying to stop the solomon islanders killing each other too (RAMSI). The aboriginal health crisis is actually worse IMO, not that it's in the news.
I put Japan there because of its more or less systematic discrimination against people of korean ancestry, lack of support for the economically disadvantaged (eg. freeters, NEET), generally outdated attitudes to women and of course their 99% conviction rate criminal justice system. But honestly, you could make a case either way. Japan's not a bad country in aggregate.
We must of-course include Israel in this list, as far as I know it is a serial human rights violator and uses technology for inciting violence and fear.
I think a better way of putting is that the founders of these startups will cringe to share a public stage or at the very mention of one of the mentioned groups but will happily take their money.
Well then you just set up a system where companies that are CNI have oversight at some level of course this does mean a lot more vetting and it can be abused like France declaring a yoghurt maker was CNI.
The author and many others don't like Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's the main reason for advocating a boycott of their investment money, because while the author mentions the poor human rights records of those two countries as the reason, there are plenty of other countries with such records. The main example of which is China, which is of course not mentioned.
The US itself has a poor human rights record on many things, and especially given our current president, had the author been writing from any other country, the US might have been on the list of countries whose money should not be accepted.
I'm not saying the US is as bad as China and Russia and Saudi Arabia. I'm not even saying China is as bad as Russia and Saudi Arabia. I am saying that if you care deeply about this, you should mention more than the easiest targets, if only to avoid the appearance of bias.
The bias also shows itself by considering an entire country as a single entity, when the author says we should not accept Russian investors' money. To justify it, the author says that if a Russian investor has ties to Kremlin-backed companies, they should be off limits. But that probably encompasses a large number of Russian investors. Same as the group of investors with ties to companies funded by US government money (DARPA, NSA, CIA, etc.).