I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question why they should give US companies (bred by teethless US antitrust) a free pass to destroy their publishing industry. Publishers themselves will put this onto the agenda in their own best interest. The French are already on the fence to create new digital tax legislation after EU/US negotiation have been aborted by the US side. Maybe hurting Google, Facebook, Twitter & co is seen as desired collateral damage?
China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US??
This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the ground in China, they can’t.
Would WeChat or TikTok exist if western chat and social media apps were given total access to Chinese markets??? Extreme doubt.
The eventual end result of bending over to China is a world where all of the goods, services, and software are owned by China. This imbalance that China has created is unworkable and cannot be allowed to continue.
>Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?
The US gains very substantial economic benefits from being an attractive place for international companies to do business. Foreign investors know that when they invest in America, they're getting a stable regulatory environment and a reasonably trustworthy civil legal system. If America decides to undermine that trust for short-term gain, there will be a substantial long-term cost.
You might believe that hostile trade policies prevent American companies from competing in the Chinese market, but that's starkly contradicted by the number of American companies for whom China is a key market. Apple earn $11bn a year in China. Wal-Mart have thousands of stores there. Yum! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) have 40% of the Chinese fast food market and make more revenue there than anywhere else. Starbucks have 70% of the Chinese coffee market. The shelves of Chinese convenience stores are groaning with American-owned brands.
An all-out trade war with China might be appealing, but be under no illusions that it'll be all upside for America. If China want to put the hurt on America, they have more levers to pull and more staying power. It's definitely not a fight you want to lose, but it might not even be a fight worth winning.
China aren't thinking about next quarter or next year, they're thinking about the next generation. Where does the US see itself in 2050?
The US can feed itself domestically, and we can supply our own energy domestically. All we have to do is no longer put merchants heading toward China under the US navies protection and the CCP will be in serious trouble very quickly. Note - I'm not even saying we have to attack them, we just stop responding to any requests for help from them and let the world know.
China relies on the US enforced world order to survive in its current form. The US relies on China for convenience, not for survival.
Would it be wise to do what I just said? I don't know, and I'm not advocating for it, I just find it funny when people say China would so obviously win a trade war when they are definitely in the worse position at a fundamental level.
That's only a problem if the rest of the world sides with the US in a US-China trade dispute. There are plenty of net exporters of oil and food who would be very happy to sell to China and would be rather pleased to see the US get a bloody nose.
>All we have to do is no longer put merchants heading toward China under the US navies protection and the CCP will be in serious trouble very quickly.
China has a large, modern and highly capable navy. They are perfectly able to protect their own shipping against piracy or any state-level actor that would be insane enough to start a naval war. In the event of a direct conflict, the American navy is largely defenceless against the Chinese ASBM capability.
The US relies on China for convenience, not for survival.
US hospitals would rapidly degrade to third-world conditions without imports of Chinese-made supplies and materials. COVID-19 has revealed the fragility of global supply chains and the position of China as a manufacturing superpower. If you need a sufficiently large quantity of pretty much anything made, you don't have many options outside of China - doubly so if you need it in a hurry. If China decides to tighten the noose on American consumers, you're going to immediately see severe shortages of even the most basic goods.
A total trade war between China and the US would of course have a catastrophic impact on US export revenues because of American reliance on outsourcing - US sanctions on Huawei have had a significant but manageable impact on their smartphone business, but Chinese sanctions on Apple would be catastrophic.
>China has a large, modern and highly capable navy.
China's navy CANNOT project power into the strait of Hormuz to secure their oil supply. Any one of the regional middle eastern powers could cut off their supply if they wanted to. They can defend their own shores, that's about it.
>US hospitals would rapidly degrade to third-world conditions without imports of Chinese-made supplies and materials.
Yes, for a period of a year or two until manufacturing can be brought up elsewhere. In the meantime the CCP would likely have fallen while dealing with mass riots due to a cratered economy and forced relocation of hundreds of millions from the cities back to rural areas so they could feed themselves without mass imports.
Look, it would absolutely be a terrible time to live through in the US, and whatever party was in charge during this period of time would likely lose power in the next election. But for the CCP, it would be game over, and I think they know it.
>China's navy CANNOT project power into the strait of Hormuz to secure their oil supply. Any one of the regional middle eastern powers could cut off their supply if they wanted to.
A quarter of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Three quarters does not. Oil prices are at record lows and many oil-dependent economies are desperate to sell their production. China has made a lot of friends in parts of the world where America has made a lot of enemies.
China has oil pipelines supplying imports from Kazakhstan and Eastern Siberia, in addition to two natural gas import pipelines. China is the 4th largest oil producer and has an exceptionally large strategic reserve of around 400 million barrels.
China does not want a conflict with the US. Any conflict would be massively detrimental to both parties, but there are many reasons to believe that the US is socially and politically under-prepared for coordinated action in the national interest. Is this really a fight you want to pick? What does "winning" even look like?
> Is this really a fight you want to pick? What does "winning" even look like?
If this kind of analysis mattered to people, the US might be doing something differently in the Middle East.
I remember reading that the goal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was to make sure Southeast Asian countries continued to weight American desires more heavily than Chinese desires in their own policies. Apparently there's a substantial section of the US state that views it as a priority to make sure that e.g. Vietnam doesn't "flip" over to China.
But that's completely insane. Vietnam definitely will flip to China, no matter what. A Vietnam that looked more to the US than to China would make as much sense as a Canada that looked more to China than to the US.
> China's navy CANNOT project power into the strait of Hormuz to secure their oil supply. Any one of the regional middle eastern powers could cut off their supply if they wanted to.
Iran would probably have a thing or two to say about that. And I don't think any of the Arab powers are internally stable or capable enough to take on Iran, yet alone China.
Take on would most likely a persistent guerilla warfare. It is cheaper than diect confrontation, and possible denial of plausibility. Without a strong power projection, distant gueriella warfare with minimal combatants can wreck havoc as what USSR and USA found out many decades ago in Agfhan and Vietnam.
> China has a large, modern and highly capable navy. They are perfectly able to protect their own shipping against piracy or any state-level actor that would be insane enough to start a naval war. In the event of a direct conflict, the American navy is largely defenceless against the Chinese ASBM capability.
Lmao. The US Navy has roughly 3x the strength of all the other navies in the world combined. If the US and China went to war, the US would control the seas in about a month.
America has a lot of very expensive but not necessarily useful ships (see the Zumwalt-class clusterfudge). China has an inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missile system that can sink anything in the Pacific. America's Aegis system might stop some ASBMs some of the time with a favourable wind.
The prediction that "of course America will win this war easily, look at all the kit we have" does not have a good track record.
First and foremost: Any argument we make is based on unclassified publicly known details related to the technological capabilities of both countries. This is an uninformed and untenable position to be making strong arguments from.
Two: There's not a lot of evidence the ASBMs can actually hit moving targets. There are a lot of impressive claims on the ASBM and ASCM front, but we have seen impressive claims from Russia and China on prior weapons that have not panned out in reality. Everyone postures about having a better hand than they actually do.
Tree: There's a lot of strategies we can employ besides Aegis. The US Navy has countered similar threats before, and can likely do so again.
China can feed itself. It doesn't have to be beyond subsistence level.
China runs like every other country on oil, but a large part of that demand for oil is to produce for the rest of the world. You need to calculate the actual domestic demand for oil and related products rather than total demand. The US can supply its energy domestically, but what if the US have to reopen the factories once closed to make other products? Will the oil be fluent? Oil isn't just the thing you put in your car. You'd be surprised how many of our modern products need oil (plastic, fabric etc).
Of course, those statements are made under the same assumption that there are only China and US in the world, or that the whole world go in to isolationist status. I'd rather not make any argument here, but to suggest somehow China's continued survival depended upon the global market while the US's doesn't is nothing more than an illusion.
"Coal remains the foundation of the Chinese energy system, covering close to 70 percent of the country's primary energy needs and representing 80 percent of the fuel used in electricity generation"
This action is unfortunately part of the normal progression of disruptive innovation. Upstart China has adopted a disruptive strategy of engaging with world markets while using heavy-handed regulation to avoid being controlled by those markets. Incumbent USG is now copying China's strategy, claiming that doing so is necessary to keep the US competitive. However, the US is a world leader through free markets and open collaboration, deferring control to markets even to the detriment of our own citizens. What copying China's strategy will actually do is cannibalize the US's existing economic structure, causing extreme damage to the US.
According to Lee Kai-Fu who launched Google in China: "Chinese laws are clear about what foreign companies can do to operate in China. In TikTok's case, though, the company was left no choice but to consider a forced sale."
China doesn't not allow western companies to operate. Google proactively made the choice to exit China. I'm not arguing that they should have elected to follow Chinese laws but the actions the Chinese government took with western companies was not to either tell them to stop existing in the Chinese market or abdicate their ownership to a domestic company.
The Chinese government forces foreign companies to do business with a domestic company, which they then use to raid the foreign company's intellectual property, develop a localized state-backed clone product, which they then allow to "compete" and inevitably crush the foreign company's product.
It's not as straightforward as outright "abdication of ownership to a domestic company," but the end-result is similar, and I'd argue it's more morally reprehensible.
Ya that's another very common frustration against an imaginary premise.
Western companies that enter joint ventures in China with IP transfers are proactively done with executives who explicitly weigh the cost benefit of gaining the Chinese market and choose to do so.
An equivalent here would be for ByteDance to choose to enter the US market knowing they need to oxymoronically abdicate ownership once they do.
You're referencing joint-venture requirements. They've been phased out in most industries over the past three decades, and they're not as onerous as you're depicting them.
Plenty of Western manufacturers did fine over decades with junior partners. VW never lost its technological edge to a Chinese competitor, despite being in a joint venture since 1984.
> China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China.
This is simply false, yet it gets repeated on every discussion about China.
Western companies are everywhere in China, and they make massive revenues there. The presence of Chinese companies in the West is tiny by comparison (if you want proof, just look at FDI figures in each direction). Anyone who's spent time in both places can see this.
It's very difficult to discuss China-US trade issues when so many people begin from completely false assumptions about what the present situation is.
facebook and google are given conditions that, if satisfied, would allow them to operate in china.
the same cannot be said about tik tok and the us market
It has forced the conditions that is theirs as a totalitarian country. USA cannot enforce any condition because it is a free country. And they can come in with their values. But USA cannot go in with its value.
Continue it is the downfall of the USA and humanity. That is why China has to stop Win-then-Win again (yes Win-Win is China win two times).
Open market to assist China to limit their people freedom, that is a great move by Google if only money matter.
And as said, China is poor of everything except money. Want this bad money driven out good one.
Free country doesn't mean you can't set rules or conditions to do business here. We do that all the time. In fact, we don't even let some companies do business with certain countries. We can definitely give TikTok an ultimatum - we just don't want to.
I think the principle of regulatory reciprocity is fairly standard. If country X has tarrifs on your goods, it's fairly standard to bring up the same tarrifs on their goods into your country. Same with visa laws. If country X defacto bans certain products and companies from operating/selling in their country on the basis of national origin and not product type, then I would assume eventually the same would happen on the other side.
Without reciprocity, the other country has little incentive to come to the negotiating table to reciporically remove those tarrifs, bans and visa restrictions.
> I think the principle of regulatory reciprocity is fairly standard
In this case, since it's a communication tool, this is more freedom restriction reciprocity than regulatory reciprocity. Communication freedom is not the fire you want to fight fire with.
I think it’s not obvious that you can directly apply the logic of tariffs to (largely free) internet services provided by companies in other countries. You could make the argument that they should be treated the same, but I think the argument needs to be explicit rather than assumed.
Also, this entire mode of argument doesn’t address the idea that this is a national security or privacy issue.
> I think the principle of regulatory reciprocity is fairly standard. If country X has tarrifs on your goods, it's fairly standard to bring up the same tarrifs on their goods into your country.
We agree that it’s standard. The interesting question is whether it’s sensible.
Personally, as citizen Denmark, if Italy puts a 50 tariff on Danish sausages, I would prefer that Denmark not put any tariff on Italian sausages.
Tit-for-tat has been found to be the most effective strategy in prisoner dilemma type situations. If China lets us into their markets then we will let them into ours. This was the whole point of letting China join the WTO, but China has completely ignored any rulings against it by the WTO courts. It not playing fairly. These individual trade sanctions by the US are the only way to make China keep up its end of the deal.
This doesn’t seem like a prisoner dilemma though, because I think there’s a good argument that the US is better off cooperating (allowing Tik Tok) than defecting regardless of China’s actions.
I think the main idea in the prisoner's dilemma is that in the defect/no defect case the defector has great gains and the non-defector has great losses. Who gains and who loses is the key and that is what China has been doing to the West since entering the WTO in 2001. Tit-for-tat quickly eliminates the gains for the defector.
The US is announcing aluminum tariffs against Canada. Canada's PM announces that aluminum tarrifs are a bad idea and hurt everybody, but until the US gets rid of them, Canada will match them dollar for dollar with its own aluminum tarrifs.
Clearly that doesn't make any sense as you stated it, however the premise that "we must do the same thing that we think is bad" is a false premise. All else equal, barring companies from operating is a bad thing, that makes all of us worse off. But when China is doing that to us, "all else" is not "equal". The same goes for when Chinese companies are effectively appendages of a genocidal Chinese state -- all else is most certainly not equal.
A very simple analogy is to that of interpersonal violence. All else equal, it's bad to point a gun at someone. But if they're threatening you with a gun first and unjustifiably, then it's no longer bad. In fact its bad not to fight back, since to not do so would allow wickedness to flourish. And any argument along the lines of "two wrongs don't make a right" is of course absurd.
When you say "steal" and "imbalance that China has created" - you expect to move almost all design, planning and manufacturing to China gradually over decades of time, give them all the technology because they are just "low-level workers", embrace what they build themselves because it's cheaper and good enough, and for them to be happy, in perpetuum, to receive a fraction of the profits? This situation was not created by China - it's just completely expected consequences of decades of un-strategical behavior which is now starting to bite back.
It's quite amazing how many people believe that a poor country like the China of the 1990s and early 2000s could manage to hoodwink the Western world into accepting an imbalanced relationship favoring China.
The fact is that Western companies benefitted massively from China's opening-up, and that China was forced to undergo many painful reforms in order to join the WTO. An entire generation of Chinese workers lost their social safety network as a result of the breaking up of the state-run sector.
The joint venture and IP transfer requirements, which have been rolled back over time, were a small price to pay in exchange for accessing a massive pool of cheap labor and a rapidly growing consumer market.
I find your comment to be in bad faith. You failed to address Chinese bans of American companies, which was the thrust of parent's comment, and which is obviously the unfair imbalance China created. Quoting imbalance but ignoring the example is bad faith.
Very few American companies are banned from China. The parent's comment is based on false premises about the economic relationship between the US and China.
Yes, China very selectively bans American companies, just as the US is now very selectively banning the same types of companies. It’s just Mercantilism: be open in all ways except the key industries you wish to develop domestically. I don’t think mercantilism is fundamentally evil (it’s how Japan and South Korea became wealthy first world nations at certain American industries expense) but don’t cry when your trade partners bite back.
How is it good for American consumers? Their privacy is further eroded in service of a violently oppressive totalitarian state. Also, the companies these Chinese companies compete against do not have equal access to Chinese markets, providing a significant advantage to Chinese companies: the supposed benefit to the consumer (reduced prices due to competition) erodes quickly in such an environment.
The fact that TikTok has something like 70 million monthly active users in the U.S. is prima facie evidence that its existence is good for American consumers, who have chosen to consume it, regardless of any potential privacy issues.
I don't mean this to trivialize China's oppressive behavior. And sometimes the right way to punish regimes like China is with economic sanctions, even when those sanctions harm us as a side-effect - I don't know if that's the right answer in this case or not. But from a purely economic point of view, tit-for-tat trade sanctions are an own goal.
I don't think anyone cares anymore. Every ad network that slips through is probably propagating whatever data they get across all other ad networks instantly, so they are probably right not to care.
Plus, mine is but a grain of sand in China's endless beaches of data. Also, the only real solution is to use a shady VPN (that is probably owned by a government anyway).
It sucks and is terrible but I think that's just the way it is unfortunately.
> Also, the companies these Chinese companies compete against do not have equal access to Chinese markets
That's just not true. All American tech companies can operate in China if they follow local laws, that's why Skype and iMessage are popular in China. Chinese companies have to follow the same local laws as well. Google/Facebook, etc voluntarily pulled out of the Chinese market because they don't want to follow China's draconian tech laws.
Those laws require Chinese companies to have ownership stakes, sometimes majority ownership stakes, if not explicitly then effectively. That isn't "equal access".
Ownership requirement is only for joint ventures. Both Apple and Microsoft operate in China in full capacity and neither companies are majority owned by the Chinese lol.
You're quibbling over technicalities. For most tech companies, operating in China requires a substantial relationship with Chinese owned business entities and partners, often tacitly, if not explicitly written by law, also requiring some shareholding or officer/executive relationship to manage the tangled web of CCP corruption.
Globalism is and always was inevitable and has in fact started already 200 years ago. It's also not a problem. A problem is how countries deal with the middle class and how they transform their society when there are shifts in production. For example, it's not China's fault that the average salary of a US CEO was 361 times higher than that of a factory worker in 2018, as opposed to only having been 20 times higher in the 1950s.
What we see right now is really just the emergence of China as an economic super-power, thanks to their gigantic internal market and their technological advances. This was predicted for the past 40 years or so and it nothing to do with the problems that the US is facing. These problems are mostly internal.
You can embrace globalism without damaging your economy. You just have to choose to only deal with countries that play fairly. China does not play fairly and, as such, we should not do business with them.
I'm not in agreement or disagreement but I'm genuinely curious how you can embrace globalism without damaging your economy? I have found myself leaning more towards neo-liberalism in some aspects but I don't know how this piece fits in.
USA has embraced globalism and benefitting from it.
American middle-class wealth has moved to upper-class rather than to outsiders.
"The recent stability in the share of adults living in middle-income households marks a shift from a decades-long downward trend. From 1971 to 2011, the share of adults in the middle class fell by 10 percentage points. But that shift was not all down the economic ladder. Indeed, the increase in the share of adults who are upper income was greater than the increase in the share who are lower income over that period, a sign of economic progress overall."
"American middle-class wealth has moved to upper-class rather than to outsiders."
As your quote says, it's not the wealth that has moved per say, but that people have moved upward out of the middle class and brought that wealth with them with more people moving up than moving down.
I saw some comments (in this thread and some others) that seems to be of the opinion that USA has not benefitted by embracing globalization. That opinion is in contrast to what I have seen in data analysis/reports.
So I wanted to say that maybe problem is not that USA hasn't benefitted from globalization but rather that benefit hasn't been distributed appropriately.
I'm not from USA and my knowledge comes by reading about news reports and expert data analysis so I might be missing something.
Why should the American middle class give two shits about American businesses having to jump through hoops to operate in China?
90% of their income comes from wages, not investments. The last thing they want is for American businesses to operate in China, period - because operating in China typically means that manufacturing capacity gets moved there. This unfairness is only unfair to the owner class - the middle class is actually a net beneficiary of policies that make offshoring harder.
China's policies that make foreign operation in it difficult are, in that sense, actually a gift to the American middle class.
Google's dragonfly would allow it to operate in China. It didn't because of domestic pressure, not the Chinese government. There used to have a huge debate of that here on Hackernews. It would not be fair to say that China banned Google for protectionism reasons. At least for China, the government have a standard, a list of censorship requirement to follow. There are things a company can do to operate in China. While here now at the US, it's protectionism that targeted a specific company without doubt. I'd hardly call that the rule of law, would you?
> Would WeChat or TikTok exist if western chat and social media apps were given total access to Chinese markets???
WeChat caters to the needs of Chinese users. As far as I know, WeChat invented integration of payments in messaging apps and Western apps like Messenger and iMessage copied that. I don't think the Western apps have QR payments, which is very important to Chinese. And I don't think a Western app would have come up with the group hongbao exchange feature.
TikTok doesn't have a surviving American equivalent so, yes. Definitely it would exist.
TikTok has only recently had any competitors from the west, and WeChat is still far and beyond any chat platform the west has offered. I have extreme doubt the western companies would at all be able to compete in China. They don't get the culture, they have inferior features and inferior user experience.
In fact, if the west weren't so racist I suspect WeChat would dominate just like TikTok is dominating in the west.
That's the thing is that WeChat can exist in the US. In fact it does. It just doesn't get any traction except with Chinese Nationals communicating with their families.
It's kind of absurd to think that platforms that literally dominate every single country in the world like Google and Facebook wouldn't similarly dominate in China if they were just allowed. TikTok is the first Chinese social app that's had any success in the West. That's why we're talking about this now and never needed to discuss it with WeChat.
It's absolutely crazy that Chinese companies can compete fairly in Western markets yet the Chinese government can close their markets to Western companies. IMO, a trade war with China is long overdue. China hasn't played fairly in any sense . Trade wars suck for all involved but if you're not willing to do them, why would China not play by a double standard?
> It's absolutely crazy that Chinese companies can compete fairly in Western markets yet the Chinese government can close their markets to Western companies.
The actual state of affairs is that Western companies do much more business in China than vice versa. It's been that way ever since China began opening up in the 1980s.
There are more theoretical barriers to trade in China than in most developed countries, but that doesn't change the fact that there's more actual Western investment in China than vice versa. Whether China's protectionist measures (which have lessened over time) are acceptable depends on your ideas about economic development. There's a very respectable economic tradition (stretching back to Alexander Hamilton) that says that developing countries should enact certain protectionist measures. Most developed countries got where they are today using some level of protectionist policies (the US, Japan and South Korea are a few prominent examples).
I agree with much of your argument in general but you seem to skew the reality of the situation in a very big way. China is the second largest economy in the world. By GDP measures, they have a long way to go but all of that wealth and control is in the hands of a very small group of people. As a nation-state, China is extremely powerful and should be held to exactly the same standards as other powerful nation-states. From the perspective of foreign policy, the state of development is derived from the ability of a country to project power. China can absolutely do this.
Given China's autocratic government, the conflation of economic and government interests is impossible to separate. This makes protectionist policies of China a dire risk to the West. The ability of social media in particular to undermine democratic elections should now be clear. The simple unregulated profit motive of Facebook has proved harmful enough. A Chinese controlled Facebook equivalent in the United States would be disastrous.
China is still a developing country, even though it has a very large economy (due to its large population). Expecting or demanding that it remove all protectionist measures is wrong, in my opinion.
On the other hand, in these discussions, most people massively play up Chinese protectionism, and seem to have a wildly skewed picture of what the economic relationship between China and developed countries is. Claims that China excludes most Western companies are so massively at variance with reality that it's impossible to have a conversation after that.
> This makes protectionist policies of China a dire risk to the West.
The West has benefitted enormously from trade with China and investment in the country. The problem, from the perspective of the US, isn't Chinese protectionism, but rather the end of American hegemony. How far the US will go in order to maintain its position is something we should all be very worried about.
> The ability of social media in particular to undermine democratic elections should now be clear.
I don't think social media is undermining democracy. The hoopla about Russia after the last election really descended into hysteria, and there was never anything really significant uncovered. The Internet Research Agency had essentially zero impact on the election. The "worst" thing the Russians supposedly did (and I'm not sure if they actually did it) was handing DNC emails over to WikiLeaks. But it was good that those emails were published. They showed the DNC conniving against Bernie, which is something the public had a right to know about.
Again, you're misunderstanding the difference between GDP and foreign policy. China has a low GDP, which I mentioned but a giant economy. Think of it like Apple has a $1.9T market cap and 130,000 employees and Amazon has a $1.6T market cap with 800,000 employees. From a foreign policy perspective, the number of employees doesn't matter. It's only the ability to project power into other countries. China is not a developing country. It only feigns to be.
"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" — Sun Tzu
The problem with China, again to repeat myself, is that there is significant overlap between the economic and foreign policy interests of China. Whereas American companies only care about making more money, Chinese companies want to both make money and extend Chinese influence.
This is terrible for democracies so easily swayed by unregulated emergent technologies like social media. If all you think Russia did was leak documents, I think you far underestimate their impact. An underdog candidate without majority popular support became president by the smallest margins. Democracy only works if its influenced by people who actually care if it succeeds. Foreign influence of any kind rots it at its core. This is the goal of China and Russia (although they may approve of different candidates).
This isn't a problem of America losing its hegemony in the world. It's a problem where foreign influences help elect a leader that has led to the unnecessary deaths of more than 100K Americans. The USA is no saint but China and Russia literally seek to elevate themselves at any cost. Allowing any Chinese companies influence over American citizens is an absolute disaster. They won't simply seek to make money in the USA, they will try to extend Chinese national interests at the cost of American lives.
I'm not sure if you're the type of person simply trying to seem intelligent by arguing against the popular stance or if you truly believe what you say. In either case, I don't see why a smart person such as yourself would defend the reputation of such a country. The future will judge us based on our inaction towards the suffering of the Uighurs and Tibetans.
> The problem with China, again to repeat myself, is that there is significant overlap between the economic and foreign policy interests of China.
As is the case for every country. Do you seriously believe that US foreign policy is agnostic about US companies' economic interests?
> foreign influences help elect a leader
Blaming your problems on malign foreign powers is something Trump would do. The US elected Trump. Blaming his election on Russia is ridiculous.
This really sounds like a new Red Scare. The Democrats tried it with Russia after the 2016 election, and the Republicans are trying it with China now. The US has plenty of its own problems. Blaming foreign influence is ridiculous.
> The future will judge us based on our inaction towards the suffering of the Uighurs and Tibetans.
Or on the destructive actions we were manipulated into supporting through atrocity propaganda. Every few years, the US public is told about some new ultimate evil it must face. How many times will this pattern be repeated before people learn? Iraqi society destroyed. Libyan society destroyed. Syrian society destroyed.
Everything is a spectrum. The USA is by no means perfect nor exempt from many criticisms. But if you are truly unwilling to acknowledge the differences along that spectrum then any discussion between us is pointless. I hope both the USA and China find ways to lessen the ceaseless suffering in the world. I have some hope for the US. I have little hope for any autocracy.
Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.
It's only reciprocity if you divide the world into two tribes, the "China tribe" and the "US tribe". Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible. I used to think the Western world had abandoned that kind of collective punishment, but apparently not.
It ceases to be reciprocal if you distinguish groups at an only slightly higher resolution: Chinese businesses like TikTok and WeChat and American businesses like Google and Facebook in addition to the Chinese and American governments. The Chinese government demanded that all businesses censor content, but Google and Facebook had most of their users outside China, so they could choose not to comply and still survive. Whereas TikTok and WeChat didn't have that luxury and censor their Chinese users (TikTok by offering Douyin as a separate product and making TikTok unavailable in China, WeChat by censoring messages in conversations with at least one Chinese participant). So far, both Chinese and American businesses were bullied by the Chinese government. Now the US government decided to "reciprocate" and ... decides to bully businesses as well, but only Chinese ones. Great justice.
If TikTok or WeChat have done anything wrong they deserve to be punished for, then sue them, or, if it's not illegal, make a new law that requires them to stop doing whatever it is. That law should then also apply to Google and Facebook, just in case they might be tempted to try the same thing.
But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me. Maybe I'm just biased by living in a parliamentary democracy where the voting system aims for proportional representation.
> It ceases to be reciprocal if you distinguish groups at an only slightly higher resolution: Chinese businesses like TikTok and WeChat and American businesses like Google and Facebook in addition to the Chinese and American governments.
This is pretty much exactly how reciprocity works in other areas like travel and immigration. We treat their nationals as they treat ours. You can see examples worldwide right now with travel restrictions.
And these Chinese companies benefit from the lack of US-based competition at home. Would WeChat ever have gotten that big without China's restrictions on US companies? It's not arbitrary to counter that benefit with a loss of access to the US.
Congress specifically gives the president the power to counter unfair trade practices by foreign governments. The president executes the laws, he doesn't dictate them.
Visa free travel usually, and special work visas like the deals between US and Canada or US and Australia. It's also used for retaliation in other ways, like when China revoked visa free travel for Norwegian citizens after Liu Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace prize, or Brazil photographing and fingerprinting only US citizens on arrival.
although the Australian visa deemed to match the US work visa for Australians is available without regard for nationality. I think reciprocity is common, but many states work in their own self interest first.
As an example from my personal experience, up until last year, Brazil required Americans to get a tourist visa. They also charged identical visa fees based on what Brazilians have to pay to visit the US as a tourist. On their website they made it plain that the whole motivation for the visa and fees was reciprocity. It stood out in my mind as funny because it seemed so petty.
I suspect one less petty motivation is to encourage the US to reduce visa restrictions for Brazilians. It wasn't actually reciprocal in practice because as far as I know the process of paying the fee as a USC visiting Brazil was far less involved than the process of applying for a US tourist visa (correct me if I'm wrong), not to mention an argument can be made that the fee on average has a lower impact on people from a higher-income country.
I think it is fairly onerous for both parties speaking as a US citizen who visited Brazil a number of years ago. Until recently you had to visit a Brazilian embassy and bring a postal money order as well as printed passport style photos and conduct a financial interview (to make sure you had enough money to leave).
Now it seems that you can do this all online, so ignoring the monetary component it was not any easier than a Brazilian person in my experience as a USC with many Brazilian friends.
For certain countries like Cuba and Iran, where relations are colder, there are "reciprocity tables" which give fees and restrictions for immigrants from there based on making comparable requirements to what their country requires of Americans.
Many countries are reciprocal to the US—ie, US citizens are made to face the same restrictions/difficulty entering country X as country X's citizens face entering the US.
>Congress specifically gives the president the power to counter unfair trade practices by foreign governments. The president executes the laws, he doesn't dictate them.
The Congress has increasingly delegated rulemaking to the Executive through various forms of Authorization Act that empower the Executive to arbitrarily dictate Administrative Law.
I wouldn't exactly rank Congress highly in being the rulemaker here. There's been no great change, upset, or active reaffirmation of the process in years.
There are no Chinese restriction on U.S. companies. Why do you think iMessage and Skype are popular in China? If FB/Google doesn't want to operate in China because they don't want to comply to the same law that applies to everyone, then good for them. There are no explicit bans on Facebook and Google.
>It's not arbitrary to counter that benefit with a loss of access to the US.
Xiaomi and Huawei competes against Samsung and Apple within the Chinese market. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, etc are just some of the big tech companies that enjoy a ton of revenue from China.
>The president executes the laws
The law specifically says he cannot use it to restrict any personal communication to foreign entities. So yeah, he has no right to do this.
>Congress specifically gives the president the power to counter unfair trade practices by foreign governments. The president executes the laws, he doesn't dictate them. //
Those two sentences are mutually contradictory. Who has the power, the President or Congress. If it's the former, then he does dictate them; if the later then they don't give the power to the President. Pick one?
It is not contradictory at all. The parent comment stated that Congress has the power to pass the laws, which give the president the power to counter unfair trade practices. It is how the U.S. government (and most forms of democratic government) is structured, with separate legislative branch and executive branch.
> The Chinese government demanded that all businesses censor content, but...
To distinguish this further:
> The Chinese government demanded that all foreign businesses engage in a significant violation of basic human rights, but...
That distinction materially impacts the rest of the argument for me.
People usually reply here with the false equivalence that the US banning misleading advertisements or child pornography is somehow equivalent to Xi Jinping's campaign against what he calls "historical nihilism" (but the rest of the world calls "history"). I don't really understand how those are the same though.
Read USA law and constitutions. It is given in the law he can do this way before his presidency. And read up what happens on the other side to understand what really is "dictatorship" by changing laws to suit. Proportional system looks great on paper but consistently produce "proportional" government that can't act strongly due to political parties in-fighting. There is reason vast majority of people whether American or not accept the concept of manifest destiny. None ever accorded to GB, France, Spanish, Portugal, Italian or Germany even during their height of military superiority.
I've heard that foreign investment and foreign companies face difficult regulatory red tape. Can someone with a better understanding on it weigh in on whether that is applicable to this?
It's not a "dictatorship", because Congress (elected every 2 years, approximately) sets the laws that the President acts under, and the President himself (so far!) is elected every 4 years.
Dictatorships can be elective, so raising elections is irrelevant,and they can result from a legal delegation of arbitrary authority to the dictator (both election and legal delegation were absolutely the case for the Roman office of Dictator, which “dictatorship” is a generalization from.) If the President rules arbitrarily without meaningful constraint, despite being elected and despite that arbitrary power being explictly delegated in law, it is a dictatorship.
It's not, though, because the President is neither delegated general arbitrary power in law not ruling with it despite the law. While constraints on executive authority in the law have significantly broken down and one might argue that it is on the road to dictatorship, arbitrary executive action despite the law still faces meaningful checks at least by the courts. There has been significant defiance of court orders without meaningful consequence (e.g., with regard to family separation policy) but the areas where that has occurred are still limited and noticeable, however deeply problematic, exceptions.
> But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me.
It is. There's a faction in the US that believes the US has to have a dictatorship to compete with China.
We've been here before. The USSR looked like an unstoppable juggernaut until the late 1960s / early 1970s. Like China they started from a state of relative backwardness and rapidly industrialized and modernized. The pace seemed incredible until they ran out of stuff to copy.
Totalitarian systems excel at execution, but they are not creative. A vertically integrated totalitarian state will always beat a liberal democracy at "see that? do a whole lot of that!" type challenges. Totalitarianism fails utterly when the leaders are incompetent or deluded, but when the leadership has at least basic competence they can appear formidable... as long as there is a "that" to "do a lot of." When totalitarianism runs out of clear obvious paths forward, it flounders.
Totalitarian systems find it very hard to innovate because innovation is disobedience. It goes against entrenched bureaucratic and monetary interests and sometimes even laws. The latter is why states with a minimalist doctrine of law (some version of "that which is not explicitly forbidden is permitted") tend to do better at innovation.
For a real world example of above: look at how ISPs which are state backed monopolies use the law to push against competitors be they local or municipal broadband or Starlink. In a totalitarian state, those sorts of entrenched interests almost always win. Once something becomes entrenched in the power structure it is immovable and competing with it becomes effectively illegal.
During the Cold War there were always factions in the USA and Western Europe who argued that we must become more like the USSR. The right pushed for more militarization and executive power, while the left pushed for more central management and central planning. They were really pushing for "right" and "left" variants of the same thing: a vertically integrated totalitarian system like the Soviet state.
The same thing is happening now. I think a major reason many at the top of the financial and intelligence world pushed (sometimes covertly) for Trump is as an answer to Xi Jinpeng. There is always a temptation in any conflict or tension to emulate the adversary. It won't work. The real answer is to encourage and protect our ability to innovate while waiting for China to run out of things to copy.
That being said, I am all for cutting China off from easy access to inside knowledge and training. We shouldn't make it easy for the CCP to copy everything. As such I am not opposed to disengagement. We should move production to places like India, Africa, Indonesia, etc. so as not to readily share industrial and technological expertise.
Edit: I mean no racism here. The Chinese can innovate just fine. China under Xinpeng finds it hard to do anything but copy, because it's a dictatorship.
> The real answer is to wait until China runs out of things to copy.
The thing is that this order is about TikTok which comes from a Chinese company, has a US company currently trying to buy it while another has just released a shameless clone of it to their users. Maybe in this situation it is different because China aren't the ones doing the copying?
TikTok is a copy of Snapchat and Instagram. The only reason it's such a juggernaut is money. It's been very heavily and cleverly marketed, especially to younger demographics. Schools are flooded with TikTok swag, and they've hired domestic marketing agencies to push it. It's really obvious that someone has dumped enormous amounts of money into shoving TikTok at kids and teens.
> During the Cold War there were always factions in the USA and Western Europe who argued that we must become more like the USSR. The right pushed for more militarization and executive power, while the left pushed for more central management and central planning. They were really pushing for "right" and "left" variants of the same thing: a vertically integrated totalitarian system like the Soviet state.
Even without consciously intending to become like them, this is what inevitably happens when you focus on a competitor. Racing on beating them at whatever they are good at means you take on whatever aspects make them good at such pursuits. E.g. the space race meant centrally dumping tons into research funding, a system which of course never went away after the race was won because governments mostly only prefer to take power, they rarely give it up.
Did you see the spaceship launch from China (https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21256484/china-rocket-deb...)? The debris pathway fell right across two major cities and landed near a village in Africa. I still think there is a lot of areas China needs to catch up. edit:spelling + added African village
Those are innovative fields. The US has a clear lead in aerospace and is among the leaders in materials. We've lost our lead in chips not to China but to Taiwan, a comparatively more liberal Asian country. The gap is not huge (yet) so it's possible that the US will regain its fab lead... if we want it. I think it's more likely in the short term that the US will make deals to get TSMC to build high-end fabs here for strategic reasons.
I'm sure China will manage to copy a Boeing 737 pretty soon, which is 1960s technology. Meanwhile we are doing:
Last I checked China's most advanced fabs were doing 28nm, but that was in 2019. By now they've probably started to get EUV working as they feverishly race to copy TSMC. I would not be surprised if Chinese fabs are literal exact copies of prior generation TSMC and Intel fabs, since it takes time to steal inside information.
In 2019 China landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon. [1] Two months ago, China successfully launched its first rover to Mars [2]
I think it is hardly arguable that China has the most technologically advanced retail market in the world. - Ordering everything online from food to furniture, paying everywhere else by mobile phone, introducing state-sanctioned digital currency [3], and it is closing the gap or even pulling ahead in many other fields as well.
Just look at how reliant the US is on the antiquated ACH transfer system. We're in the year 2020 and it's literally faster to mail someone cash in many cases.
> I'm sure China will manage to copy a Boeing 737 pretty soon, which is 1960s technology. Meanwhile we are doing:
Well, good enough is good enough. Boeing 737 is currently the most popular plane, and if China's regime manages to steal enough tech to be able build an equivalent product, even if it steals only 60s technology, then China's regime will be in a position to outcompete Boeing based on metrics that matter such as cost or soft power.
It really doesn't matter who has the cutting-edge after a point of diminishing returns. When that point is reached, good old economics start to become the leading criteria.
What about the USSR in the 1950s? I understand that by the 1980s it was a basketcase, but there was a time when it at least seemed to be the most rapidly advancing nation.
USSR had rapid progress in some areas only because of the systematic plundering of the workers. Behind a majestic facade, it was a country of extreme poverty.
In 1950s peasants were basically slaves who could not even leave their kolkhoz without party permission. The vast majority of citizens lived in atrocious conditions in communal flats or barracks [1] (a type of temporary housing with no sanitation and basic heating).
I see this pattern of comparisons to the USSR again and again. The USSR collapsed a long time ago, and China saw it happen. Why would they go the same way?
I'd say it's Americans, moreso than anyone else, who took the wrong lesson from that collapse. History isn't on anyone's 'side' and destiny doesn't exist. We take too much for granted.
"Collapse" is a bit too passive to describe what happened to the USSR. Gorbachev was a pro-American advocate of Social Democracy (aka the Denmark-style state that Bernie likes).
He thought that Russia would become prosperous by adopting capitalism. Instead, GDP shrank by 50% and Russia went from a global superpower to being encircled in its own backyard.
Sure, but the fruit was pretty rotten at that point after 18 years of Brezhnev. Maybe if Gorbachev had followed Kruschev, it could've been done without a chaotic mass selloff to gangsters.
The fruit was rotten under Kruschev too, the difference between him and Brezhnwv is that his administration picked a lot of low-hanging fruit that the public approved of (Apartments, and a relaxation of absolutely insane Stalinist repression.)
The economy didn't work well under either of them, but Kruschev is credited for leaving things much better than he found them.
China did manage such a turnaround, though. Of course, they had the contemporaneous USSR collapse to point to as well as maoism in living memory, so that probably made it more politically possible.
GDP dropped 50% when honestly reporting facts stopped becoming a criminal offense.
Gorbachev liked social democracy, but the Communist Party warlords like Putin didn't disappear in the revolution, they hung back and then took over again.
>China under Xinpeng finds it hard to do anything but copy, because it's a dictatorship.
WeChat is vastly more innovative than any of the American social media platforms. China makes and buys more electric vehicles than Europe, the US and Japan combined. DJI almost single-handedly created the civilian drone market. Chinese smartphone brands are regularly first-to-market with new features. The "innovative" Just Walk Out retail concept of Amazon Go is commonplace in China.
There's no doubt that China plays fast-and-loose with intellectual property laws, but the idea that they can't innovate is at least a decade out of date.
Innovation can be hard for entrenched businesses in Capitalist states as well. One could argue that large corporations are a form of totalitarianism. Witness big auto in the west struggle to keep up in the EV field.
To your point "free-er" states can give rise to the lone wolf innovators who force changed by the power of a new, better idea. (and a solid business plan)
Why are you OK with that. Why is division between groups of people a good thing for you, is it that you want oligarchic rule to beat one-party dictatorial rule? Or you hate the Chinese fifth of the World population?
USA will polarise things until a war with China becomes inevitable forcing those who want to trade freely with both parties to pick a side.
Your reply makes sense, but you are buying into the notion that there is 'hate' and 'racism' involved.
This is a spurious comparison. Every time someone accuses someone else of racism in this thread, there should be the same answer: The US (after a looong while!) is doing to Chinese companies the same China does to US companies. To ensure the benefits of globalization are not concentrated by China's protectionist policies
>So you are saying Chinese hate rest of the world //
No, if there's some other reason you could explain it. But my working hypothesis is that you hate Chinese people for some reason: perhaps through media conditioning against anything labelled communist.
Their reason, in theory is they hate Western Capitalism. So an alternate hypothesis is that you want the oligarchic rule that Western Capitalism is heading full-throttle towards?
> Or you hate the Chinese fifth of the World population?
This is a spurious comparison. Every time someone accuses someone else of racism in this thread, there should be the same answer: The US (after a looong while!) is doing to Chinese companies the same China does to US companies. To ensure the benefits of globalization are not concentrated by China's protectionist policies
But the reasons usually are bracketed with 'what China is doing is wrong' ... so then doing the same is also wrong for USA. It's just about the money; in the past it seemed USA was about the ideals - of the declaration of independence, for example.
What is this comment trying to say, by putting China outside of the "rest of the world tribe"? Does this mean that Chinese people are a different species, or what?
It is countering OPs assertion that this is US vs China. They are arguing China is drawing a line around themselves (to keep competition out), and the US is merely recognizing it (by keeping competition in) and still participating with the rest of the world economy.
I am from India, and I created an account to agree with exactly this, and add a few more comments.
To every country which is actually in China's proximity, what China has been doing has been nothing short of imperial - in the bad sense of the word.
The "China tribe", if you look a little closely, consists of two types of people - those who are so far away that their notion of China is mostly in the abstract - in the same way I might (not at all) be alarmed if Somalia and Kenya had a war, say. The second group is the "satellite" which depends on China to counter a common enemy - a good example being Pakistan which needs China to counterbalance India's power in the region. Interestingly, but only anecdotally, I have never once heard anyone from Pakistan criticize China's treatment of Uighur Muslims, even though the world is finally catching on that something really fishy is going on. I mention this because the same folks are often seen loudly complaining about the treatment of Muslims in pretty much every other part of the world.
"It's only reciprocity if you divide the world into two tribes, the "China tribe" and the "US tribe". Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible. I used to think the Western world had abandoned that kind of collective punishment, but apparently not."
So no - this is not it at all.
Reciprocity is a much more appropriate term.
Trade is a big deal, trade deals are big deals.
'Free Trade' deals usually imply reciprocity on all fronts, otherwise, it's a lop-sided situation.
Nation A selling services into nation B, but B not allowed to sell such services back is usually an untenable situation.
If this were any other sector this 'tit for tat' would have happened a long time ago.
It seems a little outlandish because these app bans affect our lives directly, instead of say a 'steel tariff of 50%' which we don't materially witness.
And of course, despite the legitimacy or not of this ... this is a least 50% 'Donald Trump Campaigning'.
The 'censorship' and or 'TikTok' having done something wrong are side issues.
Purely on a trade basis, this is fair.
Now enter the security issue, which is very real: China wants to control everyone's lives down to every passing thought. They observe, control, censor every single conversation in China. They have the means and wherewithal to do it around the world. Large Chinese companies are 'state organs' and the notion that TikTok data would be used for all sorts of advantage is legit. Google and FB can be used as tools of the US, but this is not remotely the same comparison.
It's a new world order, and this action only seems unreasonable because of the person doing it, and the shocking terms.
I expect a little bit more of this to happen, not less.
> Now enter the security issue, which is very real
The national security trope really only affects the government. The global pandemic has had a far greater effect on the economy and has caused far more deaths than any national security incident or terrorist attack.
I think by 'trope' you mean another word ('canard'?) but it doesn't just affect 'government'.
The opposite - it affects everyone.
China is using their networks to steal anything they can get their hands on, influence and bully politicians, students, expats, companies, administrators, researchers.
They are surveilling and collecting information on anyone and everyone for the purposes of pursuing their strategic objectives.
For example - if you have ever spoken out against treatment of Uighurs - you may never be able to enter China. You may get various accounts banned. You may get your peers in trouble (ie WeChat requires someone to 'vouch' for you - if someone vouches for you, and you do something bad, they could face problems).
Depending on how important you are, they could lobby to have your research defunded, slander you in the press, use political leverage. You may never get a chance to work at a Chinese-owned firm.
If you have IP they will nab it, or use leverage information against you should you wish to export into China.
If they can influence your elections, or buy your politicians - they will. See: Belt and Road corruption. [1]
If you know or interact with anyone in HK, and they can use that information in any way to leverage against and compromise the democracy movement, they absolutely will.
Their strategy is bald-faced, it's right out there for everyone to see, there's nothing hidden. The only surprising issue is that there are so many Westerners who weirdly want to believe China is playing the 'modern global citizen' game - when they are obviously playing hardball realpolitik. It's fine if they want to do that, but we have to adjust accordingly.
> But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me
Extremely naive view. China is a totalitarian state that can compel its companies to hand over all private data if asked. In your rosy "presumption of innocence" scenario, by the time they're proven guilty it's too late.
This is preemptive measure that is a prelude to greater 'decoupling' from China. If a hot war breaks out, you don't want the country dubbed the number one strategic threat having access to 25% of citizens phones.
Funny, both the USA [1] and Australia [2] can compel its companies to hand over all private data if asked and regularly exploit the security systems of their own companies with little to no due process to obtain data on people. Nation-states interests are disjoint from those of its people. We need global unity, not petty tribalism if we are to make the world a better place for all. The internet can be a powerful tool for unity, but state actors and other narrow minded selfish actors are currently seeing the value of it and manipulating it to support their political objectives. We need to unite and quash this menace to free societies and global free economies. Recent measures by the current US regime stoop to China's level and usher an era of balkanization that will ultimately destroy the competitiveness of US companies and promote petty nationalism and racism.
> Nation-states interests are disjoint from those of its people.
This is literally the opposite of what is true in a democracy. Of the people, by the people and for the people. You can be cynical as hell, sure, but that will require significantly more justification and evidence to make such an incredibly broad assertion.
To give a clear example: why does the US get data from Apple, Google? To catch criminals. Why does CCP do the same?
>Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible.
Isn't it more like someone from the leaders of the tribe did something so we are holding leadership of the tribe responsible, given the extent that private companies are really extensions of the government?
>But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt
Plea deals means that most people never have their guilt proven, only that they are strong armed into confessing so that harsher punishment isn't given. This is already the norm in any country that practices plea deals.
WeChat isn't some app for government leaders. Its userbase in America are ordinary people in the Chinese diaspora who use it to stay in contact with family and friends worldwide. Like banning Kakaotalk for Koreans or Line for Japanese.
Also, if "all companies in China are really extensions of the government", then what do you call this relationship where Trump forces Bytedance to sell Tiktok to Microsoft and give the U.S. government a share of the profit?
>That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes...
Thomas Jefferson wanted to invade Canada because of the Union Jack flag flying over North America.
We are a government based on natural rights. Part of our responsibility is to defend Western Civilization. It's dangerous to say that China bans US companies for merely failing to censor content. It is the US that is defending innate human rights -- we shouldn't diminish them.
We shouldn't even do business with Saudi Arabia nor China at any level. Then we could build a world based on broader principles.
Working with corrupt authoritarian governments and propping them up to create new markets is just a financial strategy of the US business class. It's why the world is so conflicted and unstable. The US supports any foreign power as long as they help the US. That's fundamentally wrong.
>Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.
This really could be the end of the thread. For years China has banned systems and applications from other parts of the world. The fact it has taken this long to respond with action is stupefying. China would like the benefits of an open internet, but don't want to participate.
The decision is 100% appropriate, but wasn't handled in the best manner.
>For years China has banned systems and applications from other parts of the world.
That statement is a lie. Not a single one of those companies are banned in China, they voluntarily choose to not operate there, mostly due to them not wanting to comply to draconian Chinese laws. In Netflix's case they simply don't want to compete against the local streaming market.
Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Intel, AMD, Cisco, etc are just some of the big techs that's doing very well in China.
It's hard to have a genuine discussion when people are intentionally spreading misinformation.
Political structure has nothing to do with the economics of the situation: one country has access two large markets, the other to only one. Which do you think will succeed in the long run economically?
if normal people can participate in government, is that still a dictatorship?
there is a standard way in which chinese people can become a government official if they choose to.
There is a standard way to join a street gang. That doesn't meant that the street gang rules the neighborhood according to a representative democracy, under which people have constitutional rights.
That's not a wholly accurate characterisation. The internet is regulated in China, in the same way that broadcast media is regulated in the US. You might vehemently disagree with the specifics of Chinese media regulation, but the regulatory principle is the same.
Foreign media companies that choose not to go through the Chinese regulatory system are blocked from operating in China. Google and Facebook have chosen not to operate in China rather than comply with their regulations, but many American media companies have, most prominently the Walt Disney Company.
There is a fundamental difference between having a legible and uniform regulatory system and arbitrarily banning companies based on the whims of the executive. If a Chinese company started beaming satellite TV channels into the US that flagrantly violated FCC rules, we would fully expect the FCC to take strenuous enforcement action. You or I might consider Chinese attitudes to freedom of speech abhorrent, but the regulation of Chinese media is a matter of Chinese sovereignty.
Calling China's firewall "regulation" is a bit of an understatement, and framing it as Facebook and Google have "chosen not to operate" is very clever. At best it's an oversimplification rather than straight up propaganda but either way it's not one would call especially accurate because the principles aren't the same. While I'm sure the FBI, DHS, and DEA would love to get their hands on everyone's private communications, the courts, even at their most egregious, have resisted legalizing the blanket dragnet of the plaintext of American citizens' private communications that the Great Firewall is designed to enable of Chinese citizens. (Which is their right to do as a sovereign nation.) Thus calling it the same thing is like saying that a card board box is the same thing as a McMansion - they both provide shelter, but upon closer inspection, they're clearly not, in any way, equal, unless you wilfully ignore the details.
> the regulation of Chinese media is a matter of Chinese sovereignty
And the freedom of that media is a matter of basic human rights.
Your argument can be summarized as saying it's ok for China to deny fundamental human rights (free speech) to Americans as long as it is simultaneously denying those same rights to Chinese people because it's "a matter of Chinese sovereignty." I don't agree. Fundamental human rights are just that, fundamental.
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
The Chinese government sets their (extremely authoritarian) rules on censorship for companies to legally operate in China but the rules apply to everyone equally.
Chinese companies of course have to comply, but foreign companies have the choice to comply or not. Google chose to comply initially but decided to pull out later on. Microsoft/Apple choose to comply and are still operating in significant ways in China.
In contrast, US is proposing to ban TikTok, Huawei, DJI without clear rules: the reason to ban these companies is that they are Chinese companies. In other words, Chinese companies are "born a crime" to the US in the current climate, without the need to show what rules are violated or evidence of wrongdoing.
China also doesn't have the monopolistic power in tech that the US does: forbidding Google to operate in China it's not the same as forcing app stores to de-list certain apps globally.
It's even more absurd to force ByteDance to sell their US business to a US company. If the US feels justified that this could be done on "national security" ground, why shouldn't EU do the same to US tech companies?
I do hope that US citizens see that for much of the world, US is no longer the champion of free market, promoter of free-speech or guardian of world-order. All that matters is if these values benefit US economically or politically.
The US lost it when Japan was economically sanctioned for its competitive auto/electronic sector in 1980s. China is taking the same heat today and India would be the next target if India were to want to play its role on the international stage. The best outcome for the world would be to have multiple strong economies globally that keep each other in check; rather than one country having monopolistic power over all globally significant online forums.
> The Chinese government sets their (extremely authoritarian) rules on censorship for companies to legally operate in China but the rules apply to everyone equally.
Censorship requirements are the least restrictive Chinese law.
It's cool you linked a first hand source! But what are you trying to point out specifically? A quick look seems the list is rather reasonable and not very long. It's some "cultural heritage" stuff like tea, ceramics, etc... some military related things and a very limited subset of resource extraction and chemical/biomedical production (things that aren't cutting edge from what I can tell)
Catalogue of Prohibited Foreign Investment Industries
X. Art, Sports and Entertainment Industries
1. News agencies
2. Business of publishing, producing, master issuing, and importing of books, newspaper and periodical
3. Business of publishing, producing, master issuing and importing of audio and visual products and electronic publications
4. Radio stations, TV stations, radio and TV transmission networks at various levels (transmission stations, relaying stations, radio and TV satellites, satellite up-linking stations, satellite receiving stations, microwave stations, monitoring stations, cable broadcasting and TV transmission networks)
5. Companies of publishing and playing of broadcast and TV programs
6. Companies of films making, issuing, business
7. News website, network audiovisual service, on line service location, internet art management
8. Construction and management of golf course
9. Gambling industry (including gambling turf)
10. Eroticism
Nice to know the Chinese Communist Golf Course lobby is alive and effective though! :)
Yeah, the tea and herbs part is the first part, near the middle and end you start to see things like heavy industry.
There's a Marxist concept called "commanding heights of the economy" which refers to things like public utilities and transportation.
Theoretically a socialist government can retain control of this limited set of industries while letting foreign capital develop the others, so that the capital can't totally control the government.
I'm definitely not saying that the Chinese government is in anyway a good example worthy of our compliments. That discussion however is off topic here.
If the US were prepared to backtrack on its reputation as the leader of free market then the US could instate equivalent laws in the US: "telecom equipment must be domestically manufactured by local businesses or by companies jointly owned by American citizens" would be a generically enforceable law, that's equivalent to what you cited. Huawai would have no option other than to comply and exit the US market or find local partners.
The problem is that's not what the US is proposing to do; rather the US is making unsubstantiated claims that ALL Chinese companies are born a crime and should not operate in the US in any meaningful way.
And look how Apple was treated. In 2015 their iBooks and iTunes Movies stores were first approved, but then six months later suddenly banned without warning or explanation. Why should China be surprised if the US reciprocates?
>. In other words, Chinese companies are "born a crime" to the US in the current climate, without the need to show what rules are violated or evidence of wrongdoing.
The problem isn't that their Chinese. It's that they have implicit and explicit support from the Chinese government that give them a leg up on non-Chinese companies.
The statement "they have implicit and explicit support from the Chinese government" is really indistinguishable from "the problem is they are Chinese".
The problem isn't the ethnicity or country per se, it's the state-partnership and monopoly system (intertwining them with a totalitarian regime persecuting a million Uighurs in realtime).
What does ByteDance has to do with the persecution of Uighurs more than what Amazon/Google/Microsoft has to do with the killing in Iraq/Iran/Middle East incurred by the US? I don't have evidence for the latter but it seems like neither do you for the former?
The founder of ByteDance has on multiple accounts critised the Chinese government: this is not an easy thing to do in China but blaming Chinese government's behaviors on a privately owned tech startup is a bit over the top.
I think it's not very productive to discuss if one form of atrocity is worse than the other. It's terrible that we have to compare them at all.
Just like I wouldn't blame US's actions in the middle east on Amazon/Google; I don't see why it's fair to associate ByteDance with what's happening to Uighurs.
There are many things going wrong in the world, the question is if we are on the right path towards solving them. I would argue the current escalation is not helping but rather stir up tribalism which is not going to be our solution.
Funny enough, it is not. Of course, one of the reason Google got banned was because Baidu, its competitor watches it all the time, and every time it is not following the law, Baidu will file a complaint for it. Foreign businesses make good money in China.
Yeah, "unequal" doesn't make sense. How about "hypocritical". By doing this the US loses a lot of its footing to criticize China's behavior. The US is supposed to be the land of the free, but this looks less than free.
>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. //
I guess the "only for those people living within the bounds of USA." was inadvertently missed off the end there? /s
I think the 14th amendment to the Constitution strictly speaking says that "any person" (contrasted to Citizens) under the auspices of the USA should get equal treatment in law too.
>No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive _any person_ of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. //
Maybe this doesn't apply with federal laws (if so, what does restrain them??).
Thats not unequal. They did it to us, so we are doing it to them. This is how trade relations have worked since forever.
It is not complicated. If another country engages in negative trade actions to us, it seems reasonable to do similar trade sanctions against them, so that we are treating them similarly to how they are treating us.
This is the basis of most international trade agreements and relations.
If a country puts a tariff on you, then it is almost certain that a tariff will be put on them as well.
If you don't respond, then you are letting people take advantage of you, and it encourages them to continue to do it in the future.
This is basic trade relations, and game theory 101. This is simple stuff. This is how international relations works on numerous different fronts.
It is simple accepted, basic, and uncontroversial, that, in international relations, when a country does a bad thing to you, then there is often a response to that bad thing, and you don't just let them get away with it.
This is uncontroversial to anyone who knows anything about international relations.
The person you responded quite clearly stated it was an approximation to other trade situations. Your response reads as a little disingenuous given the text above, but if it was genuine the "trade" is the provision of services for the exchange of money with Chinese-owned apps. Providing software services like any other service, and indeed like physical goods, is trade all the same.
Tariff may not have been a perfectly analogous choice, but prohibition can also be seen economically as an infinite tariff. China has put bans (infinite tariffs) on a great many US and other foreign companies' services and this is some, comparatively small, reciprocation.
> This is uncontroversial to anyone who knows anything about international relations.
You'll find even most intellectual types don't have a first clue about how the global chess board works. Or, if they have some inkling, they're too busy entertaining some idealism to be in the stage of acceptance.
HN wouldn’t have a first clue about most things, global or not. Comments around any controversial article/topic turn into a dumpster fire. It’s amusing and depressing to see. Not sure when it got this bad or if it was like this from the beginning.
I think reciprocal would be more like the 50% local ownership plus government oversight just like China does. It just doesn't look good that they're singled out to be sold off 100% seemingly for being successful with their only issue being that they have been hoovering up data which isn't that unusual for an app.
China didn't ban them, they just asked them to play by Chinese Rules. I think it should be the same. Instead of Banning the US should setup what US rules they expect international companies to play by, as should the EU etc.
Incorrect in the case of Apple. The government first approved their iBooks Store and iTunes Movies, then six month later, in 2016, shut them down, in what the NYT called a "startling about face". Apparently the Chinese authorities could not abide by the possibility of a foreign company purveying books and movies in China. There is nothing straightforward about "playing by Chinese rules".
If you read the executive orders it's clear that "don't be controlled by or an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party" is the rule they're going for.
And if that standard just happens to be impossible for any Chinese company to meet ...
Netflix is not banned explicitly. They just can't get a license to operate in China. In addition, VPNs are actively hunted down by the Chinese government so legally speaking VPNs are banned in China, which means a Chinese resident won't be able to watch Netflix anyway -- that is, Netflix is practically banned.
There's douyin for china and tiktok for everywhere else.
Chinese companies go to the effort of creating separate apps to comply with the laws and cultures of other countries. Why can't American companies do the same and obey Chinese law? Yet again, "American Exceptionalism" strikes again.
Also see LinkedIn and Bing, which disproves the idea that it's all some plot masterminded by Beijing to only allow Chinese companies to succeed.
If you claim to stand for free trade, you can't go along in these protectionism wars without losing a lot of credibility and, along with that, soft power.
And you can't operate free-trade style in a world where you have bad actors like China reaping all the benefits while being protectionist and therefore preventing their trade partners from seeing the same benefits.
Saying the US should just press forward with free trade is like saying it is X company's fault for failing when the entire reason they fail is because Y company is behaving anti-competitively, and that behavior is not being curbed by a higher power.
Except in this case there is no higher power to slap China on the wrist. So the only recourse the US (and honestly the rest of the world has) is to be protectionist right back until China realize that everyone wins if we all cooperate, nobody does if we don't.
This is classic prisoner's dilemma, except where the US has been letting China keep pressing "tattle" while the US keeps pressing "keep mum". It had to end at some point.
Sure, if it were a clearly communicated retaliation to a specific protectionist act of China. But it's not, and it is relevant to consider the context in which this measure happens to understand how this can be perceived.
The current administration has had numerous unproductive scuffles with allies and trading partners to renegotiate trade agreements, after running a presidential campaign on a protectionist platform, promising to return manufacturing jobs to the US.
After these negotiations were largely unsuccessful, close to the next presidential election, the administration abruptly locks in on one of the only globally successful social media companies that isn't US-controlled and insists that it must be purchased by a US-based company in order to continue operations in the US, without even attempting to resolve the issue through regulation. Due to the size of the US market, the company is bound to give in.
Of course, I'm deliberately telling the story in a biased way, but (as someone not from the US) I do feel that the US has been steadily on the way down as a credible defender of the principles of free trade. And this is just one more incident to add to the pile.
> And you can't operate free-trade style in a world where you have bad actors like China reaping all the benefits while being protectionist and therefore preventing their trade partners from seeing the same benefits.
China was pretty poor country when it opened up. When it opened, all the western companies that agreed to their terms weren't doing it just to help out but they wanted a piece of that huge marked to get rich.
China managed to get a better deal than a lot of other countries who were basically plundered. Saying China is "reaping all the benefits" is just absurd. Western countries made countless of billions in China.
I did not realize that free trade is such a failed system, that it completely breaks down when not enforced by gunboat diplomacy.
All this time, I was taught that it is a positive-sum, virtuous system that improves everything it touches - and that military interventions that enforced it were purely altruistic humanitarian acts, that were done for the targeted countries' own good.
Which is it? Is it a fragile house of cards that we have spread in self-serving ways? Or is it actually a robust positive-sum ideal that we should aspire to? (And therefore, we should ignore defectors, as they only hurt themselves.)
No, it breaks down when an actor realizes that they can get all of the benefit and then some if they don't participate in good faith yet everyone else continues to do so.
This then leads to a "tragedy of the commons" situation, which is a fairly well-established idea.
So, it always has to be enforced through gunboat diplomacy?
It sounds like a failed system, then - can we move over to some other economic model, that does not require coercion or a constant threat of war to function?
Unilateral coercion is not the basis for a free society, or free relationships between societies. It is utterly incompatible with sovereignty and democracy, and the ability of countries to decide their own internal policies.
No, it needs to be enforced by either a higher power (which doesn't currently exist for the world) or by not allowing countries to do this. This can happen either through gunboat diplomacy or by economic actions like the ones this entire thread is about.
As to your addendum, I am unaware of an economic model that intrinsically solves such problems of peaceful coordination between nation states.
The question is who is the actor with good faith though. The US is arguably the player with the most foreign aggressive interventions (often economic) since WW2. The US is all about free trade when it benefits them but the second that is no longer the case, it's over with fair free trade.
People outside US and other super powers, like the Soviet Union and now China, has always preferred the US as the lesser evil. But we have no illusions that there is a leveled playing field, the US is using all its might to land deals in its favor.
I stand for free trade, but it's not "free" when trading with a country that doesn't share our values. How someone can advocate for a minimum wage or health and safety protections for a European or US company, but then turn around and advocate trading with a country with no such protections baffles me. There is no outcome except that our economy will become disadvantaged while at the same time encouraging the erosion of democracy and human rights around the world.
This isn't free trade. There would be no point of other countries existence if they share same values. The reason so many countries exists is because they don't share the same values. The US famously fought its independence war because it doesn't share british values where there is no delegation even paying taxes for colonies
Exactly. We should look at results, not legal frameworks -- they are different in the two countries anyway. Plus, free trade is all about be fair. Why would the US let Chinese company make huge amount of money when the US companies can't be treated quid pro quo? For the ideal of "free trade" or "globalization is good" or "one globe one people"? I respect that, but I don't want to be the person who sustain the loss.
Not sure why people downvote the above. Do they dispute the truth of the parent's statement? Google and Facebook were in fact active in China, until the 2009 Urumqi terrorist attacks happened. The Chinese government then asked for Facebook to release personal details of suspects. Facebook refused. They only got banned after that.
The Chinese government installed new monitoring and censorship laws. Google didn't want to comply, so they got out.
In both cases, those companies either voluntary got out, or got kicked, based on clear conditions. You can of course discuss whether those laws and conditions are ethical, but that is besides the point. In case of the current US bans, there are no conditions. Chinese companies get kicked and there is nothing they can comply to.
Furthermore,the US govt is actively "encouraging" other countries to ban Chinese companies too. Recently they said Brazil would face "consequences" if they do not. Did China ever tell other countries to ban Facebook?
And the US govt said that if Tiktok sells, they must pay a chunk of money to the govt, which is... Unusual. China didn't do anything like this.
I see your view, but I think you’re comparing a US company operating in China on equal footing with a Chinese company operating in the US which they aren’t either because of monopoly reasons, state backing, or cultural advantage (US company in China has to deal with Uighur backlash and censorship which is intolerable, but not so for Chinese businesses).
We also can’t dismiss the nature of a law. A law may be sufficiently heinous that it loses its validity, which I think many Chinese laws qualify as they are so broad they are as some CCP members have stated, being like the sword of Damocles with the specific intent to terrorize and allow the government flexibility to do what it wants under the image of ‘rule of law’ which it obviously isn’t.
Yes, the nature of the law shouldn't be dismissed. But don't you think it's up to the citizen of that country to judge the validity of that law, and not up to outsiders?
Mass protests in China do happen. When people really are dissatisfied, they do speak up, and it does happen that the government listens. For example in 2019 there were mass protests in Guangdong about building a cemetery. People mass protested, some even vandalized and got arrested. But in the end, the peaceful protesters didn't get in trouble, and the government gave people what they wanted. https://mothership.sg/2019/12/news-china-protests-wenlou-hua...
The situation in China isn't as black & white, or as dystopian, as what many believe, even though there's still plenty of room for improvement.
Well, double standard obviously. Just in 2020, there are already quite a few cases that China did something deemed evil and some western country did something similar maybe almost the same but viewed as righteous. Then here comes the question, are there good evil and bad evil? If no, how to explain such a difference?
No, that's not true. Google was hacked by Chinese government, multiple times. Google was harassed by Chinese government, multiple times. And I'm not talking about some conspiracy theory. Let me give examples that were publicly reported. Did you know that Google's DNS was hijacked and redirected to baidu.com? Did you know that Google was forced to stop its business because of a single phone call that Google's search results returned so called porn pictures, when baidu hosts millions of more? Did you know that the Chinese government never gave Google a list of blocked phrases, yet it expected Google to come up with the ones that met their "regulation". When Google couldn't, Google was punished.
Yeah, Google didn't play by Chinese rules, as if they could. If this is not banning, I don't know what is.
Besides, the US government did play by the rule of the US regulation. For one, did ByteDance seek clearance from CFIUS when purchasing music.ly?
It forces the other party to change their behavior or at least gives you leverage to make a deal where both parties would agree on some equal set of rules. Here, the freedom to use US social media apps in China and vice versa.
It's an interesting turn of events, and I'm at least curious to see how this turns out. This is definitely not the start of WW3, as some have proclaimed, just US doing the same trick as China has been doing. Tensions were a lot higher during the Cold War.
Technically this is the beginning of the next WW3, we're in the negotiation and economic pressure strategy stage - like starting to take away toys and access from a child who is behaving badly or unacceptably; easiest to reference the concentration camps the CCP is operating for million+ Uighurs, where the United Nations has accused CCP of genocide.
India has clamped down banning, and other nations and politicians - perhaps under pressure of their citizens, are waking up, becoming aware - or at least enough that politicians can then more safely take action without succumbing to propaganda coming from CCP and other bad actors who are consistently trying to undermine democracies.
In one way, yes, it seems like reciprocity, but the impact here seems to be larger than a diplomatic dispute: China is communist, US is free (in terms of public imaging). So in that positioning, while China as a communist, authoritarian nation would be the type to ban online services, the US is supposed to be "better than that."
In any case, I think that the result of this is more that TikTok will sell at an even cheaper price, since it's coming from a position of weakness, not strength. And for WeChat -- who in the west actually uses it? The impact there I believe is a slight dip in Tencent Holdings' stock price, which will quickly bounce back.
>Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media.
Yes, which is bad for China, because it robs the Chinese people of choice. As Milton Friedman said when speaking on tariffs, "why do to yourself what you do to an enemy at war?"
China engages in censorship and limits the freedom of their people, so we're going to do the same to stick it to them? Excuse me if I don't see the logic
Milton Friedman really didn't seem to understand that tarriffs are used to develop comparative advantage. This could be because viewed comparative advantage as static and immutable.
George Washington, for instance, signed the Hamilton tariff of 1789 to help develop infant industries which England was preventing from getting off the ground with tarriff-less trade.
Milton Friedman's proscriptions made sense for America at the time he made them. America was in the dominant industrial position England was in in 1789, it wanted every other country to tear down THEIR tariffs too, just as England wanted America to tear down theirs. Better if everybody buys American rather than home growing industry, right?
Now that America's industrial might is waning MiltonFriedman's influence is becoming weaker and his ideas look more and more dated.
The US power isn't waning. TikTok literally is the only Chinese app that even has made it outside of China, because their isolationist nature has essentially made every other product entirely unattractive, while US tech dominates the globe.
Over the long term Friedman has been proven right over and over again. Protectionism doesn't work, and the US doesn't need to piss their pants because there's one app encroaching on their market.
Giving a government with already authoritarian tendencies in the US power over means of communication is completely ridiculous. This is the same tactic the US attempted to use in the 80s/90s to stop competition from Japanese carmakers and it ruined the American car industry for a solid 20 years.
American entrepreneurs can deal with competition from China, regardless of what China does in their domestic market, there's no need to engage in the same tactics as China.
The exact same discussion btw also happened in the 60s when Samuelson predicted that the Soviet Union would overtake the US economically. Literally every generation some other autocratic country temporarily scares the crap out of Americans, then they fail, and yet nobody appears to learn anything from it.
>Over the long term Friedman has been proven right over and over again.
By what? There's literally a hundred other examples like George Washington's I could point to all the way from China's meteoric rise to the Asian tigers where comparative advantage was developed with judicious application of tariffs. They all disprove Milton Friedman's hypothesis.
This isn't about TikTok. TikTok is small fry. Nonetheless, it's part and parcel (along with the Huawei bullshit) of America's dawning realization that China has not only reached technological parity on most fronts, but it is leapfrogging America. You don't roll out the tariffs when you're top dog, you patronizingly tell every other country that it isn't in their interests instead. That's what Milton Friedman did.
Google "surrendered" multiple times before backstepping their decision, most recent of which was the project Dragonfly that was shut down less than two years ago.
I don't think that's reciprocity. China has punished its citizens for being born in China by banning FB et al. In response, the US has punished its own citizens by banning WeChat et al. Reciprocity would mean that Xi is banned from using Facebook while Trump is banned from WeChat.
This "we'll be like the worst examples in the rest of the world" is not a winning strategy. It is simply remarkable that anyone in the US, much less anyone learned, could cheer this nonsense on.
Further Trump didn't just say they had to be sold, but instead they have to be sold specifically to a US buyer. That is...incredible. He is effectively engaged in technology piracy. Then again he just announced new tariffs on Canadian aluminum -- leaving Russian and Chinese aluminum untouched, and just after the ratification of the revised NAFTA -- under the guise of "national security", so it's into serious parody territory now.
The US is currently a corrupt banana republic.
Regardless, China has an enormous number of US targets they can and likely will retaliate against. And when they do, be sure to thank Trump.
Because this bully behavior breeds more bullies. It's a viscious cycle that typically ends with bloodshed. We should know better after two devastating world wars caused by the exact same mentality.
If you really think Trumps rhetorics will end with only messaging apps, you are short sighted and have short term historical memory
But if war is inevitable then better it occur sooner rather than later (as the CCP are becoming evermore powerful and aggressive). Imagine how much death could’ve been prevented if the world had stood up to Hitler earlier.
Tibet, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan, India, the millions of people suffering from severe drought as a result of Chinese Mekong River dams (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), the South China Sea conflicts, the Wuhan Virus, etc.
In an ideal world, the rest of the world would join Trump in isolating China through bans and tariffs.
In an ideal world us companies wouldn't move all operations to China since the 90s thus giving China the power they wield now.
Corporation greed and uber-consumerism brought us here, not China. China's the symptom.
People warned about this in the 90s. But the messages were ignored because of shiny products. Are you willing to think harder now given the prices we pay for not doing so?
Let's say China is the world biggest problem. The last few years Trump worked on destroying ties with US biggest allies thus weakening the coalition against China.
Succumbing to his bully rhetoric while ignoring the amount of damage he did is dangerous.
Best it occur under competent leadership, not those more towards incompetence and war mongering who will use the guise of the cost (monetary and life) of war to loot society even further.
I wrote this comment I'm pasting below (as to not waste it) because I could no longer post it as person deleted their comment, they seemed to have difficulty understanding that US behaviour wasn't akin to the CCP's behaviour:
Perhaps lesser of two evils argument is easier to grasp? There don't seem to be any reports of genocide being conducted against any populations in the US vs. the CCP with their concentration camps for million+ Uighurs - which the United Nations has accused the CCP of genocide at. There is freedom of speech in the US as well, and no mass censorship systems - so we can be more sure that this news would surface if it was happening - whereas because the CCP does have mass control-censorship systems, what comes out of it is more rare; "China Uighurs: A model's video gives a rare glimpse inside internment" - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53650246
I am aware of Trump administration treating immigrants and people crossing the border badly, separating children from their families, etc. This would be an apples to orange comparison however, as the CCP is a longstanding tyrannical hierarchy, and Trump is a symptom of bad actors attempting to loot America for decades - leading to regulatory capture, a two party political system with spoiled politicians on both sides, etc. Trump's the wakeup call, amplified by the dangers of the pandemic not being handled well due to a wholly incompetent admin.
There is clearly a benefit to CCP having access to a global social network, let alone from the potential monetary value it has, it's also a source of potentially manipulating billions of people - or spying, limiting reach of those anti-CCP, and potentially at some point actually targeting those people online or even in person. This strategy is the Maoism and Nazi playbooks amplified and facilitated by current technology. They've also been making massive investments in developing countries in attempts to make economic footholds and have influence there; if someone can't see that they're attempting to spoil the bunch while maintaining lead control then they're blind or naive.
Fortunately India's leadership sees the danger and took steps to ban the apps. At minimum it's economic punishment for bad behaviour that isn't considered acceptable, it's notice that we're no longer going to allow them to participate in our economies nor benefit from them if they maintain this level of bad behaviour. We do have an addiction problem to low cost produced Chinese goods, primarily independent companies who moved operations there to compete at lower prices - thus forcing other companies to move operations there in order to compete, the solution being creating an artificial barrier to entry via import taxes so it's not cheaper; because there are external costs that haven't been being accounted for, in part that of giving economic power to a tyrannical organization like the CCP.
You know what would've stopped Hitler? If after WWI the winners weren't bent on humiliating and destroying Germany's economy, thus creating a perfect ground for anti democratic nationalistic regime that offered stability as opposed to the chaos democracy supposedly brought.
Well, the bigger concern for the world right now should be the US, and their vicious campaigns to undermine any sort of fight against global warming, the most pressing concern our civilization has ever faced. China is at least officially part of the Paris accord.
Not to mention, the ecological and humanitarian devastation that the US and its close allies have been causing around the world is probably even worse than China's horrible acts with the Uyghurs and Tibetans and in other places it is trying to dominate.
I normally hate it when people bring up the slippery slope fallacy, mostly because they don't actually understand it, but that's the sort of argument that you are making.
It's not an unfair question, though. But it dismisses the fact that humans usually find stopping points; that their decisions don't boil down to a series of if-then statements. We have warred for millennia, and yet we haven't totally obliterated ourselves.
This is all-or-nothing thinking and not comparable.
Blocking access, along with blocking economic benefit, isn't akin to physical harm or violence - it's the economic pressure strategy in an attempt to avoid and sway a bad actor towards better behaviour.
Your "eye for an eye" argument is also arguably shallow fear mongering towards taking appropriate, reasonable, non-violent steps.
Reciprocity doesn't justify repressing human rights. The pursuit of happiness is a human right. Some people pursue happiness by making dancing mobile apps and earning money with them. If China decides to limit that right it doesn't justify the US also limiting that right.
Of course this is tiny compared to the much more extreme human rights violations we see in China, the US, and elsewhere. But we should uphold rights and rule of law in all cases.
The US doesn't limit human rights. People who pursue happiness are still free to do it.
There are certain concerns around a particular corporate entity and a particular government directly associated with that entity, that has a track record of economic espionage, IP infringement, and denying US companies access to its country's market on competitive terms (the conditions that the US has been guaranteeing to almost every foreign business, until recently). And due to the found evidence of spying activity, and in the light of concerns about national security, the entity is denied access to the US market, as the entity seems to be an unfair player.
As for the human rights, if you are associated with CCP and are in support of it, from the moral standpoint there's no ground for treating you according to the Declaration of Independence, and not according to the Marxist norms declared in the CCP Constitution.
The US has killed thousands of civilians in its countless wars in the last decades. Just think of all the stuff that happened after 9/11 with Guantanamo Bay.
Yes, US citizens have much more right than Chinese citizens but when it comes to the rest of the world, the US so far has a worse track record than China.
> The US has killed thousands of civilians in its countless wars in the last decades.
> Just think of all the stuff that happened after 9/11 with Guantanamo Bay.
Name the people out there, and then we try to discern if they are terrorists or civilians.
I'm sure you haven't been under authoritarian regime once in your life, have you? I suggest you try living in Iran or Palestine for a while and then, with your first hand experience at hand, we can discuss who kills civilians by thousands.
If you haven't noticed, native Hongkongese have been begging the US to intervene recently. They know exactly how it feels when an authoritarian regime takes freedoms away from you.
>As for the human rights, if you are associated with CCP and are in support of it, from the moral standpoint there's no ground for treating you according to the Declaration of Independence, and not according to the Marxist norms declared in the CCP Constitution.
I'm not sure if "you" is referring to me specifically or to people in general. I definitely am not associated with CCP and I definitely don't support it. But there is a moral ground for treating CCP supporters according to the Declaration of Independence. It says "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". It doesn't say "all men who agree with my politics are created equal, [...]".
We should hold ourselves to our own standard. We shouldn't hold ourselves to our opponent's standard.
> But there is a moral ground for treating CCP supporters according to the Declaration of Independence.
check your premises, because the principle here should be the same as one behind the morality of an action of self-defense, when a physical force is applied on those who initiated a physical force in the first place. If the morality of CCP contradics the one that laid foundation for the Declaration of Independence, and if proponents of the former are actively seeking to destroy the freedoms that the Declaration proclaims unalienable, their actions put them outside these freedoms automatically, and retaliation is the moral action that seeks to stop the destroyers.
I agree if TikTok is infringing on other people's rights, something should be done to stop that. If TikTok is violating current laws, they should be dealt with according to those current laws they are violating. If they are not violating any current laws, that should be rectified by writing laws to protect the rights of the people who are having their rights violated by TikTok.
They can do those things on other apps, perhaps apps not published by Chinese companies that offshore user data to circumvent privacy rights.
And you're right: This is tiny. It's tiny enough that such a big question like, "Shouldn't the right to pursue happiness prevail?" should appear unfit to ask in its context.
I'd like to ask what rights and rule of law were upheld by even permitting Chinese products in the US economy, given allowing Chinese products is in effect financing the violation of rights on the other side of the planet?
>They can do those things on other apps, perhaps apps not published by Chinese companies that offshore user data to circumvent privacy rights.
If there's a rule that Chinese apps can't be used in the US, that rule should be put into law, not enforced via arbitrary executive orders. If there's a rule that companies must store their user data onshore, that rule should be put into law, not enforced via arbitrary executive orders.
>"Shouldn't the right to pursue happiness prevail?" should appear unfit to ask in its context.
It's about precedent. Just like the FBI tried to set precedent on phone decryption on an "obviously good" case against terrorists. Once the legal overreach happens once, it will keep happening. Rights need to be protected from the very beginning.
>I'd like to ask what rights and rule of law were upheld by even permitting Chinese products in the US economy, given allowing Chinese products is in effect financing the violation of rights on the other side of the planet?
It's the rule of law of what happens in the US. If the US creates a law imposing harsh tariffs on countries that abuse human rights, then enforces that law, that's rule of law (in the US). As-is we have somewhat free trade. We can only enforce rule of law in our own borders. If we want to really enforce rule of law on other countries we'd have to invade them. We've done it before, but I'm not a fan.
Nothing is banned, you follow domestic censorship laws you get to play. Every domestic companies has to, it's onerous, and level playing fields. FB, Google still sell billions in ads to China, they were engineering compliant services to return.
Legal reciprocity is China following US laws, which it does. Functional reciprocity is forcing Chinese companies to enter JV and tech transfer - while providing Chinese companies massive land and tax subsidies. I'm sure TikTok would love that compared to forced sales.
But just to be clear, while I shit on US a lot, there's rational grounds for banning Chinese media companies only because there's such structural asymmetry, i.e. even if twitter was legal, it can't be weaponized to undermine Chinese interests because it must comply to Chinese censorship laws. But this EO is just a dumb way to do it because it opens US interests to much more global blowback. US is pissed at these companies domestically, the international resentment is even greater.
You do know that China is SIGNIFICANTLY better than US in trade fairness according to WTO statistics right? Like it's NOT EVEN CLOSE. Even if you normalize for accession time, and the fact that China had more onerous accession protocols. China has 1/3 of the complaint of US. Also go look up dispute resolution adherence. China also adheres to rulings more consistently than US, who by the way is locking up the WTO dispute resolution system by blocking judges, despite being the largest abuser of the system. Again, by far.
>China was involved in 65 disputes with 9 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 2001 through 2018. China has been the complainant 21 times and the respondent 44 times.
>United States was involved in 279 disputes with 42 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 1995 through 2018. The United States has been the complainant 124 times and the respondent 155 times.
For comparison
>The EU was involved in 190 disputes with 28 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 1995 through 2018. The European Union has been the complainant 104 times and the respondent 86 times.
> Canada was involved in 63 disputes with 11 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 1995 through 2019. Canada has been the complainant 40 times and the respondent 23 times.
Yup, China, a massive trading nation is about as bad as Canada. US, one of the least trade dependent nations is worse than EU (2nd worst offender) a coalition of countries with their own interests, many of whom trades massively. Let that set in.
The real issue is, Chinese protectionist policies disproportionately disadvantages western tech, industries that's bread and butter of western supremacy and has huge lobbying voices. That's true everywhere for strategic industries. Canada cries in Bombardier, Boeing laughs. But absolutely threatenning if China is actually competitive in said industries, i.e. all the US anxiety after Made in China 2025 -> Huawei -> IC -> TikTok. Mcdonalds, Coke, Ford... they're doing great as were majority of western companies before tariffs. Regardless, laws are laws, every Chinese company in China learned to comply after growing pains... so FAANG with more resources can't? I mean they didn't want to before because it required a lot of expensive human moderation... which Chinese companies spend resources developing. Guess what, last few years western platforms had to build the same moderation infrastructure to deal with violence China had. That's why Google and Facebook was comfortable reentering the market. If US wants a different set of laws for Chinese companies, go legislate them, like China does. Instead of arbitrary EOs. You know how US claims Chinsese companies are subservient to CCP... except can't find evidence of it. Meanwhile US pulls entities lists on Huawei and EOs according to electioneering, proving that US companies are absolutely subservient to gov. Look hypocrisy is fine, especially if geopolitics involved, but don't try to moralize that you're any better. It looks ridiculous, especially when you're qualitatively and quantitatively worse.
Hmm given all the intellectual theft and bootlegs and knock offs, I suspect the WTO complaints reflect a reality that US complaints mean something and Chinese complaints are a waste of time, thus there are fewer because nothing will be done.
You don't need to suspect or post rationalize. There are literal academic books and many papers analyzing Chinese WTO compliance record in Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), and several explicit compares and contrast US with China and EU, by western researchers. TL;DR: China isn't the devil. The latest one is literally called: China’s Implementation of the Rulings of the World Trade Organization (2019), but studies goes back a decade.
Google the search engine is blocked in China. Google Ads aren't. It used to be the case that if you visited a website with Google Ads from China without VPN, most of those ads would be for VPN services. Last year, Google stopped showing VPN ads in China to comply with Chinese regulations: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-bans-vpn-ads-in-china/
Chinese buys FB ads to sell in other regions, same with Google. They have other business presence there too. It's small relative to global operations, but point is, if they follow the law, they can operate legally. Like Microsoft.
The question isn't if you can participate but if you should participate which is arguably directly or indirectly supporting and/or benefiting from an economy run by the CCP who also have been accused by the United Nations of genocide at their concentration camps for million+ Uighurs.
> accused by the United Nations of genocide at their concentration camps for million+ Uighurs.
UN did not claim this. Adrian Zenz who works for US interests claimed it meets UN definitions to justify XPCC sanctions despite knowing full well this was going on for past 5 years when policy started. Just like how this entire narrative was started by Zenz in a presentation at a US funded panel affiliated with UN, but not UN itself. The only real UN thermometer is US getting 23 countries to support XJ as a human rights issue, and China getting 56 countries to support it as re-education. UN will never rule this as cultural genocide (what it is) let alone genocide (what it isn't).
CCP also raised 1B out of poverty and is responsible for 30% of global growth, so really on balance a few million Uyghurs+Tibetians+HKers+ eventually Taiwan getting their human rights violated isn't convincing arithmetic for billions in the rest of the developing world who relies on Chinese growth, when magnitudes more are being screwed in Middle East for no tangible gain. CCP bad, but also good.
>Don't you think China's growth could have been possible without all of their tyrannical mechanisms, nor genocides and taking over other people's territory?
What taking over territory? This is another narrative people claim uncritically. CCP claims (AND DISPUTES) are inherited from ROC who inherited from Qing. China had/has the most land borders in the world, and CCP settled 12/14 with a few extremely minor clashes, and all except Pakistan with MORE land concessions (Pakistan wanted to spite India). Chinese territory SHRUNK under CCP. By any measure this is the most relative peaceful ratification of that many borders in shortest period of time. The two remaining unsettled border is India/Bhutan (aka one border)... you can check India's border settlement history (or lack of) to see whose more belligerent. Maritime disputes? Reduced from ROCs 11-dash to 9-dash. All those SCS land reclamation? Out of 6 countries who dispute the territory China was the 2nd last to reclaim land or weaponize any features - Brunei is good boi. Vietnam has twice as many features. It was doing so in response to other countries prior reclamation (and US pivot to Asia). The only difference is China doing her thing at her scale will be greater, even though she's doing it with 2% GDP to military, lower than most in the region and about how much Trump wants NATO to spend. And she's doing so with greyzone tactics and very little force. The only other country with comparable economic size as China ain't advancing geopolitical interests peacefully. Nor many countries considerably smaller, see France in Africa. Sidebar: Japan has active disputes with Russia, South/North Korea, ROC, China, aka every neighbour. Wonder why they don't get any attention. Objectively, China's territorial disputes has been so far resolved in the most peaceful manner given her scale and numbers of again, inherited disputes. Unless you think CCP should abnegate territory for no reason. So US can contain it better? Giving up inherited land and security is political suicide anywhere. She already gave up >51% of land in most disputed land claims, that's down right magnanimous by historic standards.
As for growth + authoritarianism. No. CCP grew from the same model as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, harsh dictatorship -> industrialization / manufacturing -> liberalization (Manchukuo model for Asian Tigers). Except China has 1.4B people and no US protection umbrella, which all those other countries received, so naturally this will take longer. Though full democracy is pipe dream, at best single party dictatorship like Singapore with some liberal values. In the mean time, unlike other Asian Tigers it has to try to grow with an antagonist US building bases to contain her while selling arms to the others even WHILE they were dictatorships. US stopped arms export to China after Tiananmen massacre. They didn't to South Korea after Gwangju massacre. Or Taiwan during White Terror. Hmmm. The fact is CCP had to work harder and smarter than any of those countries to uplift 400m (greater than population of other Tigers combined) into prosperity and 600m above poverty and there's _still_ another 400m in poverty despite eclipsing those countries in pretty much every industry except integrated circuits. The task is that great. Oh also throw in indigenous (copycat) military, space program, nuclear program etc etc. The only other viable model in the 20th century is authoritarian petro states, that doesn't work for 1.4B.
It's not heartless to recognize this. Like acknowledging XJ is ridiculous COIN reaction comparable 911. But at the end of the day, it's <0.1% of Chinese population so... bluntly it's a relatively small atrocity being exploited by Chinahawks for geopolitical ends. My extended family went through cultural revolution, one-child policy (family planning, aka sterilization) it sucked, wasn't genocide. They all live pretty comfortably now because those times ended. And that's one saving grace about CCP, their somewhat technocratic and goal oriented, if a movement doesn't work, it will end or they'll try something else. Not actual genocide though, because that will look bad in Xi's historiography. Re-reducation movements have end conditions. And that's what they are, per leaked internal memos themselves. Only western propaganda like that you cite + Godwin delusions try to paint it as genocide. This is like if people saw Wikileaks video of "Collateral Murder" where US gunships gun down civlians and conclude US is nuking Middle East. It's smooth brained projection. Regardless, these camps will end. Best case scenario in 10 years XJ will be a secular city with developed infrastructure and the people integrated. Or they'll try something with more stick / carrot, but it won't last forever, because unlike US prison industrial complex, or indigenous camps it's not designed to keep them down. All this is to say, analyzing CCP actions is not endorsement of CCP actions. I recognize CCP uses disproportionate force in some domains, but also overall they simply use very little force since opening up, because that's what all metrics point to normalized for Chinese scale. Again CCP bad, they should strive to be less bad, but in aggregate, mostly good. Some of us who follows the subject for a long time can discuss it with nuance without fake news claims "UN accused it of Genocide when it's US propagandist wants to labelled it as such. Or" China bans western social media". Unless you're fine with another Iraq WMD escalation and the aftermath such entails, facts matter.
It seems like you're operating with a different value system to most of the west and at the same time want approval from what is a mostly western message board. This is super apparent in "ends justifying the means" comments on XJ. You're also recycling a bunch of Chinese state media rhetoric on these topics.
The theme of the CCP being flawed but the best the Chinese people can expect b/c insert some state rhetoric here and that without them they'd be at the mercy of the western powers is propaganda. Economic tides have lifted almost every country over the past 50 years because of policies and values put forth by western institutions and worked DESPITE bad governance in some of the world.
Having maintained control of china even after some of the worst public policies of all history (cultural revolution, one-child...) is precisely the reason some are not comfortable with the ccp becoming influential outside chinas boarders.
I'm not seeking approval, nor saying end justify the means. Merely end is inflated by west to justify their means if you follow developments. Which state media topics am I recycling exactly? Every claim can be verified in western literature by subject matter experts and not lazy bylines uncritically accepted during a period of heightened tension when all parties are spewing propaganda. The rest is basic verifiable facts (border ratification) and math (incarceration rate / # hot wars over time). And TBH all I see is people in the west quote their propaganda. And for reference I'm from the west, I just recognize different values and systems and how each has a purpose, i.e. how democratizing too early is how most developing countries get stuck, essentially without exception. Whereas starting authoritarian at least has a few working models. Chinese/ASEAN geopolitics is just something I follow extremely closely for a long time, so I'm able to trace events and sequences properly unlike most people who just quote the latest talking head. Economic tides have not lifted everyone equally. Or else China would be India, or one of the other BRICs that failed to take off. The point is CCP did a great job relatively peacefully, all things considered measured relatively to other parties. CCP is the worst form of government for 1B+ people, except the for all the others. West is never going to be comfortable losing their preeminence, and US its hegemony. That's human nature, bad self rationalization is part and parcel. Take this this conclusion:
>Having maintained control of china even after some of the worst public policies of all history
Both US parties were responsible for slavery. But guess what time moves on, the last few CCP administration did a great job, lot's of progress, some regrettable regress. They're different polity, like Trump is different from Lincoln... both republicans. This is such an obvious observation but somehow all of CCP is treated as one contiguous entity and can only replicate the worst outcomes of past possibility space, i.e. frequent two-brain cell exclamations that TianAnMen 2.0 is going to happen with every incident in PRC, because somehow a massacre that happened at a time when PLA didn't have any anti-riot gear, is suppose to occur today. Or Xi's definitely going to be dictator for life, when his term has only ran for 7 years, Merkel is nearing 15. Ignoring that CCP is already grooming 6th gen of leaders (skipped 5th), aka his successor(s) are lined up. But people uneducated in the topic are too eager to eat propaganda and claim nonsense (like UN + Genocide). So here we are.
Things evolve. A small group of white men in America created the Constitution as a framework - which got rid of slavery, eventually women were allowed to vote, etc. and there's more to do - more evolution toward the ideal system that supports freedom and allows everyone in society to thrive. We've seen this playbook of CCP - Maoism combined with Nazi Germany - just amplified, intensified with modern technology.
I'm curious what your take is on the concentration camps, regardless if you don't believe in the reports of genocide, or if you even know much about it - and whether you even believe any or part of it? Here are some links for you to comment on if you want some references:
They exist, the leaked papers attest to it. Literature on them existed for years prior, and I've been following and disagreeing for years.
Morally it's wrong.
Legally it's cultural genocide.
Domestically it's expected extreme over reaction to terrorism and separatism. There was 100+ Uyghur attacks up to 2017, verifiable on global terrorism db. Strike hard campaign to crack down and the camps didn't start until attacks moved to interior provinces, train stations, airplane hijacking, tiananmen car attack.
Practically suppressing 0.1% of the population for national security is not a difficult choice - attacks stopped after XJ system implemented.
Statistically, it's extreme but small scale human rights abuse, but not on par with actual genocide. Xi wants to be the next Mao, but better. He doesn't want 70% good 30% bad. Eradicating 1/55 Chinese minorities would be more than 30% bad. There's nothing comparable to Nazi Germany, people brought up in west too eager to jump to Godwin. These are Canadian residential schools model of cultural genocide, French deradicalization programs indoctorinate with job retraining. Just executed with Chinese modern capabilities (cameras and databases) and at Chinese scale with ultimate goal of integration. Numerically massive abuse inevitable with anything happening at Chinese scale, even if incidental, or if in relative terms it's small per capita.
Politically, Xi didn't even want these camps. Other factions pushed for it. There was debate about reforming Ethic Policy in China since previous policy based that afforded minorities relative autonomy and affirmative action failed to quell terrorism and separatism. It was the salad bowl model / soviet o'blast, aka multiculturalism. New model is based off US melting pot, everyone gets sinicized and equal treatment. I'm not a fan of Xi, but he was cornered into this by politburo the same way US was pushed into post 911 campaigns. Again, he's not all powerful, factionalism and internal politics at play.
Realistically, they're re-education / de-radicalization camps and there's a good chance they'll work. China has history with work camps and mental indoctorination. It's the industrialization and economic reforms that was difficult, because you know westernbloc sanctions during cold war. Mao was the wrong kind of dictator unlike South Korea or Taiwan. The vocational training component is real, the Uyghur slave labour narrative / aka ASPI Uyghur for sale minimizes the part where the lowest wage they could find was equivalent to Foxcon basic wage and 2x prefecture level wage from many backwater XJ regions. It's well compensated forced labor and cultural indoctrination designed to integrate not eliminate.
Geopolitically, it's being weaponized using many unsubstantiated / manufactured claims from US organizations. We're 3+ years into this and the narrative is still driven by Zenz et al. whose estimates from hundreds of thousands ballooned to 3+ million over 1200 camps with no substantiation. Actual methodological analysis from pro US think tank ASPI only found 180 camps so far. All this is well within nation state capability to verify, but still relies on questionable sources because the reality is not sensational enough to sustain a massive human rights campaign. You need some sweet FLG organ harvesting propaganda and ever changing atrocity porn for salaciousness. Per your articles: "Calls grow" aka "U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom" and a few FVEY + US aligned MPs. Uighur Model, comes with boring Zenz territory. Go geolocate his videos and pictures on the phone he somehow managed to get and see if it lines up with existing camps. 101 confirmation stuff, conveniently missing in all these stories. AGAIN, these camps exist, there's most definitely mistreatment. But convenient how the only salacious stories that make it out are US sponsored and have massive gaps, or omits info. Lot's of countries went to XJ, millions of social media posts on Chinese internet, like 20 million ppl live in the region. Chinese censorship isn't that thorough, things get out domestically ALL the time. See initial covid discontentment. Yet XJ camps... nothing? Regardless, China won't stop because again, 0.1% of the population for domestic security is no shit decision. There's is literally no amount of pressure of sanctions that will make China change. Only if the policies doesn't perform as designed. What west needs to worry about is they have no alternative model. Racial unrest everywhere in liberal world, and if China can offer a commercial package for population control within a few years while west only offers incremental improvements over decades, then west already lost. That's why China has 55 supporters, mostly Islamic. It's not debt trap. Islamic countries dealing with the same problems are curious, and frankly they want to remove "human rights" as a viable diplomatic lever.
Personally, the camps should end, though sinicization should continue. Sinicization =/= becoming Han or desecularizing. China wants to cultivate religion, it's a foreign policy goal to have more loyal Muslims for cultural exchange with predominantly Islamic OBOR countries. But sinicized Muslims with Chinese characteristics. The surveillance system should be toned back if not dismantled as with the apartheid on the ground, even though that's unlikely. Chinese companies have profit motive too, even when the trade is freedom. Prison industrial complex and surveillance is profitable. But it's within politburo power to stop. Equal family planning policy is fine. Though it does mean Uyghur population will stay at replacement level. Yeah Han chauvinists love it but ultimately China aiming for <1B population with family planning, less people is sensible for variety of reasons especially with China's resource constraints.
>Things evolve.
They do and they have. Though uneven, mostly for the better. In Kishore Mahbubani words:
>The greatest explosion of personal freedoms that the Chinese people have experienced in the past 4,000 years has taken place in the last 40 years
This is not hyperbole. Recent Harvard study: Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time. July 2020
>We find that first, since the start of the survey in 2003, Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board. From the impact of broad national policies to the conduct of local town officials, Chinese citizens rate the government as more capable and effective than ever before. Interestingly, more marginalized groups in poorer, inland regions are actually comparatively more likely to report increases in satisfaction.
https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7...
Or recent democratic survey, more Chinese think democracy is important and they live in democracy compared to many western countries.
Or most Chinese people think they have "freedom of speech", freedom being the ability to say what they want privately, because under Mao's actual authoritarian rule, even private speech overheard and reported meant a ticket to the work camps. Now you get left alone. But do so publicly, get invited to cold tea, get detained and released each time over successive times until permanent shit list. It takes work to become a state recognized dissident. The average Chinese aka 95% of the population that doesn't promote separatism, is absolutely freer now than under Mao. The problem is 5% of China is still 70m people. Regardless, this is not the same playbook. Xi's kind of an idiot, but he's sincere. Wikileak's CIA assessment of him was literally, not too smart, but incorruptible. Lot's of jaded people out there who thinks is anti corruption campaign or poverty alleviation goal is all talk. But c'mon, Xi purged 100,000+ for corruption. No one has that many enemies. And poor people is how Chinese rulers loose mandate. He's serious. Maybe it's time a declining democracies elect serious leaders of their own. Take that for what you will. Bowing out of this post now.
> Politically, Xi didn't even want these camps. Other factions pushed for it.
Curious about this. Were the internal discussions leaked? Thought it's hard to tell who the factions even are, and basically impossible to find out what they want.
But if Chinese social media firms are freely operating in the USA why can't the likes of FB and Twitter be allowed same free access in their market. Let's not see this as harming anybody but this is one of the ways to force China to open up and allow foreign businesses(social media) to spread in their domain. Imagine being forced to open a WeChat account just to chat with someone in China. If this kind of business model is allowed to continue only Chinese companies would thrive in the future.
China does it, so it is okay for us to do it is just a very weak defense of this behaviour for us looking at this from outside of China and the US.
The US stood for free markets, democracy and human rights and (at least) pretended to make international decisions based on those values. Now the fig leaf is gone and it is clear that those are mostly used to make transactions to US benefit even if it comes at the cost to others.
If you value something like free markets, you stand by it even if it comes at a cost in the near future. If opaque TikTok recommendation engines are a problem, maybe regulate them in a way that solves the problem in general? That would hurt Youtube, Facebook and co. but it also would make the EU more comfortable in the negotiation for the Privacy Shield successor.
A free market doesn’t exist if a country wants to sell their products cheaply in your country completely untaxed, while taxing your goods to the point of being unattainable. Just like a country can’t reasonably say they deserve unrestrained, free access to your social media market while banning every single product from their country.
A free market means companies compete on their own merits without imbalanced restrictions. This is balancing the restrictions.
They are protecting their own companies against all global competition, irrespective of country. It just happens that only China represents a serious threat to US hegemony in this market.
Edit: This comment was being voted positively (+4) until the US folks started to wake up (now sitting at 0) :)
It is both, and in its arbitrary application, it's even worse than a purely anti-free-market move, because it's not even principled. Isolationism and domestic protectionism, if those were the given reasons, would at least be principled.
The principle is that if you are in support of CCP, you get what you preach, and should be treated according to Marxist norms. Free market is for those who respect and support free market and fair competition.
The principle is just whatever Mr. Trump personally sees and understands as being something that hurts him personally or allows him to make a move that projects his personal image of strong man.
The problem is not even the goal, but the shallowness of the approach. He doesn't appear to be surrounded by people who craft comprehensive strategies that he then understands and ponders deeply before hitting the tweet button.
He had plenty of time to organize a cohesive policy to redefine the relationship with China; this all looks like improvised reaction based on a hunch or worse based on rumors that the Tulsa rally was tanked because of a viral video on tiktok.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong, please give me some stand of hope that we're dealing with a super smart 4d chess player that just behaves like an incoherent senile showbiz person. I might not agree with policies but I'd honestly prefer a competent person to this lunacy.
This whole thing is surreal. We have a chaos-monkey pulling the strings on global economy and order, and we're discussing whether he may or may not have a point on some things. He clearly has a point on something now and then. A random number generator would resonate with parts of the populace even more.
The U.S. was unique for a long time in that they did not ask for much in return for what they did, because they wanted the power (troop deployments in Europe, Hong Kong customs status, etc.).
Recently, Canada used tit-for-tat to deal with U.S. aluminum tariffs, but they're the "nice" country. This is how it all works.
It's a challenging situation a lot like freedom of speech and tolerance. The intolerant people who want to remove freedom of speech are given the freedoms to make those arguments.
I tend to think in the trade situation, it's best to play the long game and try and stay open. Once both sides start banning each other, then it's probably never turning around without some significant leverage gain by one of the parties.
> China does it, so it is okay for us to do it is just a very weak defense of this behaviour for us looking at this from outside of China and the US.
Hardly. Reciprocity is common place in all manners of international relations, be it trade, visas/travel, embassy restrictions, and even warfare. The fact that China has been allowed to conduct themselves this way with little to no retaliation is the outlier, not these new actions.
>We have tariffs against many countries for many different reasons... This is nothing new. That is just how trade relations work.
That's not trade, it's politics. Any economist would point out that tariffs hurt Americans by increasing the prices they pay. Yeah, let's teach those Chinese a lesson by making goods more expensive and reducing our standard of living!
I used to be on this train that tariffs are always bad, but when other countries have them I think there is a benefit to the US having them. It allows the US to capture some of the benefits that this other country is taking. Yes everyone is worse off than without tariffs, but the US is slightly better off from the world where only other countries have them. There is also the additional caveat of industries moving to other countries because of cheap export back to the US - there is a benefit to keeping people employed especially when other countries don’t have ethical labor laws. This results in more expensive goods, but prices in externalities like workers not working in sweatshops.
Exactly the words you should be addressing to CCP, as the modern mainland China is not involved in fair trade, doesn't respect IP laws, and doesn't treat US companies equally on its territory.
Wouldn't that lead to USA having more influence, in the world? When it comes to such things as surveillance, I'm not sure they're any better. Behind, yes, but not by choice and not by far, either.
Pretty sure that's a goal of the US. Regarding surveillance of own citizens China is on a whole different level at the moment which is crazy considering the US is basically a lost cause in that regard too. Everywhere is if we're to be honest with ourselves.
CCP basically equals China and for most intents and purposes, Chinese people. Limiting their influence is just a way of saying to limit the rise and influence of China and the companies/people there, because there's no way for any Chinese person or company that has vested interests in the market there to escape the accusations and comply with any demands from the West except to completely cease operation of business there. Any person from China, or company from China, can simply be canceled by saying "they are a subject of the communist party."
China is far older than the cancer of the CCP and the Chinese people will cut that cancer out eventually. The CCP have been doing it to everyone else and their own for years. The difference is they go to far greater extremes to cancel everything and everyone who doesn't tow the party line. They deserve what's coming to them.
Regardless of how or why, the CCP has majority support by its citizens, even if you as a foreign national disagree. Even if they do not have democracy, they can still vote with their complacency.
Nope. You don’t get to use false equivalence to conflate CCP with all Chinese people. You can’t equate adversity towards the Communist Party as an attack on all Chinese people. It’s sad that their government has such authoritarian control that it works that way, but it’s the Chinese people’s problem to solve if their government causes unacceptable consequences for them.
Yeah, show them the power of the free world by checks notes banning all their apps, which is only constitutionally possible because the app stores are controlled by two American companies, and the ban technically works on the companies rather than banning the apps directly, proving the value of a sophisticated Western legal system!!!
This is just wishful thinking in the current situation. Don’t expect Chinese government to reverse what it has been doing for years in this political shitshow. Chinese living in US are unfortunately sandwiched in the between and helpless.
I recall that FB, Twitter, and Google were all available in China at one point, but they left because they didn’t want to follow China’s information and data laws.
The problem is lack of use of open protocols, not any single company in particular.
Having to sign up with FB or Google to be able to chat with people there is really no different to me (and it was not always the case in case of Goolgle). At least in case of Google, I can still send e-mails to Google accounts from anywhere.
This business model was allowed to continue in US, and now I can't communicate with Google users as I could in the past via jabber.
And how does following suit not in fact ratify the business model because now banning on security grounds is legitimate? (Note that nowhere is the justification or condition stated to be one of reciprocal market access.) Isn't it interesting that there are laws on the books and authority vested in a single man to do this already? If this isn't struck down by the courts, then it just shows to the world, not for the first time, that America's vaunted values are a pretty thin veneer, conveniently discarded when it suits.
This is nonsensical. Even if China bans American social media apps for no reason, that's no reason for us to copy their authoritarian, speech-suppressing tactics.
That being said, China levies rules on foreign companies that are levied across all companies, and some foreign companies don't want to play by those rules. That's totally different from an outright ban based on "national security." Just think about it, how is Wechat/TikTok supposed to even comply with US demands? It's clearly a political move. Plus, Wechat users in American know they're being watched by the communist party, whereas Facebook users don't even know how much they're being watched by the US government...
> Even if China bans American social media apps for no reason, that's no reason for us to copy their authoritarian, speech-suppressing tactics.
There absolutely is a valid reason to be authoritarian towards authoritarians. They get what they preach and deserve. It is the same principle of morality of an action of self-defense, when a physical force is applied on those who initiated a physical force in the first place.
US companies are not forbidden to operate, they don't want to comply with Chinese surveillance laws... Apple who decided to comply indirectly by letting a Chinese company manage the data, is offering all their services there.
This is a public image question for Western world companies more than anything.
The whole reason Apple let a Chinese company manage their customers' data is because the Chinese government changed the law to forbid them operate those kind of cloud services for Chinese customers themselves, the same reason other companies like Amazon have to let Chinese companies run their version of AWS: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...
"In a statement, Apple said it had to comply with recently introduced Chinese laws that require cloud services offered to Chinese citizens be operated by Chinese companies and that the data be stored in China. It said that while the company’s values don’t change in different parts of the world, it is subject to each country’s laws."
Also note how the Chinese government effectively set up and runs this company, so the government more or less forced Apple to give their Chinese operations to them.
I guess, like China, USA is becoming authoritarian state. It is not about reciprocity. USA was considered the beacon of success and role model compared to China. Recent actions by USA justify other countries to do the same against foreign products and services. USA has no leg to stand on when other countries block US products and services. Good luck creating new Apple, Google, and Facebook scale companies.
EU countries don't get to have "national security" that conflicts with the US to more than a trivial extent, like the Airbus/Boeing conflict. That's been a tradeoff that was accepted since the end of WW2. The US now complains about Europe not having strong militaries, having forgotten that for decades it was policy to discourage Europe from having strong militaries in case that started another war.
The US and China only get to play the national security card like this because of a high degree of conventional military and economic power.
My point was that any consideration of the US as a "national security threat" to Germany should take into account the physical national security and ask what national security actually means when there are troops from the other country stationed in yours (along with their associated CIA listening posts etc). It makes it very hard to suddenly treat the US as a hostile power. "The cars have to go but the troops can stay" is obviously nonsense.
I think GP meant to imply that parts of the EU are effectively still US client states and not totally void of US influence on their politics. It's pretty common for top politicians in Germany to be part of some transatlantic organisation set up by the US ("Atlantikbrücke", ...). Same goes for journalists in leading news papers, which will result in more favourable US press coverage.
Not really, Trump wants to pull over 10.000 troops out of Germany because of an oil pipeline deal with Russia. The public opinion pretty much is that, while he's at it, he should also take his bombs with him. But the public opinion probably not is the best deal politically.
The plan is to relocate them to other bases in Europe (mainly Italy and Belgium) so in the big picture it really doesn't matter.
proportional? China gave a clear path forward to those companies if they want to operate in China (setting up severs in China, complying local laws, etc..) They chose not to do so and left. Did US gave any clear path how these tech companies can continue operate in the US other than selling themselves and giving the goverment a commission?
> proportional? China gave a clear path forward to those companies if they want to operate in China (setting up severs in China, complying local laws, etc..) They chose not to do so and left. Did US gave any clear path how these tech companies can continue operate in the US other than selling themselves and giving the goverment a commission?
The real question is, why did the West went along with that bad deal at first place and allowed China into the WTO under these conditions. It was extremely short sighted.
Because China was a poor country back then but had the potential to become a huge market. China was given all sorts of advantages to allow it to develop its economy on the hope that western companies could do business there. China is now a fully developed country (well, the cities are at least), yet it still retains the same economic advantages but market access is still a carrot they dangle before western companies.
Because it was actually a very good deal for the West, contrary to all the gnashing of teeth one hears.
China had to carry out massive economic reforms in order to join the WTO, such as the privatization or splitting up of many state-owned enterprises, large reductions in tariffs, opening up of many sectors to foreign investment, the creation of a legal system to protect IP, and much more. Moreover, China joined under unusual terms that allowed other countries to more easily retaliate against China - sort of a probationary status.
Western companies did extremely well in this relationship. Much of the growth in the West over the past few decades is thanks to China's opening-up.
Isn't that similar to the requirements[1] placed on Huawei in the UK if they want to sell any network equipment? Everything must be inspected and overseen by GCHQ.
No, one is oversight and due diligence, the other is IP transfer so that your company can be cloned and then be given whatever resources needed from shady banks so that they can put you out of business.
this is a lie. I work for AWS and directly work with the partner in China. They do not get our source code, we build supporting tools for them to operate our software. I repeat, they do not get our source code.
Saying that the US companies chose not to obey China laws, etc is simplifying the situation dramatically in favour of China. In this case, don't the Chinese laws include a requirement for a Chinese "partner" company and obligations towards IP transfer? These requirements don't sound like a fair arrangement to me and, as far as I know, there are no comparable requirements in the US on foreign companies.
Being allys with the US is a special thing though. Just the other day the US threatened "crushing legal and economic sanctions" against a German port for being involved in North Stream 2.
"The US argues that the pipeline will increase Europe's dependence on Russia, which both Berlin and Moscow dispute. The US proposes selling European's American natural gas shipped across the Atlantic as an alternative."
But a greater dependency on the US is fine of course. The, as a champion of free trade, should be happy about more competition right?
This is not proportional at all. That you agree or not on Chinese laws is one thing, having to abide to the country laws makes sense. Being a us company doesn't grant a bypass card. To abide to an arbitrary decision based on nothing because the company is chinese is something quite different.
The Chinese government would do this on Apple, for example, i'm quite sure it would create quite an outrage.
TBH I can see how Tesla could be labelled that, and if it was a Chinese company I'd suspect it would eventually, the spying potential from all those streaming cameras and AI without any insight or oversight of the process.
Germany is in bed with the US, especially the secret service.
Not sure how long Germany, or Europe for that matter, remains in bed with US. The current administration is isolationist and if the future ones adopt the same policies, we might see a decoupling of Europe and USA. Won't happen overnight but if I were a gambling man, I would wager on it.
I don't think after all this we can go back to the old world order.
I think a big part in this story will be Brexit and how much UK turns to US for trade partnership and how much friction that causes over EU industry interest groups.
Well Tesla's sentry mode and sensor suite that is connected to the internet could actually pose a massive security risk. I wouldn't be surprised if they were banned from entering military installations and other sensitive areas, not that Germany has that many of them that aren't open to US military personnel.
Politicians tend to be shortsighted (reelection, next term). That's partly why not enough has happened (or will happen, under this political paradigm) when it comes to the environmental issues our habitat is facing.
In some ways, it is worse. At least the participants in a social media chat are volunteers. Cameras everywhere in cars with uploads to a central facility could be used to spy on the general public without their knowledge or consent.
Some people will probably argue at this point that there is no right to privacy in a public place. I disagree on both moral and pragmatic grounds with such an absolute statement in light of modern technologies and what privacy means (or should mean) now, but more importantly, the culture and laws in some parts of the world disagree too.
Restricting uploads of dash cam footage would be a rational response to that situation.
Dashcams are already regulated in Germany and Austria. People have been ticketed for always on dash cams; only those that are triggered activated (button pushed or shock detected) are allowed. (And yes, I know they use a buffer)
And even without that, there are other laws that would make it illegal for Tesla to just download cam footage without solid reasons. Hell even GDPR would apply, as it would contain personal information (license plates), and the penalties are severe ("€10 million, or 2% of the firm’s worldwide annual revenue from the preceding financial year, whichever amount is higher").
The understanding that the US would respond in kind by banning the import of VW Group vehicles or putting a very high tariff on them. In any case it wouldn’t be in Germany’s interest with the new Tesla factory going up there.
They declared the touch controls for the windshield wipers a distraction, so that they can fine Tesla owners for using it. In my opinion, creating liability for the buyer will be much more effective than trying to battle Tesla directly. So they are taking action to protect their local car industry.
It's just that as long as the power dynamic is that Trump looks like a stubborn toddler while Merkel is the responsible parent, the US won't be able to do much about Tesla taking a hit. Plus, I'm not sure how much Trump likes Musk... so maybe he's willingly accepting it.
The US is stopping Germany from banning Teslas, it's a matter of power. The US wouldn't be acting that way if they weren't a military super power, and they certainly wouldn't accept it if anyone acted that way towards them unless that country has nukes.
Are you still trying to find logic in trumps actions?
The popular opinion on reddit seems to be that this is just trump being told that tiktok users where responsible for his failed tulsa rally, and personally, that explanation seems just as likely as any of the other explanations given here...
That's a partisan take and even Democrats have supported moves against China (though they have mixed support of this strong of an action). While China moves Uigher Muslims onto trains and forces sterilizations on them, we should probably be doing something more than just making them ad revenue.
Trump is smarter than that. He will also take credit for "securing America, because he stopped the Chinese computer virus that sleepy Joe and the socialist Dems wanted to let into America"
You're overthinking this. It's one thing for a popular app to come from another country. It's another thing when that country has complete control over business decisions, is your biggest global competitor, and is known to play dirty.
Well, it kind of did. The EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice just passed its final ruling last month stating that the "Safe Harbor" agreements called Privacy Shield etc. that US companies use to be able to operate in the EU in compliance with EU privacy laws are inadequate given the widespread mass surveillance used by the US. [0]
That's not banning but it requires US companies to actually invest and change their modes of operation if they want to continue to operate in the EU without being fined.
Broadly speaking, I think we're witnessing the birth of three distinct global powers.
One is centered on the US, and consists (broadly) of Canada, Mexico, the rest of Latin America, the Commonwealth nations, Japan, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan.
An American civil war would destabilize this to a large degree, so we'll have to see if that plays out.
Edit, since people seem confused: This would be an absolute nightmare scenario, but it is in the realm of possibility, and would massively change international political structures.
Another is centered on Germany and France, and controls Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East.
Finally, we've got China, which will likely control a big chunk of Africa and Southeast Asia.
Russia is a tough one, but I see them siding with China or Europe.
Contested territory will include Taiwan, bits of the Middle East, and an escalation of the border disputes with Japan. Likely bits of eastern Europe, plus conflicts on the China/India border...
What a time to be alive.
Edit: Just because somebody says that something is a possibility doesn't mean that they want that thing to happen.
Me coming down with a case of COVID is a possibility. In fact, I'm operating under the assumption that I will be infected at some point, regardless of precautions (masks, hand-washing, stepping back from my competitive doorknob-licking career, etc.)
That doesn't mean I want a case of Horribly Shitty Virus With Not-Yet Well-Documented Complications.
I'm just prepared for the worst (as best as I can), and hoping for the best (because why not?)
American Civil War 2 is an impossible fantasy. You need regional divisions in the military, which we don't have. These new alliances don't make sense either.
It would look nothing like the original American Civil War; this would be a 4th generational war. The most conventional it would look like would be the war against the Iraqi insurgency. Defections and sabotage within the US military combined with attacks on infrastructure would reduce its ability to function normally.
In such a scenario, Humpty Dumpty is not being put back together again. The US would most likely break apart, assuming some foreign power doesn't manage to conquer all of its former territory.
I'm not saying that I think that it is probable, but if one where to look at other civil wars in history, would they all really be that different from current america?
No, "American Civil War II" is an absolute nightmare scenario.
I would go as far as to say we're in a cold one right now.
I would not have imagined this possible four years ago, but now, given the level of division... yeah, it appears to be on the table.
That's cause for fairly grave concern, by the way.
Imagine that the election goes into a toss-up. Which it likely will. Both parties have been laying the groundwork to contest the election, between claims of "voter suppression" and "voter fraud".
I don't think either team would accept anything other than an absolute landslide victory from the other side. And even then, maybe not.
I could see the Western seaboard (plus Hawaii) seceding in the case of a Trump victory. In the case of a Biden victory, I'd expect years of domestic insurgency, which I'd still call a "civil war".
Either way, I don't see any way out for the US right now that isn't outright ugly.
I very, very much hope I'm wrong, of course, and that things calm down after November (regardless of who wins).
Why, because of the protests? If the protests had the potential to overthrow the government by force, they would be met with bombs and bullets. Civil wars are fought by armies and the US military is completely unified behind the preservation of the US government.
Yes, but in the event of a highly disputed election, which government?
(I don't think all the stuff above is very likely, because I think the Trump hold on power is a lot shallower than most, but I do think there's going to be polling station violence in some places, continuing conflict between federal and state law enforcement, and a lot of lawsuits after the election contesting individual vote counts, far more so than Bush vs Gore. Especially over postal ballots.)
> The US military is completely unified behind the preservation of the US government.
I agree! But what happens if the question of "Who is the commander-in-chief" becomes unclear?
That is the possibility that's on the table. If there's an absolutely clear victory in the next election and the loser steps down, then we're in way better shape.
Posse Comitatus remains intact, and factional violence is left in the hands of domestic law enforcement (whatever that looks like at the time).
Which is what I'm seriously hoping for.
But if not... once again, I'm amazed to even be considering that possibility, but it's there.
Cultural Revolution was not a civil war, and also...how would that possibly happen in America?As for who is the president, they would just defer to SCOTUS like in 2000.
Mao's Red Guards -- student revolutionaries and young adults -- effected a drastic shift in power, from a more liberal government to Mao (a strong authoritarian), and something on the order of three million people died as a direct consequence.
Moreover, China lost an unbelievable amount of its history, as revolutionaries purged the "Four Olds" (customs, culture, habits, and ideas).
> Civil wars are fought by armies and the US military is completely unified behind the preservation of the US government.
Let me give you an examples of a Lebanese civil war
Second, it's not that US potential adversaries have ever cease attempts to recruit 5th column in the general staff.
A big double digit percentage of civil wars in 20th century were foreign power assisted, if not staged, and triggered by them.
US generals with extreme right political views are ripe for taking for a country that seemed to ace recruiting rightist elements for its cause. You know what country I am talking about.
The US generals seem to the left of, or at least nonplussed by, the Trump faction. The removal of the captain of the Theodore Roosevelt didn't help his support either.
It's the patchwork of law enforcement who are more willing to cause street-level trouble. We've already seen one protest which involved people bringing guns to a state legislature. What if there was another one, in response to an "abolish the police" candidate winning locally, and the police backed the occupiers over the legitimate state government?
Why would the states secede? What do they have to gain?
Calexit isn’t supported by even half of the California population. These scenarios are nothing more than fantasies for people who like to discuss war scenarios.
I stuck to those naval bases (Bay Area HN'ers will notice the absence of Alameda and Moffett) because I'd guess others could, in principle, be relocated without notably affecting their missions[1], but the US would never tolerate losing its (not so?) Pacific harbours, especially the sub pens.
Best (with non-generic probability) scenario for secession I can imagine at this point: under a foreign nuclear umbrella, the west coast agrees that (a) in exchange for retaining responsibility for the federal debt, the US gets all the nukes, and (b) Ecotopia gives the US a long term lease on the bases mentioned above, à la Subic Bay.
As Hawaii was originally filibustered in to the Union, it might be poetic justice for it to join Ecotopia, but both finances and Pearl Harbor would far more likely leave it subordinated to the haoles in DC.
(Unlike Vancouver with the Trans Mountain Pipeline, Ecotopia doesn't seem connected to the US' crude pipeline network, so that part would be easy. Financially, the west coast would find it easier to balance their budgets if they were independent. I doubt Ecotopia would retain any inland territories, but under capitalism and in the absence of blockades, money gets you through times of no food much better than food gets you through times of no money.
I've discovered the items above en passant, so I haven't bothered running down the rest of the feasibility arguments — but I'm sure someone, or even multiple someones in multiple jurisdictions, has.)
[1] Note that the B-52s have recently been relocated from Guam to somewhere in flyover country without, according to the USAF, affecting their missions. (What mission a 70-year old design could still have is above my pay grade.)
A German, French and Russian alliance is probably the winning move and was thwarted more than once by Anglo-Saxon intervention. Right now the US actively tries to sabotage the Nordstream 2 completion (https://www.dw.com/de/ist-nord-stream-2-noch-zu-retten/a-538...), which would make Germany energy independent from US controlled Gas.
Germany hasn‘t needed US gas in a long time. There‘s plenty of LNG from Qatar and other nations on the market plus the existing pipelines for Russian gas through Ukraine etc.
Only the US wants Germany to buy American gas because $$$
Qatar is a US protectorate, just as it was a British before (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Udeid_Air_Base). The British still maintain planes there. They have no independent means of survival. Most of the oil and gas is either in the US / British sphere of influence. The few exceptions (Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Lybia, Syria, Venezuela), Transit countries like Georgia, Ukraine. All were messed with in subtle and not so subtle ways
The Russian and EU political and social landscapes are too at odds with each other for this to happen, at least in anything other than a doomsday scenario for both groups. Russia is more likely to join up with China than the EU.
In the far past perhaps but EU(led by Germany and France to a good extent) and Russia won't be allies any time soon or you've been missing a ton of Russian efforts in it's neighbourhoods.
Russia's very much opposed to a more united EU and matters such as a joint energy union.
Stuff like Nord Stream is mostly a consequence of it's successful subversion (see Gerhard Schröder) and playing of members interest against eachother (see Bulgaria's pipeline being blocked) which allows it to keep higher pricing and even use it's pricing as a political tool.
Russia will do it's own thing i believe as it has been doing. Allying and inserting itself where possible in the likes of Syria, etc striking deals with Egypt, china, etc wherever it suits it because despite being largely a terrible oligarchy it has managed to steer itself well in the governments self interest under Putin.
>Another is centered on Germany and France, and controls Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East.
These countries are trying to get Facebook to pay a regional tax, not rebelling against sixty years of NATO. I don't understand how you can consider them a distinct global power from the US, and I'm unclear what these non-contested regions you think are part of their base.
Whilst relations are better it had itself set up as a 3rd faction and even being closer to the soviets during the cold war due to US alliance with Pakistan. Now Pakistan has largely shifted into China's sphere of influence and the US has slowly turned it's attention towards China that might change but i don't expect it to be in a way as subservient as other commonwealth nations like Australia.
I feel this is a really solid summary of the world order for the coming decades. We're still in a cold war mindset that suggests there has to be US vs. X with X now increasingly being China), but in a globalized world we'll see a more fragmented landscape. The US seems to move towards the final stages of its dominance which leaves space for others, but this space can be filled by a multitude of interlinked competitors.
Not in modern times no. It gained complete independence from Britain in the 50s I think? Unless you're referring to all countries that were at one time controlled by the British Empire, which I think is a little out of touch with how much those countries have diverged from one another politically since then.
Ah I thought you were referring to the Commonwealth realms [1], which do not include India but do include nations like Canada and Australia. The point on diverging political stances still stands.
What I don't get about the fervor the Trump administration is placing on banning Chinese apps over national security is that: i) on one hand there were Congressional hearings held 2 weeks ago where Trump said "Big Tech (FAANGs) were too big and needed to be broken up", and ii) on the other hand the US gov wants to now further cement American companies as de facto 'monopolies' for the world.
There's already various international issues with CCP-affiliated companies, but there must be some ulterior motive to go after TikTok and WeChat with such urgency right now, as opposed to any other time in the last 4-5 years.
* Personally, I think the result of what happens to TikTok, WeChat, or US app stores over Chinese apps doesn't matter in the end. What matters is that demands on Chinese apps to come to a deal with the US by September gives Trump more firepower to work with - if the deal happens, Trump paints himself as a US savior from Chinese meddling; if the deal doesn't happen, Trump blames China entirely as the bully and pushes America to retaliate.
a) Publishing is altogether a different situation.
b) Small nations can't feasibly have their own social app networks to any degree of scale.
c) The US is not China. For the most part FB is not a national security risk, whereas the Chinese apps could become that. China uses it's apps to observer and control every aspect of behaviour in China - the wherewithal, mans, intent etc..
d) This is tit for tat: China does not allow foreign social media in it's house.
I'm not so sure I agree with this, but it's not so outlandish.
The Trump administration is stirring up China hate as a means of getting reelected. Anything goes. The national security concerns may or may not be factual, but Trump doesn't care about that one bit.
It baffles me that people cannot see this very obvious fact. Just proof that his strategy is working.
I really think its as simple as Trump hates TikTok because 95% of TikTok users are not Trump supporters. Every thing else is just excuses/rationalization for the ban (although some of the reasons may actually be good, they aren't what Trump cares about)
You have posted the reason why this and the TikTok ban is most likely a bluff.
This (ordering companies such as Apple and Google to sever all business with TikTok and WeChat's owners and by extension removing them from all app stores) is a cannon that only can be fired once and will be so loud that it will fundamentally damage the centralised app store model.
This is similar to the muslim travel ban and will be overturned by some court and the Trump administration probably expect this. But does this anyway for the purpose of political communication.
> if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way
It can be a real threat to national security[1]:
> Thursday's order alleges that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," such as location data and browsing and search histories, which "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information -- potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage."
It has nothing to do with other Western nations. It's about protecting your citizens from aggressive foreign states that operate based on completely different values.
I would consider going even further, and banning all Chinese researchers from the top US schools[2]:
> Seventy-one institutions, including many of the most prestigious medical schools in the United States, are now investigating 180 individual cases involving potential theft of intellectual property.
> Almost all of the incidents they uncovered and that are under investigation involve scientists of Chinese descent, including naturalized American citizens, allegedly stealing for China.
How can "similar US based social networks" pose a national security risk to the US?
They might pose a national security risk to China. And that's why all the US-based social networks are banned in China.
Also, the US intelligence agencies could have just validated these public claims by themselves[1]:
> For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.
And the US and India are not the only countries with deep concerns here. The investigations into TikTok's data collection practices have also been launched by the governments of Australia, Japan, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, and the EU[2].
None of your sources provide any concrete evidence. Right now all you’ve linked to is xenophobic fearmongering unsupported by any data whatsoever.
Show me the Frida or Wireshark logs showing that TikTok collects more than, say Facebook. Link to actual evidence that China uses it to spy on Americans.
> None of your sources provide any concrete evidence.
> Link to actual evidence that China uses it to spy on Americans.
That's not how national intelligence works, I'm afraid. The actual evidence is often provided only to the decision makers, and not to the general population.
And even if TikTok wasn't doing anything wrong at the moment, the risk assessment might have concluded, that it could technically turn into a national security nightmare overnight.
Yeah, national stupidity works by giving ridiculous power to tech illiterate people that don't even know how Android and iOS sandboxes and permissions work.
I think they're arguing that on modern iOS and android the application sandboxing and permissions make a lot of the data collection described improbable/impossible.
There is a huge difference between "improbable" and "impossible" here.
Was it highly improbable that Saudi crown prince could hack into Bezos's iPhone? Yes, it was. Nevertheless, that's exactly what happened[1].
Now imagine what Chinese government could do with TikTok.
Also, application sandboxing and permissions can mean nothing at all[2]:
> A billion or more Android devices are vulnerable to hacks that can turn them into spying tools by exploiting more than 400 vulnerabilities in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, researchers reported this week.
> The vulnerabilities can be exploited when a target downloads a video or other content that’s rendered by the chip. Targets can also be attacked by installing malicious apps that require no permissions at all.
> From there, attackers can monitor locations and listen to nearby audio in real time and exfiltrate photos and videos. Exploits also make it possible to render the phone completely unresponsive. Infections can be hidden from the operating system in a way that makes disinfecting difficult.
I'm using Tiktok on my iPhone and I can't even find an option to allow access to my location? I'm pretty sure any Apps can't access my browsers or search history either..?
This is not normally a word with positive connotations.
Because the US is a free speech country, people can be aware that quite a lot of stuff done in the name of national security, especially since 9/11, is highly questionable. And the current administration has its own national security questions to answer relating to Russia.
As you stated, this is about national security, which should be of the utmost urgency and concern. So you think saving the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter is more important than saving the liberty of citizens and the lives of the overseas dissidents that are being endangered?
Regardless of how I feel about this particular company or transaction, to me this is a bad overreach of presidential power. I guess it's merely a reflection of the incompetence/inaction of Congress to study the matter and do something about it, as is their responsibility.
Why do I say so?
1. The justification for this is that it's a "national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain". Supply chain? Are you kidding me? The permissions given to the executive to declare emergencies for critical goods and services such as related to war time -- these extend to a voluntary communications app? Strains belief, and however you feel, this is not a good precedent to allow.
2. CCP is censoring / monitoring / scraping users' data, so this is a national emergency.... but not for 45 days and then also ok if we can buy the company on our terms.
This is yet another thing I guess time to throw up your hands and say, this is how we live now. One throw-it-against-the-wall proclamation after another.
Even if you're somewhat ok with it, are you really ok with this principle being applied, when someday it may not go how you want, for something you care about?
This plays right into China's narrative. Now the arrest of Meng Wanzhou (Huawei CTO) starts to look a bit less principled and a bit more like a piece of realpolitik.
I think it's definitely justified in the sense that it's understandable to strike back, but it's hard to take a moral high ground now.
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou was never meant to seem legitimate imo, the point was power projection. "Don't fuck with us."
I don't think the moral high ground means much in geopolitics. Power is way more important. "Better not curtail us, it'll make you seem mean..." This is the US we're talking about, known around the world for turning half the middle east into a desert. That's really not their primary concern.
That sounds like an excellent way for the US to torpedo their relationship with Canada, as if the trade war and COVID response isn't doing enough already. Canada's stance on the arrest is based on its legitimacy and the impartiality of the judiciary. The public will be outraged if it comes out that we've had to suffer China's wrath for a political stunt by the US.
You're putting a lot of weight on positive relations rather than power. I'm just not convinced. The US is substantially more powerful than Canada, so they can bully Canada. Canada doesn't really have the option to turn them down as an ally.
For example, I don't think the trade war did damage relations with Canada - if what you're measuring is tangible results, rather than sentiment. From what I can tell, the US basically said, "give us a better deal, now. Also we're boycotting China." Canada said "I don't want to. But OK," and then... Nothing else changed. The US won, and Canada didn't reprimand them. Results > sentiment.
Forcing Canada to choose between the US and China is absolutely a strategic option for the US, and possibly an important move to make given how heavily China is invested in Canadian property. America doesn't want China getting a foothold on their continent. Even if it pissed off the Canadian public... So what? What are the practical results?
Note the US is currently embroiled in similar situations with Britain (Assange & the Hit & Run Diplomat). They practically forced the UK to join the war in Iraq, which pissed the UK public off way more than Weng Menzhou - doesn't matter. They won, & the UK is still a (staunch) ally.
But only China believes China's narrative... Just ask any of China's neighbors. Philippines is reversing course of late even though they were trying to get closer to China, for example.
Out of curiosity I dug up some of the research, at least as of 6 months ago (haven't found anything more recent) it's fair to say that overall APAC leans towards "unfavorable" in its attitude towards China.
Favorability is down double digits from 2018 in APAC (though strangely up double digits in parts of europe).
So "only china believes china's narrative" isn't super technically correct but I think the general sentiment is accurate.
That is an absurd notion entirely inconsistent with the history of US gov actions. It does everything to protect the corporations and nothing for the greater population.
None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home, and until China agrees to compete on a fair playing field I'm perfectly fine with them all being banned outside of their firewall.
Would China ever agree to let Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger etc. or any new startup operate freely and make money there? It should never have had this one-way economic benefit to begin with.
It's pretty much impossible for lower-income countries to develop economically without protecting their emerging businesses from being slaughtered by established foreign competition.
The priority of the Chinese government is the benefit of its citizens (leaving aside that the CCP doesn't consider ethnic minorities in China to be full citizens, as this is a separate issue) and its domestic economy, not the benefit of the American tech sector's senior executives and shareholders.
It's not reasonable to expect, much less demand, that the Chinese turn their tech economy over to silicon valley by allowing unrestricted US entry. It's not in their economic interests, nor is it in their security interests, and no amount of US bullying will change this.
China is not Europe; it's not going to hand over the keys to its economic future to the United States just because the US asks for them.
I would have agreed with you 20 years ago, but China is now the second largest economy in the world, and on track to becoming the largest. Combine that with its gross domestic human rights violations, censorship, IP theft, and expansionist foreign policy (looking at the South China Sea, NE India, SE Asia, Africa etc.), and they aren't getting any sympathy from me.
The Chinese government isn't made up of nice people by any stretch but it's vitally important to understand their position so as to avoid escalation, possibly into armed conflict in future decades.
They have every reason to view the survival of their tech sector as a vital economic security interest. Confiscating the value of their foreign tech assets without cause, or legitimate due process, will not make the Chinese change their behavior. It will only harden their position and make future conflict more likely because the US has demonstrated that it is not willing to respect the rule of law or act in good faith towards Chinese businesses.
Slow-walking into another cold war isn't in anyone's interest and the deplorable behavior of the Chinese government does not change this.
So what is the other option? We stay in the abusive relationship just out of fear of confrontation? How about we take care of our interests and if cold war starts we make sure we win it.
I don't know if there are any good options at this point.
The general position from the US national security elite is that China should not be permitted to become powerful enough to have a completely independent foreign policy. This goal is probably impossible to achieve even trough military force.
For China's part, the Chinese need to learn how to get along with the rest of the world, including their immediate neighbors, without threatening other countries on a regular basis. The kind of respect China wants on the world stage can only be created through non-coercive soft power, and that's a skill the Chinese do not have.
Ultimately, I think both the US and China need to temper their expectations and learn to live with each other. This may not be politically possible in the long term, and is not politically possible in the US under Republican administrations.
In the short term, US moves to destroy Chinese tech firms and effectively transfer their assets to US firms are not helpful for global stability.
Chinese tech has no business in government networks, but consumer use of TikTok, WeChat, and Huawei phones is not a security threat and the rule of law should be respected with regard to these brands. If the US doesn't want people to use these tools, then it can make better alternatives.
Pervasive privacy abuses by TikTok et el should be addressed through comprehensive privacy legislation that applies equally to US surveillance capitalism firms (e.g. Facebook) and not through bans that exist only to transfer Chinese market share to US firms.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you're saying and think this is excellent analysis.
However, I struggle with this part.
> In the short term, US moves to destroy Chinese tech firms and effectively transfer their assets to US firms are not helpful for global stability.
I can concede that this action by the US doesn't help move the US-China relationship into a more cooperative one. To your point, however, the US is not willing to move into such a position anyways.
So, given the US desire to effect change in their existing US-China relationship, why should the US let things like Huawei and TikTok proceed? It's pretty much par for the course as far as US foreign business relations and policy created by the executive branch.
Realistically, I don't believe any reversal of policy is possible under a Republican White House or even probable under a Democratic White House.
In an ideal world, however, it's not in the US interest to escalate tensions with China unnecessarily because a new cold war is something that should be avoided. One way or the other, China and the US will need to live with each other and reaching some kind of mutual understanding on this point without walking too far down the path towards potentially violent brinksmanship would be the best outcome for everyone.
Are you talking about the US? The US has started more wars and killed more people in the last 20 years than China. It spends on military half of what all countries together spend on this planet. Under Trump, things only worsened: the country is becoming more nationalist and is exerting its power for its own interests, while rejecting international agreements.
Do you mean reasons such as alleged weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to not exist? Such reasons are enough to warrant killing 500k people? Isn't 500k people dead a mass destruction? Just look at the reality.
There's a very good case that the EU should limit both Chinese and US tech sector market access both for security reasons and to help build a viable European tech sector.
European data should be controlled in Europe, not on US or Chinese clouds and subject to the CLOUD Act and its Chinese equivalent. Lack of data sovereignty is a major threat to European sovereignty in general.
Confiscating the economic value of existing non-EU tech sector firms in Europe, as the US is doing with TikTok and WeChat, isn't the best way to make this happen, however. Buying existing assets at market value is a fairer approach.
The EU protects all sorts of industries, glaringly agriculture with CAP. I can see a case why we should have regulated social media, search and shopping platforms (which are highly monopolistic) a decade ago. The EU did not do any of that, and it's left with virtually zero digital footprint. Considering the importance of the digital economy for growth, it's quite logical to regulate itself to the the creation of a local market.
I lived and worked in China for nearly a decade, which I would say is first hand experience of this.
But you don't need firsthand experience to understand that significant discrimination exists. China is 92% Han Chinese, and official sources will tell you that the other 8% consists of 54 minority groups living in harmony. What degree of representation do those 8% have among business and government elite? Are there many Tibetan or Uighur CEO's in China? How about minority members of the CCP standing committee?
At a cultural level, widespread discrimination exists. People variously describe the minority groups as old-fashioned, dangerous, lazy, or as if they're attractions at a folk festival, with "great food," and "colorful clothes."
There are weakly designed and poorly enforced laws which are supposed to counteract that. For instance, people from minority regions get 10 extra points on their college entrance exam. But how much is that worth when no one will hire you because of your race? Unless that kind of affirmative action is followed up with something like enforceable laws around discriminatory hiring practices, or wrongful termination legislation, then its as ineffective as it is demeaning. Hence why I referred to it as "lip service." An insincere expression of a desire to solve a problem.
> China is not Europe; it's not going to hand over the keys to its economic future to the United States just because the US asks for them.
Of course they aren't going to do that merely because we asked them nicely.
But, if we start forcing them to sell 100 billion dollar companies for 50% off, like what is happening with TikTok, well then they might start to listen.
Thats the whole point. I am completely unsurprised that China is acting this way. And, in response, America is going to retaliate and cause many billions and billions of dollars in damages to major China tech companies.
> It's not reasonable to expect, much less demand, that the Chinese turn their tech economy over to silicon valley by allowing unrestricted US entry. It's not in their economic interests, nor is it in their security interests, and no amount of US bullying will change this.
Well if what you are saying is true, then it sounds like we should try and get a consolation prize, of taking some of their companies.
Sure, they might not give in to our demands. I don't really expect them to. But if thats the case, well, at least the USA can still benefit by taking some of their valuable tech companies, right?
Alibaba wasn't protected by the government at all. Ebay's then CEO bought a local e-biz site eachnet and relocated to Shanghai but still failed at competing with Alibaba.
Amazon bought some local e-biz site too and failed at competing with Alibaba too.
MSN was a huge player in China with far more users than QQ when it was taking off. ICQ was in China too. At the time IM wans't a big deal for big players. Tencent went IPO as very small startup, far less than Sina, Sohu etc., China's portals.
Chinese internet giants could win because they adapted fast to local market.
No. China's internet market has always been extremely competitive.
And there were some debates about why China could produce some big internet players and eventually it was generally accepted that for one China has a big, or is THE biggest single language market and the other one was because in the early 90s or 200s China's authorities, who were mostly older guys in their 40s or 50s and didn't know anything of internet at the time so they didn't regulate it but let China's and overseas players compete. It was then so many talented people returned from silicon valley like Charles Zhang and Robin Zhang and also some local guys like Jack Ma and Pony Ma of Tencent kicked off their startups. And it was those local guys who grew really big because they knew China better.
The local start ups even couldn't list in China's stock exchanges but had to go list in Nasdaq, HKEx or NYSE.
It was only when China's younger regulators took power they started to setup the GFW and all other policies. Until then it was wild west.
This isn't an argument. In most countries you have some local competitors that do better than global brands. Not every app has to be a global success to be highly profitable
Korea has KakaoTalk that's undefeated as the defacto chat app (and now search engine and payment provider). It's not doing well in every other place except Korea.
Japan has LINE as it's primary messenger, payment app, etc. It has some foot in other south-east asian countries but the strongpoint is still Japan.
I am not ruling out your points, they are sound and I agree with them. But look at it this way, you have 100 companies and all of them failed woefully in only one particular market. This doesn't look like natural event , it looks more like a biased coin.
Try launching your app in China and see how much freedom you have. Regulating international trade (via agreements) is one of the foremost responsibilities of the federal government, and if this move forces them to open up their economy to fair competition it's a net benefit for everyone.
they don't, but WeChat is also huge security risk spying on people abroad with access to photos etc., tool used to tax evasion payments within the app etc.
for instance you go to chinese restaurant - you can choose to pay legally with card or cash money they have to tax or undocumented untaxed income through wechat
> for instance you go to chinese restaurant - you can choose to pay legally with card or cash money they have to tax or undocumented untaxed income through wechat
This sounds like the exact opposite of the truth. Payment through wechat generates records. Payment in cash doesn't.
How so? Google operated in China for more than a decade and never got a major market share, and they already did fairly well compared to others. Facebook was largely unheard of after being available in China for many years before finally got banned in 2010. Amazon has been operating in China forever but is basically irrelevant to most Chinese. Most American companies did terrible job in localization and I see no chance of them winning the competition with their local competitors.
If they face strong local competition in any other country, they'd fail too
As a Chinese expat, Google China (back when it was operating) was multiple times slower than Baidu and would get blocked by the GFW arbitrarily frequently.
I was able to use Google fine for many years before it was banned. It can get banned when you search for certain keywords, not arbitrary at all.
Google was about the only one I can think of that is not worse than their competitors, and their own product actually don't need much localization.
However, Google failed the growth part in China. Chinese users won't go ahead and set the default search engine to google.com on their own unless they already know about it, especially those don't know English. The homepage used by most Chinese are local websites like hao123 that would send traffic to Baidu
google.cn is located at its Beijing datacenter. If it's multiple times slower then Google's network optimization was really shit. GFW only works for cross-border connections.
> None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home
As others have mentioned, Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay grew the same time as mazon, Paypal and eBay was available in China. Also newegg had a much better headstart than jd.com but still failed.
At one time even Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger was a serious threat to Tencent QQ. Wordpress was much more popular than QZone.
's great you mention that. But the biggest reason that why FB, Google were excluded after around 2010 is never mentioned here and even difficult to debate because of political correctness: Is the Chinese government policy from economic reason or something else that has been interpreted as protectionism?
The other theory is uncensored social media is perceived as a big threat to national security threat (I'm not saying CPP security threat). The ground situation in China is beyond the understanding of most population even a large portion of intellectuals inside China. That view was enhanced and many Chinese intellectuals changed their mind after color revolution in Ukraine, middle east chaos, etc.
Don't get me wrong, most educated people inside China are against censorship like westerners and the sentiment was very strong and still somehow strong today. "Animal Farm" and "1984"[1] are sold openly in China. But normal peaceful life without fear of danger and insecurity from conflicts is evaluated more important than economic development let alone freedom of speech inside China but it is not necessary applied to other part of the world especially liberal Western world. With polarization of recent events in US and consequential censorship on YouTube and Twitter that beyond topic of BLM/Identity politics/etc which result in many normal Chinese YouTube and twitter accounts mistakenly banned (This is not well-known in English audience), even more Chinese changed their view against Chinese government censorship.
The real reason is not economical but from a perception of national security. The perception is debatable but it should be at least included as an option of viewpoint as opposed to totally excluded.
Was Vine available in China? It seems quite unlikely considering how little western social media is... so while I can't tell from a quick search I'm guessing that you really should remember that.
Ironically it seems like you and GC are on the same side (China didn't kill Vine), but you actually have unintentionally made an argument in favor of the opposite stance – maybe Vine would've done better if the CCP had allowed it to exist in China.
What are you talking about? All countries protect their industries. Are we forgetting about Bombardier? All military contractors are almost part of the US government at this point. And Apple, and now Microsoft apparently are leveraging Trump to gain every bit of advantage they can.
The US forces entire countries to give favorable deals to american companies and has for decades.
> Those companies are free to operate in China if the comply with Chinese law.
Which will never happen. The Chinese know that Western companies would never want to comply with the Chinese law because the law was purposefully designed in such a way as to benefit the totalitarian regime. So they were forced to quit China. This is nothing but an indirect ban. This is very common actually.
For example: India imposed a 200% tariff on all Pakistani goods instead of banning them after the Pulwama Terror Attack [1]. Why not outright ban them? Because of global trade rules that prohibit taking such measures. So imposing a 200% tariff would effectively mean a ban only. No one in their right mind would import goods/services at 200% import duty. This is what Chinese were doing to US companies the past decade. Which is why US companies left China in the first place. Because staying around and doing business in China became untenable.
Windows has settings for timezone, language, currency, and more. Using the software sold in China, can you choose Taiwan or is it called Chinese Taipei? What do the maps show for the South China Sea, for the border with India, and for Tibet?
You are right. Anything that is not likely cause ideological polarization would be free to make money in China. So it's not really economical motivated policy as the narrative from the White House
Skype / Microsoft Teams and iMessage work in China. So being American owned communicators / subject to American espionage are not sufficient to get banned in China.
Are you sure about that? Microsoft is in big trouble in China too. This is the problem with a totalitarian state. Laws can be modified at will. You don't take the people into confidence. What is acceptable today may not be tomorrow. You are always on your toes. You may be favorable today dining with the highest authorities, tomorrow you will be on the streets. It is that merciless. US companies have literally been used and thrown out. That is a fact. But US realized the game too late. People started taking the Chinese threat seriously only when Trump raised the issue in his election campaigns. Microsoft, HP and Dell will probably be the final casualties in this ongoing battle between US and China.
An article from December 2019. When the pandemic was in its initial stages and China was keeping it all under wraps. China had already decided to dump US companies way back then. US is more reactionary just like India. China fooled the World.
China’s Communist Party has ordered all state offices to remove foreign hardware and software within three years, the Financial Times reported, in a move which could hit major U.S. firms including Microsoft, Dell and HP.
The policy has been dubbed “3-5-2” because the replacement of the technology will happen at a pace of 30% in 2020, 50% in 2021, and 20% in 2022, the newspaper said, citing a note from brokerage firm China Securities. Analysts there estimate that 20 million to 30 million pieces of foreign equipment need to be replaced in China.
...
“Discrimination against foreign technology has been a part of the policy framework in China for years now, but it’s something that USTR (United States Trade Representative) is already familiar with,” Marro told CNBC.
“This might nevertheless complicate the discussions around Huawei, ZTE and other companies in terms of their access to the U.S. market. Much of the popular narrative has centered around the U.S. unfairly banning these Chinese companies from its market; at least with this story, the administration can publicly play the blame game of, ‘well, China’s doing it too, and they’ve been doing it for a long time.’”
U.S. companies like Google and Facebook have been blocked from operating in China for several years.
> TFA stands for The Fucking Article. Your account is 10 years old. There's no way you actually don't know what that stands for.
What has the length of my account got to do with me knowing every slang in the Universe? Do you know what LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP stands for? I hope not and I sincerely hope you use your brain for storing useful things that are relevant and not use it to store useless slangs. But that is my just my advise. Take it or leave it. Choice is yours. And if you can't, at least do not expect everyone in the World to know the slangs you do.
> It's about the president blanket banning two apps with no warning and no real justification.
> They're "in trouble" after the country they're based in started ordering their companies to stop supplying critical parts/software to whichever random Chinese company the president feels threatened by at the moment.
China has literally kicked US companies out through various policies and nefarious activities. Did you forget how the Chinese Government hacked into Google China in 2010? The attack targeted Adobe, Akamai, Juniper Networks, RackSpace, Yahoo, Northrop Grumman, Morgan Stanley, Dow Chemical and Blackberry. Yahoo's and Google's IP got stolen too. Read up on Operation Aurora. This was at a time when Trump wasn't even in office. In fact, I would argue that US is too late in countering Chinese aggression. But better late than never! The one good consequence of this attack was that Internet Explorer received the final nail in the coffin it needed to become obsolete.
> Did you forget what TFA is about? It's about the president blanket banning two apps with no warning and no real justification.
The TFA is an agreement for movement of goods between member Nations. What has this got to do with apps? Apps are not goods. They are services. You haven't even read the first paragraph of the agreement. I am guessing you are talking about Trade Facilitation Agreement here. If this is some other TFA that I am unaware of you can clarify. But if it is the Trade Facilitation Agreement it doesn't have any bearings with respect to software/services.
> That's the point. Facebook and Google decided not to follow thebrelevant censorship laws and are banned, Microsoft did and also turned over source code for security reasons (like the Huawei did in the UK). They aren't banned. Am I talking to a Markov chain? It honestly just seems like you copy pasted some response you had saved up without consideration for context.
Microsoft did and it still is in trouble. What is your point now? That Microsoft will be able to operate indefinitely in China? I just told you that Microsoft, HP and Dell are in big trouble as CCP wants them out through the 3-5-2 formula. You are being the Markov chain here because honestly you are unable to grasp this basic response that I gave in my earlier comment. Or you are deliberately trying to troll which is equally pathetic.
Some people here are wondering about the implications of this. What this means IMO is that all Chinese investments in SV need to be liquidated at fire sale prices in the next 45 days. Regardless of how people here feel about China this is a huge escalation. The US is inflicting huge losses on Chinese companies for no clear violation of US laws on their part. The pandoras box is now open.
Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ? Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ? China has some pretty serious means available to it for escalation. China can ban Boeing from China forcing the US taxpayer to incur serious losses in keeping the company afloat.
The whole thing is pretty stupid overall. Most people don't realize that during the 2008 crisis it was Chinas 500 billion dollar stimulus that kick started demand and pulled the world out of a depression. China and the US are interdependent and hold up the global system upon which global growth depends. If China slows down as a result of all this that reduces global growth. Pushing China to the wall can make them take extreme steps like undercut the entire dollar based financial order leading to mass instability. The US might come out victorious anyway but its not worth the risks. Not to mention a war which if it breaks out could lead to WW3.
Previous attempts to contain China were much more tactful with things like the TPP and the Iran deal. Right now the world is hurtling towards the abyss and most people here don't even realise it.
A meta point I'd like to add is that currently 10 % of the earths population in the "Westosphere" controls 60 % of the worlds wealth. This is untenable in the long term and all this flailing about will not stop a reversion to a more balanced world. Its better that this happen gracefully than in a violent fashion.
I think we are already passed the point of any of this mattering. Increasingly the rhetoric seems to me to just be: what matters isn't who is in the right or what is just or fair. Increasingly the only thing that matters is which side you are on. Are you with us or are you against us? It's just dogma at this point.
In this kind of environment people that are rational either stick to their tribe or learn to keep their mouths shut because it's no longer safe to express a contrarian opinion (just like in China). You see already see this in comments sections throughout western publications and forums where questioning policy or taking the opposite side means you are a bot/stooge/unpatriotic/50 cent warrior, etc, etc, etc.
I might get downvoted for this but I think it's a very real possibility. Withdraw the embassy from Beijing, recognize Taiwan and force a embargo of all Taiwanese/Korean and Japanese semiconductor supplies and components to Mainland China.
Then sit back and let China then make the first move. Might not work, but at this point I wouldn't put it past somebody in the White House having already gamed it.
There has never been a case in human history where one group of people voluntarily gave up their wealth, status and privilege to another group of people. Wealth transfer always leads to violence.
You can be sure that "war games" are being played out routinely.
The problem here is that this is an obvious escalation with US as the aggressor and not all US allies are willing to follow the US into war as the current administration is seen as unreliable.
You even had the former and current (!) prime ministers of Australia warning of high likelihood of a war between China and the US within the next 3 months. Where the next 3 months of course is the period of the US presidential election indicating that they clearly see a connection between the US elections and increased China tensions.
Is it really the US making the first move? Facebook is blocked in China as are several other big countries. Granted, this is a ban after the company made inroads, but it seems that China has been doing this for a long time now and in many industries.
Who made the first move is kind of a philosophical question. And the tech war is part of a bigger "war" that is currently unfolding going from rhetorics to trade to military maneuvers.
What is more important is how it is being perceived amongst other countries around the south china sea. And as far as I can tell the US does not have the support it normally would have. Even from surefire allies such as Australia.
China has been doing moves like this for a long time so I don’t know how the US is the first aggressor here. Several US tech companies have been banned in China for a while at this point.
So what are we China now? Also I'm not sure it's quite true those companies were banned. Google voluntarily pulled out of the Chinese market, and re-entered.
So how do you explain the re-entering the market by Google?
The "rules" were sovereign rules China applied and it's not as if other search engines or companies in China could get away without following those same rules... plus, such rules are now being applied to ByteDance and WeChat in the USA to make them "voluntarily" pull out as well and this of courses legitimizes China's past and present actions (which is fundamentally why I do not think we should be going down this route).
It's basically admitting defeat if we start using the same policies as China. China owns up to their policies of censorship and heavy-handed market control. They're not hiding that fact. If we start down that path too then we're just adopting their system and admitting we can't beat them with a free market and freedom of access to apps/information.
Keep in mind that Trump's rationale for blocking WeChat is that it is "allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives." That's basically saying the people are too stupid and must have their information access controlled—which, as you may know, is exactly the communist part of China's modus operandi.
> The problem here is that this is an obvious escalation with US as the aggressor and not all US allies are willing to follow the US into war as the current administration is seen as unreliable.
I don't see how US is the aggressor. The kind of control CCP has over these companies is well known and as someone who is not an American, I was surprised why the US admin had not taken stern measures till now. This standoff was initiated when China decided to kick out American companies for not subscribing to their censorship policies. And the way companies like WeChat feed into CCP's censorship framework is well known.
I'm classing it as a certainty. Have a read of the Wolfowitz Doctrine and work out what it necessitates, and that to be done very soon.
Even so, I believe the US has 'missed the bus'. It needed to have initiated vigorous conflict earlier this year to be sure of victory in that coming war. It can't start anything worthwhile now until at least the next Spring-Summer campaign season. By then China will have had another 12 months of growth, and the US another 12 months of decline.
What does victory mean in the era of mutually assured destruction? I don't see how a shooting war between the US and China could not end in both sides getting nuked.
> I don't see how a shooting war between the US and China could not end in both sides getting nuked.
There is only one country in the world which is reliably able to afford being nuked, and has "surviving first, and second strike" as part of its many doctrines.
The only major country against which MAD is not so assured is China.
Invasion on Iraq led to many deaths and was based on false premises and similar "disagreement in management styles". War with China would be a terrible calamity. I don't understand why, but the US is turning into a bad actor, and the most scary thing is that it's convinced it's a good actor.
Which is why nobody will push the button, even if they're being invaded, they'll just accept being occupied and mount a resistance. MAD always relied on a fiction of natural insanity that doesn't actually exist. I don't think any tactician takes widespread nuclear exchanges seriously as a likely outcome to any contemporary global conflict.
China could also just wait 3 more months until the election and decide action after that. If the presidency changes they are able to deal with a more rational player.
China is already being very patient in waiting until the reelection. The US military is flaunting its military hardware near the mainland, and all this time China is basically ignoring the threat.
But the Trump administration is very active in launching more attacks. If you follow the news on what they've been doing to Chinese companies, the past month has been absolutely insane. The attacks are only getting faster and faster, as the Trump administration gets increasingly desperate to win a reelection.
Another problem is that all these attacks leave behind permanent damage. It's not just a matter of ignoring the attacks. I fear that at some point, we get past some boiling point, and things erupt into a hot war.
>Conducting justice shouldn't be seen as a deliberate attempt to increase tension
-Adds more companies to the entity list over Xinjiang
>Black listing companies involved in perpetuating genocide against the Uighurs doesn't seem controversial to me
-Bans federal contractors buying from Huawei
>National security
-Ups ante in the South China sea
>Allowing China to claim that region puts a substantial amount of trade in jeopardy, due to many established shipping routes going through there. China is the aggressor here, regardless of what the media tries to portray.
-Blacklists officials
>You need to be more specific, but I assume you are referring to more Uighur genocide related sanctions
-Removes Hong Kong's special status
>Following the terms of the Hong Kong special status trade agreement that hinges on it being a self-governed state. (It no longer is)
-Daily Cold War rhetoric from Pompeo
>Sabre rattling, but could be taken as aggressive action depending on whether Pompeo was talking about any of the points above. If so, then it's warranted.
-Restricts Chinese student visas
>The world is in lock-down. Even countries heavily reliant on chinese student spending, have temporarily restricted such visas.
-Ends fulbright scholar program Hong Kong
>Why continue such programs when the status of such a country changes? Those programs and trade agreements have to be renegotiated.
-Contemplating banning TikTok
>Reciprocal treatment of western social media. So far the first and only deliberate escalation of tensions against China, on this list. Justified... but certainly an escalation.
> as the Trump administration gets increasingly desperate to win a reelection.
Or maybe, just maybe, he is doing something which he believes is the right thing to do and will help Americans? The ratcheting up could just be a tactic to force the next administration into a position to actually deal with the dysfunctional relationship rather than always rolling over and hoping things will be different like previous administrations.
Go and read John Bolton's book, Xi made it clear to Trump in person that he wants Trump to have two more terms. An irrational US president undermining the US credibility in all possible aspects is good for China. Why Chinese would possibly want this trend to change?
Bolton has many strong opinions that are not necessarily shared with the rest of the world -- not that he's wrong, but do use critical thinking. There are pros and cons here, like Trump causing short-term trade losses with China while they're dealing with political instability back home. Is economic stability worth more than relative world influence? Hard to say. Also, Xi telling Trump that he should have more terms is a classic way to play to a narcissist; it shouldn't be interpreted as anything more than flattery.
Honestly I think China has very little to gain from interfering on either side of the US election, and potentially a lot to lose. Russia, on the other hand...
A more realistic scenario is that US have a 3 months deadline to fix their political system, as rationality need an empiric and humane system to work within.
White House, no, but no doubt there are career officers and civilians in the Pentagon who have gamed this out in excruciating detail. I'm sure this was done even before the current administration came into power.
A lot of people ascribe malice to him, but it’s clear as day that he was in over his head with the entire project. Basically 0 of his goals have been achieved 17 years in.
So I would say that while the appearance of competent war games was there, it was a charade.
He was involved in a war of aggression, and his company made a bit of money both for destruction and rebuiling, did it not? And we can't even begin to guess how many "buddies" profited. At any rate, he's not in jail, and I think that is way too much success than is acceptable. He may be a moron, he certainly is a fool, but then what does that say about the ~300 million people in whose name he did his crimes, to live happily and smugly ever after?
Well yes that's how these things usually go, but haven't a bunch of white people left? Doesn't make the economic wrong right, but does at least crudely function as justice.
Symbolic appeasement without an actual change in living conditions for the majority of the populace who suffered the brunt of the exploitation is not justice
Punishing the perpetrators and undoing the damage are two different things. Absolutely more of the second is needed. But what I mentioned functions as a crude form of the first.
Like it or not, kicking out white people isn't just symbolism.
To be clear, I agree that transfer of power was a classic neoliberal failure, and the situation is a travesty.
> There has never been a case in human history where one group of people voluntarily gave up their wealth, status and privilege to another group of people. Wealth transfer always leads to violence.
The Velvet Revolution comes to mind. Of course there is a possibility/threat of violent escalation in negotiating these things, but rational actors can make the calculus that getting a good enough deal guaranteed is better than fighting and potentially loosing a better one. However, it requires a non-totalitarian view of the world (i.e. the others are not enemies no matter what and must be punished for their bad deeds doesn't really allow you to negotiate in a de-escalatory manner).
> There has never been a case in human history where one group of people voluntarily gave up their wealth, status and privilege to another group of people. Wealth transfer always leads to violence.
There was an interesting book published about two years ago (I'm too lazy to search for it) which showed that wealth "re-calibration" only really happened as a result of violent change. I know I wouldn't be here in front of a computer writing this comment if it hadn't been for WW2 that brought communist rule to my Eastern-European country, which communist rule brought forced industrialisation with the help of mass education (that was of course free, unlike before WW2). That benefited my parents who could make the "leap" from the countryside to the city. Probably a new war could similarly eliminate the wealth inequality in countries like the US.
Actually I looked for it and I'm 99% sure this is the book: "The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century" [1]
> Probably a new war could similarly eliminate the wealth inequality in countries like the US.
Perhaps just by destroying wealth. It’s unlikely that any violence could improve the US middle class since it’s already richer than the middle class in most other countries. Best you can do at that point is just try to eliminate the wealthy if you’re fixated on income inequality.
Banning wechat feels like pure Pompeo. Trump probably doesn't even know what wechat is. The craziest bat shit tier China-hawk already got purged, but this is still Pompeo, and if anything hes... good at manufacturing consent.
China is a lot more stable, both economically and politically, than the Soviet Union. While it's not quite par with the United States yet, China has a population 4x the size of the United States, which gives them unprecedented scale to build out and deploy new tech that can easily leapfrog any edge the United States has right now.
In the long term, the only thing going for the US are alliances with other developed countries and democracies. But the current administration doesn't seem to care very much about that.
I don’t think raw population numbers are as useful as they seem. Most ruling political states have been comprised of a fairly small group of elites. Think Britain in India, or even the Mughals before them. We should also consider that Canada and Mexico have been/can be more integrated into a single economic unit.
The more important part is technological innovation, and so far, I remain unconvinced that a closed totalitarian system will have as much innovation as an open one, in the long term.
Otherwise, agreed that the US does need its allies, though I don’t necessarily agree that it has alienated them. If you look at the real events, and not merely the media talking heads, there is absolutely a growing sense of unity against China. See: India, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, increased NATO budget commitments, to name a few.
> The more important part is technological innovation, and so far, I remain unconvinced that a closed totalitarian system will have as much innovation as an open one, in the long term.
It's better to characterize/qualify Chinese style of governance as a top-down meritocratic totalitarian government. Policymakers in China are theoretically able to make decisions that are optimal to achieve certain policy goals, say x% economic growth. In contrast, democracies set policy goals and make decisions through the messy process of achieving political consensus.
IMO, private innovation happens when a combination of factors align: free consumer choice, a large market under a common set of rules and stable political conditions. I don't think the Chinese style of governance prevents any of this.
Public innovation happens through well-funded universities and taxpayer-funded research grants. China pushes one step further at times by funding new technology/research directly through state owned/sponsored enterprises.
I think there are genuine fears within US policy circles that the stability afforded by economic growth under a meritocratic totalitarian government could give China an edge over countries like the US, which have to work with the overheads of a democracy. I believe observers in the future will agree that these fears were not unfounded.
I agree with most of what you’re saying. I would just add that much of the US’s power comes from cultural capital. New York, Hollywood, the widespread use of English, tech companies that rely on free speech (e.g. Twitter or YouTube), and so on. I’d argue that it is impossible to separate culture from technology.
I don’t believe that China can ever get remotely close to this cultural influence if it retains an authoritarian system. The artistic ecosystem will never form.
That's directly contradicted by the success of media exports from China lately, already in Asia but it's beginning to cross the language barrier into English Youtube, despite the firewall. In fact it shows it's money and competition that matter, and there is plenty of both in China.
Links? Examples? Some obscure series on YouTube isn’t particularly relevant. My narrative will be “directly contradicted” when the Chinese equivalent of Brad Pitt, Disney, NBA, MLB, NFL, Warner Brothers, etc. are household names in America and the world.
Chinese restricts thought which by definition will take a whole range of creative ideas off the table. They're limiting their tool set in ways that can't be overcome within their governance system.
That’s not meritocratic in the normal sense of the word. Nobody is allowed to ignore CCP policy goals hoping to prove that they are flawed with data later. You’ll be in a re-education camp long before then.
Now it may be true that you can quickly climb the ladder if you never challenge anything, but that’s a pretty narrow set of merit being recognized. It’s just barely an improvement over promoting family members. In both cases, no fundamental change can legitimately bubble up based on merit.
A system that does not respond well to criticism will inevitably fail on its own... in which case they don't need their apps to be banned for that to happen.
History has shown that countries can suppress dissidents for hundreds of years. This current rendition of the Chinese government could easily survive decades while suppressing criticism (which they obviously do).
So you are justifying American imperialism in "helping countries along" by forcibly collapsing unfavorable regimes?
If only the US motives were actually that altruistic, but in reality US intervention in foreign regimes were mostly to protect its interests rather than any actual ideals.
>See: India, Vietnam, Japan, Philippines, increased NATO budget commitments, to name a few.
Apologies for unstructured reply:
There are other real events too, like how trade between China and ASEAN increased throughout covid and and the general trend is more integration. The real events you outlined are also still filtered through FVEY talking heads. People are misattributing increased militarily budgets in the region as growing hint solidifying US coalition when many of these increases are because these countries no longer see US as a reliable partner in SCS, a pattern that started under Obama. See Australians increased military budget citing specifically so, or how their foreign minister upheld US position on SCS but publicly distanced herself from Trump/Pompeo bellicose China policy. Philippines just bailed SCS drills. Half of Vietnamese military acquisitions capabilities target Malaysia, like wise for other countries in the region. It's not all to challenge China - people forget SCS is a 6 party dispute with various overlapping claims. Like when Taiwan AND China both sent ship to assert their claims after PCA ruling. BTW their increased funding and capabilities is directly a result of increased growth from China's growth. Or that China puts more warship tonnage than the entire region combined every year, by multitudes. Or how US military experts want access to Japanese basing to spreadout US asset risk against Chinese strike, but rampant covid in Japanese US bases just made sure that will never happen. Or this meme [1] that explains India's geopolitical situation, China is not the only big country with nervous neighbors.
Or how moving manufacturing out of China is still an ongoing experiment and ultimately one first started by China herself, where China gets to decide winners and losers. Months after Samsung closed their last phone plant in China, they outsourced their low-end models under a Chinese ODM. Also Vietnam is full, all their infrastructure including human capital are at capacity and will take years to cultivate. Or how people celebrate Foxconn recently moving 1B iphone manufacturing to India but don't mention they've invested 8B into IC packaging in China the same week. Or most of final assembling happening in India is still completely reliant on Chinese supply chains. Or how India basically needs 30 years of Chinese reforms to reach comparable development status as China and China could only achieve that due to authoritarian government structure... does India's messy democracy stand a chance? History and past attempts at reform suggests no. Or how automation + ASEAN competition means India will only get to grab a fraction of Chinese manufacturing before they get another 300M unemployed, angry youths because they don't have one-child policy. China still has that many in "poverty" even after peak manufacturing phase. IMO there's just not enough global demand for India to ever replicate China or reach parity. And that demographic boon of of youth is going to turn into a curse. Rest of ASEAN is the same, if you divide all of Chinese manufacturing at peak, with minimal automation, that fed entire world, ~400M jobs, there's simply not enough to go around. Again, China controls the supply chain, she will decide winners for the next 10 years (this number is important), not the west. She simply hasn't enacted extreme policies like US entities list, but could literally cripple many sectors in any country it chooses if she does.
The geopolitics of the region is complex, and everyone in the region is hedging between US and China for posturing, everyone is building up - through growth enabled by China - because they doubt US commitment under current admin that will take years to fix. Except US analysts thinks unless they start a war with China by 2025-2030 latest (that 10 years), Chinese advantage in SCS will be insurmountable. Incidentally, it will take a few years for TSMC to finish their Arizona plant, otherwise no one gets 7nm chips for a while. At the end of the day, only US China-hawks wants a war, everyone else in region has too much to lose, Chinese economy and supply chain feeds the entire regions growth, especially post covid just like post 2008 GFC. And in the south, literally by controlling mekong water supply in down river countries. And even if there is a war where China loses, unless China is completely dismantled, she'll have the industrial capability to destroy any SCS infrastructure via missiles for perpetuity. The future of SCS is already decided in a sense. China has too much industrial capital now to ever not be a geopolitical reality in the region - industrialization is why North Korea can't feed their people but still build inter-continental ballistic missiles. China will always have the capability to shutdown ASEAN and turn everyone into losers. This holds true even if China is blockaded from all outside resources, China is not Japan in WW2, it doesn't have enough domestic resources to maintain huge economic growth, but it has more than enough to be completely self sufficient on a war economy, even if everyone has to ride bikes and eat rice. It could literally revert to a hermit kingdom and lob missiles forever, in which case the entire region loses while US wins. Everyone knows this.
USSR was isolated from the American economy. USA is doing everything in its power to destroy top tier Chinese companies and exploit local political situations.
I dismissed it as mere hyperbole in 2016 when people suggested this to me. Now I feel it has a significant probability of actually happening.
Also, I recently watched a documentary on the start of Nazi Germany. The parallels with current political movements are astounding. Fake news, discrediting experts, ignoring protocols, validating xenophobia, using disasters to grab more power - we've seen it all before.
How should they? The average person has no clue of Nazi Germany, let alone what factors made it possible. Many (young) Americans today think everyone in Germany is still a Nazi.
> The parallels with current political movements are astounding. Fake news, discrediting experts, ignoring protocols, validating xenophobia, using disasters to grab more power - we've seen it all before.
I'm just listening to the "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" audiobook; a bit dated now (written in the '70s) but also written by someone who was in Germany during the whole time. There are a lot of parallels, but according to him, there are a lot of key differences (caveat -- haven't independently checked these characterizations):
* Germany did not have a strong democratic history; unlike both England and France, which had strong movements towards democracy hundreds of years before, Germany was a functional military dictatorship up until the end of WW I. Hitler could openly say that democracy was a bad idea, and lots of rank-and-file Germans agreed with him.
* Germany had a very strong army that was authoritarian, more or less an independent political entity, and sympathetic to Hitler's aims
* Germany had a very biased judiciary. While leftists were sentenced to death for treason for simply reporting violations of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler ended up spending only 9 months in jail for actually attempting a violent coup. This wasn't just because Hitler was popular or charimatic: loads of nationalists / authoritarian rightists had similarly soft punishments.
The US has a strong cultural affinity for democracy; the military is not, at the moment, sympathetic to a dictatorship; and while according to some reports, some police departments are more sympathetic towards right-wing demonstrators than left-wing demonstrators, the judiciary is not.
In other words, we have a lot more institutions that would need to be subverted before we were in the kind of danger Germany was in the 1920s. Still, better to be aware of the dangers and do what we can to oppose them sooner rather than later.
While I think there are differences, the similarities are striking enough to be of concern. For example, the deployment of a paramilitary-like force in Portland makes me think back to what I've read about the early days of the SS.
With respect to the biased judiciary, the way the courts are being stacked in the US may well result in something similar. The AG appears to be already fairly biased (compromised?).
Yes, there are differences still, even in the situations I describe above, but the similarities are worrying.
I think they are both close to it. China is more obvious about it, and their iron-fist approach is perhaps a little less scary than the west's "normalise the atrocities" approach. China is a somewhat stagnant regime, perhaps somewhat set in their ways, yet the west comes across as an accelerating regime, becoming scarier faster.
The key difference for me (at least based on my own anecdata from speaking with people from China) is that Chinese people are not blind to the problems within their politics and government. Especially, the youth recognise the oppressive nature of the regime.
In the West, however, there is a subset of people for whom certain populist political figures can do no wrong. These people are happy to tolerate any "eccentricities", and perhaps don't understand what they might be enabling. And, unfortunately, the enablers are not a small minority.
For example, one guy even claimed he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose a single vote; his supporters applauded in agreement.
China already has concentration camps, heavy censorship, its a dictatorship and forcefully controls the population, and it's not just he "one child policy", its the sterilization of Uyghur men, and the forced marriage of their woman. All evidence points to china treating Uyghurs worse than Nazis treated Jews pre-war (Final solution was during WW2)
I the only difference between China and Nazi Germany from a human rights perspective, is that China hasn't declared any war.
Still, here in the west Nazis is the greatest evil ever, while China is complicated, and even some communist genociders are loved.
I'm not defending Nazis, I'm just staing that their evil is not unparalleled, and there exists a current nation that reeks of the same evil, and there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it.
Sure, the west is a mess with all the political tensions, but all that is just blinding to what is happening outside.
I think increasingly over the last year, dogmatic thinking and fantastical thinking related to several important topics are becoming mainstream, chief among them China. What's disheartening to me is that not only are neocons and Steve Bannon type ideologues pushing hard on this, it seems the majority of "liberals" do not really object to their views or actions on China. Ask yourself this: if you believe the Trump administration is corrupt, inept and acting out of self interest, how can you possibly think their strategy against China (the one foreign policy they pursued with most of their resources) is sound or good for American interest? So Trump botched covid responses that badly but he just got China right out of sheer luck?
I think the unfortunate explanation is that many Americans are now quite vindictive against the whole concept of China and would not mind any action that seem to damage it. Instead of looking at the issue objectively they simply want to believe whatever hurts must be wise. It's making me wonder if unthinkable disasters may actually happen out of sheer stupidity and irrationality.
>it seems the majority of "liberals" do not really object to their views or actions on China
Why would they? Less than equally free trade over the last ~30yr has driven a lot of blue collar voters into the arms of people who make crude promises to bring jobs back.
Many people would like to see more tactful foreign policy by the US but you'd be hard pressed to find people who think the status quo with regard to China was not in serious need of adjustment.
> Increasingly the only thing that matters is which side you are on
You mean, what matters to the political and economic elites in the US, perhaps. In the rest of the world, most of us (IMNSHO) don't share this outlook, nor would we like to be on any one of the two sides.
China is likely playing the higher ground to see who wins in November. Biden will undo all of this and go back to ceding America’s prosperity to the dictatorship of China.
That’s the thing, I hate trump badly but he is at least partially right in China. The problem is working alone doesn’t work even if you are the US. And trump has no friends left so there is just him going alone. This was one of the reasons for the TPP.
Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ?
China can force any company out of the country for any arbitrary reason whatsoever. As far as I know, they are still banning Houston Rockets games because Morey supported Hong Kong in a tweet.
More importantly, China has acted unilaterally in the past to inflict pain on western companies in preference of domestic firms. What’s new is the US doing it back.
Tesla was one of the first US companies to operate with the level of autonomy they have in China. Perhaps there is some retribution from the CCP, but such is the consequence of doing business with a totalitarian state.
Why is this downvoted? It’s true. Everything the US is doing, China has been doing for decades one thousand fold. Whether that’s right or wrong is a different issue.
Our country is founded on a free market economy and competition. If a Chinese company outcompetes US companies... well that means our system is working.
If we decide that rounding up Muslims is a no good very bad idea it follows that we should probably try to do less business with those who do or at the very least do business on terms less favorable to them.
We may want to start with that as the official reason then instead of "national security." Trump is clearly not even trying to pretend to care about that issue.
I think the scope and actions matter. Responding to tariffs with tariffs makes perfect sense, for instance. Punishing individuals makes less sense (eg. if china decided to send all expat americans in china to concentration camps, doing the same to chinese americans wouldn't make sense).
>If a Chinese company outcompetes US companies... well that means our system is working.
It's a good sign that a US company can outcompete a chinese company, even with a handicap, but it's a not a desirable situation.
Some say yes, specifically some in the current administration... But ignoring my glib & pointless attack at a few powerful racists: this tangent of the tangent has very little to do with that the previous posters were saying.
The comparison would only be valid if rounding up the Muslim population has some effect on commercial interests specifically the giving commercial interests in the country doing the rounding up an advantage over those in the other country.
My point is that we shouldn't be copying the tactics of our competitors if we believe and accuse them to be wrong in the first place.
We've been accusing China of "unfair tariffs" when in reality we actually benefit from exploiting their cheap labor and sell them back the same iPhone they assembled for something like 10x the markup. Trying to say this is a reactionary tariff is disingenuous, when the trade balance has been in this state for decades, and the only real reason we're starting to ban their tech exports is because it's getting dangerously competitive with our own. It's shaking our foundational beliefs that our system is destined to win, and now we're resorting to the tactics of our rivals in a moment of insecurity.
Except that the comment at the head of the thread was the one arguing that two wrongs make a right - that if the US does this, then all of a sudden China could start doing the same thing to US companies. The reply is just pointing out that this ignores the fact China already does this, on much vaster scales, and has done since forever. (Given that China is about the closest thing we have to a second superpower, this fits interestingly with your argument.)
Geopolitics is a little more complicated than phrases we tell children.
At the core of it, the kind of protectionism China has engaged in is defecting in a prisoner's dilemma. If you play always cooperate against a defectbot, you're going to lose eventually, even if you start very far ahead.
The correlation of free trade with civil liberties strikes me as missing the forest for the trees. I can’t imagine the average citizen thinks of “free trade vs. protectionism” in moral terms.
It's rather surprising that US policies are blamed for the current standoff instead of China's Great Firewall, which has been getting stronger by each year due to lack of a stronger opposition.
Because it's false? Companies are banned in China for not following Chinese laws or directives. Like... how they report on Tiananmen Square, for example.
When you learn a bit more about geopolitics, you realize that there's more to these things than initially appears. Tiananmen Square was pretty bad. But when you look at the utter collapse of Russia after it tried to Westernize, and the poor shape of America because of her own economic policies, someone not living in the Anglo/American news bubble would really have to wonder.
To that end, companies that have an easier time skirting around the dirty politics – like Tesla, Ford, and GM – have been able to have successful and profitable operations in China. As the parent points out, there's a pandora's box that's being opened. And if you are led to believe that it's a normal comment, it's the same nationalistic stuff you've being trained to fall in line with.
> Companies are banned in China for not following Chinese laws or directives.
Sure, but by that same argument, this executive order bans ByteDance/Tencent under American laws and directives (specifically, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act).
Obviously not the case - this is an out-right ban. There has been no evidence of TikTok violating any laws, and furthermore, no new laws have been issued to which TikTok could adhere to avoid a ban.
Companies operating in China can adhere to Chinese law to operate in the country, but the Trump administration hasn't even issued any laws.
The IEEPA is literally a law. (Also, PRC laws are vague/broad and often applied arbitrarily, just look at the new Hong Kong security law. Not saying this isn't true for US laws, but it's disingenuous to point at the laws when the effects and implementation of those policies matter more.)
It is well known China has stolen IP from western companies and strong armed them into partnership agreements if they wanted to operate in China, as well as using illegitimate anti-monopoly crackdowns to handicap them.
Even assuming they revoked the ban, I also don't see how it's particularly relevant to the point I was making; they still banned the entire franchise for months because he wrote a single message on Twitter. Censorship isn't somehow acceptable if it only lasts ~8 months. It's perhaps the definition of arbitrarily abused power.
> Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ? Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ?
Yes? Are you unaware that China has been doing exactly this for many, many years?
Just as two examples, AWS was forced by China to sell off its Chinese operations to a Chinese company because of arbitrary national security reasons. Blizzard Entertainment was forced by China to go through a Chinese intermediary who controls and publishes all Blizzard games in China.
The Chinese government sets their (extremely authoritarian) rules on censorship for companies to legally operate in China but the rules apply to everyone equally.
Chinese companies of course have to comply, but foreign companies have the choice to comply or not. Google chose to comply initially but decided to pull out later on. Microsoft/Apple choose to comply and are still operating in significant ways in China.
In contrast, US is proposing to ban TikTok, Huawei, DJI without clear rules: the reason to ban these companies is that they are Chinese companies. In other words, Chinese companies are "born a crime" to the US in the current climate, without the need to show what rules are violated or evidence of wrongdoing.
China also doesn't have the monopolistic power in tech that the US does: forbidding Google to operate in China it's not the same as forcing app stores to de-list certain apps globally.
It's even more absurd to force ByteDance to sell their US business to a US company. If the US feels justified that this could be done on "national security" ground, why shouldn't EU do the same to US tech companies?
I do hope that US citizens see that for much of the world, US is no longer the champion of free market, promoter of free-speech or guardian of world-order. All that matters is if these values benefit US economically or politically.
The US lost it when Japan was economically sanctioned for its competitive auto/electronic sector in 1980s. China is taking the same heat today and India would be the next target if India were to want to play its role on the international stage. The best outcome for the world would be to have multiple strong economies globally that keep each other in check; rather than one country having monopolistic power over all globally significant online forums.
In the AWS case, the law that AWS was breaking was that they were operating telecom equipment while not being a Chinese company. So I think there’s more symmetry there (though one could argue that there’s at least a uniformly enforceable rule on all foreign companies, unlike the ByteDance case).
Yes, the closest example would be Huawai in this case but the lack of uniformly enforced rules is deafening.
If US were to decide that all telecom equipment used in the US must be produced by domestic companies then that's fair enough.
Going after one specific privately owned company, influencing ally states' purchase decision, banning foreign companies globally from supplying chips is outright bullying and sets the unfortunate precedent that a country could leverage its monopolistic position in tech to stifle competition.
> ...sets the unfortunate precedent that a country could leverage its monopolistic position in tech to stifle competition.
Isn't that exactly what the Chinese laws do? Everything I've read seems to say that they prevent foreign companies from being able to fairly compete against local Chinese. companies.
When Google entered the Chinese search market it was competing fairly with local players: both Baidu and Google have to accept the (authoritarian) rule that they need to censor their search if they want to legally operate in China.
You could argue if the rule itself is good (I think it's not), but the point is that there are clearly stated rules that Google could choose to comply with or not.
Which "rule" did TikTok, Huawai, Wechat violate other than the fact that they are born Chinese companies?
The US could also decide that all social networks that operate in the US must be owned by American companies and subject to congressional inquiries. That would be fair enough, though that's an even more extreme version than what the Chinese government has been demanding.
I think it's important to clear up why Google left China. Google was complying with Chinese rules. They left China because of a state-sponsored attack on Google[1]. Trying to play the high road with CCP, while leaving this out, is whitewashing American tech history in the state.
Given that the Chinese state elected to hack an American firm that was operating in it's borders, you could make any sort of excuse to prevent Chinese firms from owning American infrastructure for any sort of national security reasons. TikTok doesn't have to break any rules. If I see my roommate get mauled by a tiger, that doesn't mean I have to sit around and wait to get mauled before I take an action.
FWIW AWS basically skirted this by having the chinese companies they contract with be the official "seller of record"/"operator"/"owner" but the regions are de-facto operated by western AWS engineering teams under a complicated contracting scheme.
But the big difference is that Amazon still controls aws in China, the product, the brand, the IP. And aws is developed employees in Seattle. It's just operated by the Chinese company. The Chinese company deal with servers, deployment, accesses to the servers and stuff. Amazon also get a significant share of revenue from that market. That is totally different from US gov forcing Bytedance to sell tiktok. Bytedance will no longer own tiktok. It's will have 0 shares. Zero control and no revenue sharing. Technically Microsoft can do whatever they want with tiktok in the future.
No, but they certainly could if it suited their interests. What I find interesting in this thread is this assumption of both proportionality and rationality from the other party. China isn't, and hasn't, followed the same rules as the rest of the West. Why would we expect them to now? Moreover, from a game theoretical perspective it seems suicidal to act like they will, and then do nothing but complain about them "not following the rules".
China says if you want to set up a factory in China you need to transfer IP. They aren't forcing western companies to invest. Most companies invested voluntarily. And this was seen as mostly OK when the rivalry wasn't as heated.
Tolerated by whom? Those companies aren't owned by the public, or by the US government. The owners/executives of those companies tolerated the practice, because they believed that they could still be profitable and that the risk was acceptable. And profit they did. Do you think they care one bit about ideology?
I find it rather strange that so many people throw around the "tolerate in order for China for open up" rhetoric, as if companies invest in China for ideological reasons. Ironically, by forcing those western companies to not do business with China, you are infringing on those companies' freedom to choose for themselves, and violating liberal values.
Furthermore, as someone who came from China, that "China did not open up" is completely false. In the past 30 years, China opened up immensely. In the 70s, Chinese could not choose what to wear, could not choose to travel abroad, people could randomly be caught on suspicion of colluding with "the enemy". All of that has changed. Even the latter: the practice of being "reported by your neighbor for suspicious activities" no longer happens, the Cultural Revolution madness is over. Heck, even "not allowed to criticize the government" is no longer true: there are official channels for publishing constructive criticism (emphasis on constructive), and government officials post official replies in the public, and the criticism is listened to without getting you into trouble (the caveat being that you are not allowed to instigate mass protests, or call for overthrow of the government). Sure, it's not equivalent to western democracies, but it did change for the better even if there's still room for improvement. But for some reason, many western people completely ignore this fact and buy into the rhetoric that "China did not open up". It's not even a small fact, it's a huge boulder staring in your face, and people don't see it.
China enacted a new foriegn investment law. It no longer require joint venture, IP transfers. Tesla is able to use this law to built an wholly owned subsidiary and factory in China. A lot of big autos in China are now buying back their ownership in joint venture, previously they were 50% 50%. BMW now fully owns all their operations in China. Also for 50% 50% joint venture, it actually has benefits for foreign companies because it reduced their capital expenditure and split the risks when Chinese market was not a known factor during the early 2000s. For IP transfers, they would most likely be evaluated against the risk and rewards. It's basically buying market access with IP. Companies don't transfers their best IP, but an outdated version. But for Chinese at that time it's still valuable.
What does this "open up" actually mean? A bunch of American companies have set up shop in China, which was not possible 50 years ago. Now it's common for huge entertainment properties like blockbuster movies and the NBA to get a massive share of revenue from China. Video game consoles are now legal. And of course, China is now essential in the production of most American products.
Open up means become a modern democratic state with respect for human rights, or at the very least, be on the road to one. The opposite has happened and the pundits from the 90s look pretty silly right about now.
This is absolutely fair whataboutism because it shows the US's first priority has consistently been commerce over human rights. You couldd still say the US values "free people" a little bit, but values "free markets" more, and thus we get Deng Xiaoping > Mohammad Mosaddegh.
The irony of these trite whataboutist responses is that China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic. Unfortunately for the Chinese people, the Party is more interested in maintaining personal power than charting a good path for humanity.
> China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic.
Certainly. And the CCP hinders that. But the point of my above comment is to illustrate that it's an open question whether China would be 'allowed' to be open and democratic.
I don't believe the West is actually concerned about CCP's human rights violations. They're simply concerned about China's rise as an economic and military power, we would not support the Saudi regime if human rights was a concern.
One of the major reasons the CCP got a foothold in China was because there was a sense that for over a century China was subservient to Western powers.
The CCP was fine as far as the west was concerned as long as it was primarily a dumb factory for us. But now they have ambitions to go beyond that.
I think that's the crux of the animosity towards China today, not human rights violations, as gross as they are.
I could imagine China being somewhat of an EU and democratic and as long as they buy enough western products, be left alone. But if they actually wanted a truly independent foreign policy for example, that would not fly. See the Iran Deal for how dependent EU foreign policy is on the U.S. one.
P.S. That does not mean the CCP is good. It's not. But pretending that western leaders actually care about its human rights abuses is silly.
I think this viewpoint is pretty one-dimensional and oversimplifies the complexity of geopolitics. The US is like any other country in that faces a constant struggle between its idealistic values and the realities of the world. To say that “the West doesn’t care about the human rights violations” is absurd, as if you could paint nearly a billion people (Europe plus US) with a single brush. The idea that by supporting one repressive state you forfeit your ability to critique other repressive states is also absurd. The world isn’t that simple.
To give you an example: in retrospect, keeping Saddam in power and not invading Iraq is considered a fairly reasonable opinion; i.e. even though we got rid of a dictator, the consequences were arguably worse.
The reality is that the West tends to not get involved politically if the state in question is insular enough to not affect other countries. This isn’t because they condone abuses in these countries, but because a long history of failed colonialism and wars has rendered the West extremely hesitant to get involved in any sort of ‘just’ war that isn’t provoked by the state in question (see Iraq and Kuwait for example.)
The contemporary populist rise of American hostility to China is also linked directly to offshoring jobs from the Rust Belt, so again, there are clearly groups of people who have issues with China that aren’t merely “crush the rising competitor.”
In any case I don’t disagree that the West has sunk democratic movements which were against its interests, but that to say all such attempts will be shut down is overly-simplistic.
> To say that “the West doesn’t care about the human rights violations” is absurd, as if you could paint nearly a billion people (Europe plus US) with a single brush.
It should be pretty clear from the context that I am talking about western governments, not people.
Also, as an European, it doesn't look to me like we have much in terms of independent foreign policy.
> The idea that by supporting one repressive state you forfeit your ability to critique other repressive states is also absurd.
One? Please. We support plenty of other dictators all across the world. Or is Egypt's Sisi not a dictator? What about the UAE, Qatar etc.?
What about human rights violations by democratic countries? We don't seem to care much about illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
> in retrospect, keeping Saddam in power and not invading Iraq is considered a fairly reasonable opinion; i.e. even though we got rid of a dictator, the consequences were arguably worse
The assumption that the goal at the start was to get rid of a dictator because he was one is fairly well established to not be true. Basically a bunch of neocons who were bitter we didn't dispose Saddam in the FGW wanted to settle scores.
> The reality is that the West tends to not get involved politically if the state in question is insular enough to not affect other countries.
Really, what about the likes of Venezuela/Nicaragua?
> I don’t disagree that the West has sunk democratic movements which were against its interests, but that to say all such attempts will be shut down is overly-simplistic.
Let's talk about human rights
There is an actual genocide going on in Yemen , and it's perpetuated by a Saudi dictator . The same dictator who dismembered an American journalist in foreign embassy.
Now Americans are selling weapons to the dictator to continue the genocide because human rights are selctive
His comment is in no way whataboutist or trite. It is providing counterexamples to the claim that the goal of US policy is to get countries to "open up", by citing countries that did start opening up until the US stepped in to prevent that from happening.
Forget about pundits, Bill Clinton made this argument: "The American people support this agreement because they know it's good for jobs in America and good for human rights and the development of democracy in China." https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/library/hot...
Now, did he really believe that? Was he just selling the American people a bad deal? The end result anyway is that this is precisely the argument that was made, and thousands believed it.
Comparing the treatment of black people in the US to the treatment of Uyghurs (ethnic muslim Chinese) is not a realistic comparison at all. Currently Uyghurs in China are forced into prison camps for nothing other then being Uyghurs. They are then forced into labor or in some cases even have their organs harvested. Yes the US did enslave black people but that was stopped long ago and generally Americans agree that was wrong.
>Can you show me such a video of Uyghurs in China.
>I will answer it for you: no you can't.
All your doing is proving that China has no freedom of speech. The reason The reason I cant show you such a video is because of Chinese censorship. Such a video would never be allowed to circulate. The fact that a video of George Floyde being murdered can be shared in the US proves that in US we tolerate speech even when it shows the US in bad light. Also the cops who did this to Floyde are being prosecuted.
Even something as simple as a picture of Winnie the Pooh is banned in China because people compared Pooh, a children's cartoon to China's leader. Imagine the leader of a country having his feelings hurt by a child's cartoon so bad that he bans the cartoon.
a)Allowing US Internet companies to compete fairly instead of using the firewall as an excuse to promote state controlled tech monopolies.
b) Having a fair and transparent judiciary to handle cases of intellectual property violations.
Open up would mean an open fiscal policy, namely allow money to leave the country. Companies and especially individuals can't invest and then pull the money back out of the country very easily.
It might have been seen as OK on the business community, but people in the national security community have been freting over it for a long time. For reasons good and bad those views are now in the ascendancy in the political sphere.
“Intellectual property”. What a joke. Throughout school how many times was I excited by a solution I devised until I realized my same exact approach was already discovered, published, and well known? These problems we are solving first dont entitle is to exclusive right over the solution.
We want to kick down the ladder after we climb it. That’s what this is about.
Out of curiosity, how many American companies have Chinese patents (NOT USA patents) that get don't get relief after suing the violator in a Chinese court.
This thread is about the US govt banning foreign companies for no justifiable reason. China sees the US abandon due process to screw over its companies and...? Somehow that leads to improved international legal norms. It doesn't make any sense.
It makes complete sense, its tit for tat, China can can arbitrarily impose their rules on foreign companies and now US is doing the same.
Either Chinese businesses can lobby the Chinese Govt to make peace with US or the Chinese govt wont listen to them and have a more aggressive stand, only time will tell.
Software is generally harder to pin down than other things when it comes to IP theft, but even so there is still a clear distinction between "stealing" a feature and stealing the actual code that enables that feature. China / Chinese companies have been consistently caught doing the latter. They also do the former but that is not what anyone is complaining about.
The difference between west and CCP is that you follow rule of law, everyone is free until you're proven guilty. If you just replicate what CCP is doing you're admitting that their ideology is superior.
> US tech firms still have a harder time operating in China.
It's entirely hard to believe this considering the obscene amounts of profits that US companies make by just "designing in california". Our whole era is enabled and defined by cheap chinese labor.
Clearly many companies benefit from outsourcing manufacturing to China. But they don't own the manufacturing process, they're basically using contract labor and supply chains. Software and design has proven harder to outsource or I'm sure that would be gone, too. The point is that our software apps are not freely allowed to exist there. The firewall is a thing, information is tightly controlled, and they can't allow freedom of speech so they typically ban or limit many American applications.
it's a tit for tat. chinese labour market isn't exactly a free market, and its state controlled policies is precisely the reason why the world chose china in the first place
> It's entirely hard to believe this considering the obscene amounts of profits that US companies make by just "designing in california". Our whole era is enabled and defined by cheap chinese labor.
Labor is fungible, if it wasn't in China it would be somewhere else.
Google, fb, Twitter doesn't comply with internet security law in China, which requires servers in China and content regulation. The same law applies to everyone. If you follow it by the letter, you can operate. Case in point, Apple iCloud, Amazon, Microsoft azure etc. Yes the law itself is highly controversial. I for one would want this law changed. But at least the path for market access is documented. In tiktok case, it didn't break any existing us laws. It has an American office and hires Americans to do security and content monitoring. All data is stored on US soil. It promised to let outside review of data practices and how the algorithm works. There is no clearly spelled out procedure to follow to be allowed operating in the US. I am sure tiktok people are searching in the air for ideas to get themselves allowed to operate. I think thats the difference between fb in China and tiktok in the US.
It's become clear over the past year or so that US policy is essentially to ban Chinese tech companies from the US. ZTE, Huawei, ByteDance, WeChat, and surely more to follow as the election approaches and Trump tries to escalate tensions with China further.
On the other side, American tech companies do massive amounts of business in China.
The relationship is very lopsided, and at some point, China is sure to take action against American tech firms in China.
> A meta point I'd like to add is that currently 10 % of the earths population in the "Westosphere" controls 60 % of the worlds wealth. This is untenable in the long term and all this flailing about will not stop a reversion to a more balanced world. Its better that this happen gracefully than in a violent fashion.
That has been the case since at least the start of colonialism, so something like 200 years now. It depends on what you mean by long term, but that is already a long time. (And it has been sort of non-violent since the de-colonization wars in the 60s).
a) Fair enough. But I reserve some doubts it will be that easy. If it gets to the point that China bans Boeing, I'm convinced many EU companies would also be in the firing line of US sanction regulators and China.
b) Cormac cannot even produce jet engines after 25+ years of state backed R&D.
"China does not have the capacity to build a jet engine yet alone a commercial plane in service."
My point was that they are building a commercial plane (not with Chinese fans yet), as your usage of "yet alone" expressed some kind of dependency or sequence, at least to my non native speaking ears.
Don't they prevent some of our companies from operating there though? And then developed their own competing solutions free from competition. That's not exactly a free market, is it?
Which companies? If you mean Google search, they decided it wasn't worth complying with Chinese laws and left. You may not agree with the specific laws but complying with local laws is a bare minimum requirement for entry into the market of every country. Google even made a second attempt to reenter China, but shut down due to criticism from employees and the US government.
All Google services are banned, IIRC. And the legality of anticompetitive practice is hardly a justification. This executive order is, after all, entirely legal.
Good examples. AirBnB operated fine in China even has a China BU last time I checked. Uber sold it's operation in China to local competitors as they were losing any way.
No AirBNB was/is getting CRUSHEd in china because the monopoly power of the companies already present. You have to understand that competition in China is like a childrens playground, with the CCP being the parents.
They will choose the winners and losers, but they will do so by balancing their own metrics, which has China's economic power as no.1 priority.
Only know is Airbnb doing more OK, after moving servers to china, making local joint ventures, changing their name to a chinese one etc. etc.
AirBnB would still get crushed like most other American companies when they face strong local competitors even if they have full support from CCP. These companies are usually terrible at localization and what works in America won't just work in China. Doesn't mean it's not possible for them to succeed, LinkedIn for example, did fairly well in China so far.
AirBnB moved server to China because their website would be terribly slow if not, they need local joint ventures or otherwise they would have little idea in how to navigate in Chinese market. Of course they need a Chinese name, how else would you expect users to know what "Airbnb" is? Nobody would remember. They can change their name to a series of numbers and that would still work better than "Airbnb"
Neither of which are banned in China. It isn't allowed to offer cab services with a privately owned car in China, but this is also true in most of the EU.
When the laws are vague and broad and applied arbitrarily, they are basically the same as American laws like the IEEPA which give Trump the power to ban those companies. By the same argument, you may not agree with IEEPA but it exists and ByteDance and Tencent have to deal with it. It is not a good argument though.
"Operation Aurora was a series of cyber attacks conducted by advanced persistent threats such as the Elderwood Group based in Beijing, China, with ties to the People's Liberation Army.[2] First publicly disclosed by Google on January 12, 2010, in a blog post,[1] the attacks began in mid-2009 and continued through December 2009.[3]
The attack was aimed at dozens of other organizations, of which Adobe Systems,[4] Akamai Technologies,[5] Juniper Networks[6] and Rackspace[7] have publicly confirmed that they were targeted. According to media reports, Yahoo, Symantec, Northrop Grumman, Morgan Stanley,[8] Dow Chemical,[9] and BlackBerry [10] were also among the targets."
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This community is vastly more diverse than the people making up accusations of astroturfing imagine that it is. If you don't have evidence, you can't sling such insinuations around. Someone advocating for a view you disagree with does not remotely clear the bar for evidence of astroturfing or foreign spies.
If you want more explanation, you'll find years' worth at these links:
I'd prefer we reference CCP instead of China to differentiate the Chinese people from their tyrannical rulers.
The laws in America not outright making it illegal for tyrannical organizations who operate concentrate camps and partake in genocide (Uighurs) to have access to our democratic societies and benefit economically doesn't mean it's not something you should stand for - and where the laws likely should exist for that.
Likewise, the CCP would likely just takeover Tesla's operations - maybe paying them, maybe not. The difference in the US, currently at least, is TikTok has options: 1) they don't sell and the ban comes, they don't receive any $x billions compensation, or 2) they understand a ban is likely in the US (and growing other democratic nations) and they make the smarter economic decision of selling for $x billions - maybe at fire sale pricing, however there are many competitors who could still compete and be capable of taking over operations, so perhaps not as low as otherwise it could be.
We're not hurtling towards the abyss, that's fear mongering; you may be right that SV startups may have to divest their China based investors, however that may or may not hurt them - and that would be the result of countering external costs to supporting and allowing CCP that we haven't been adequately accounting for for decades.
This is a strategic political-economic pressure decision to put pressure onto the CCP - notice that we're paying attention and won't stand for the level of abuse and tyrannical behaviours of the that we're becoming more and more aware of.
Economic pressure and preventing access to democratic societies for economic gain IS the graceful way to go about this, rather than allow CCP to gain more reach, access for propaganda for intelligence gathering and manipulation, to then spoil politicians further and become more entrenched in our societies economically and via investments in the most popular apps, etc.
And finally, the CCP isn't suicidal - their $500 billion stimulus you reference was for their own survival as well; they also wouldn't want this system they've been creating getting its fingers strongly into the rest of the world economy (which they depend on to maintain) to collapse, the collapse of which would mean things would shift greatly and more likely away from their own benefit.
This is nothing new; it's geopolitics. The big boys have been doing this since the dawn of time.
Think of it like a playground: Everyone generally gets along, but the big kids can and sometimes do monopolize things they think are important at the time. The smaller kids make way for the bigger kids, and every now and then there's a fight between the bigger kids when they disagree strongly enough. They exchange words, jostle and block each other, or maybe it even comes to blows, and then things return to the status-quo for awhile.
That's how geopolitics work, except that it's usually a LOT more subtle or at least hidden from the public eye. Trump isn't a member of the political elite and is completely lacking in tact, so it's a lot harder to keep an appearance of calmness when he's in the room. Expect a much cleaner appearance of normalcy once he's out of office.
Anytime you do business with China your essentially doing business with the CCP.
We would all like China to be a positive part of the global community but the fact of the matter is you can't ignore their overall policy. A possible genocide against the ethnic Uighurs, aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, normalization of censorship and suppression, treatment of Hong Kong & Taiwan: all of which are a complete contrast of Western values.
Could China force Tesla to sell Chinese operations? Absolutely. I don't think any one would be surprised. Companies that enter the Chinese market (if they can in the first place) are subjected to getting a smaller piece of the pie from the start.
Facebook has relentlessly tried to tap the Chinese market but are blocked by the CCP. So why does TikTok get a free pass to the American market? Why does __any__ Chinese company get a pass?
I think we need to continuously evaluate our relationship with China.
WAL-MART, Starbuck, Ford, General Motors, GE, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, UnitedHealth, HP, IBM, JPMorgan, Pepsi, CocaCola... all these companies are easy targets of China. But the Chinese government is not likely to make any move unless really cornered.
China has been doing this for a very long time to US companies. I'm not sure what pandora's box is being opened here. They just didn't selectively to two companies, they do it to all of them (other than Tesla who was the exception to the rule).
EU gave $200+ billion, plus each country did their own thing.
Ask FB or Google about their Chinese websites. How are they doing? This should have been done long time ago, tit for tat.
As for the rest, I doubt China can resort to stupid stuff. US and EU are not happy with them for a lot of things, including Covid, and China desperately needs them. China allowed manufacturing not to help us, but to gain taxes, employment and to steel IP.
This is sad, we in the US are losing the little high ground we had and no longer lead by example to bring the world closer together by encouraging free markets and free people. I'm against this protectionist nationalism, it only leads to future conflict.
> no longer lead by example to bring the world closer together by encouraging free markets and free people.
It does not work very well if you are the only nice guy within a group of a--holes. You just end up being beaten up. Free Markets work well if pretty much everyone adopts the same rules of commerce, but China is way beyond that point.
Alan Kay has noted that vendettas are a human universal [1]: they arises naturally in any human society everywhere on the globe and in history. Rule of law is not a human universal, it requires conscious effort and continuous maintenance. I'm increasingly afraid that the relatively long period of peace in the West have lulled this generation to forget that war, not peace is the natural state of the world.
Yes, by mirroring China’s authoritarianism and restricting the freedom of Americans. I’m living overseas and now my government is telling me I can’t use WeChat? Telling me who I can and cannot trade with, etc.
Restrictions on trade with China are attacks on our freedom.
Private chats can contain sensitive material that could be used to extort/blackmail government officials and/or business leaders, and in-app payments can be used for tax evasion, money laundering and bypassing sanctions. That in combination with the fact that TenCent or any large Chinese corporation is essentially an extension of the government means that WeChat can very plausibly become a threat to national security if it gains widespread adoption.
While I agree with your stance that this is infringing on personal freedoms of American citizens, and I too wish our leaders wouldn't always so eagerly infringe on personal freedoms in the name of national security, the national security claim itself does have merit.
The military and government officials can avoid use of the apps, without banning them for Americans. As they have before WeChat, and before the Internet.
I think the notion that WeChat is a threat to national security is honestly ridiculous. National security is a legal excuse to do things Trump otherwise wouldn’t be able to do in his pursuit of a trade war.
There's no way to predict in advance who's going to become a government official. When they do, and if they used WeChat before then, the damage is done. Material on those close to the officials can also be used against them in similar manner.
Again, not condoning the restriction of personal freedoms, but the national security angle is not totally without merit.
Yes, this. There are very few degrees of separation in social networks and people leak personal and private information to social networks all the time. It can and will be used against you. It can also be used as a propaganda outlet. Social media has already shown its impressive abilities to manipulate people's emotions and behaviors, in mass numbers.
You are refusing to look at the bigger picture. China is at a silent war with western countries -it has been for decades. Tech is the backbone of China. We have to hit them where it hurts in order to contain them, otherwise you lose much more than "your ability to trade". China just recently passed a law criminializing anybody outside China - of any nationality - criticizing China or its regime.
While people like you whine about your chat app, it can be a matter of life and death if China is allowed to continue.
My understanding is almost all countries have laws that apply to their citizens abroad. If you don't like it, you're welcome to renounce your American citizenship (at a price)
It is absolutely within the purview of a Sovereign Nation to decide, within the confines of relevant statutes, what companies are allowed to operate within its borders. Trade restrictions are absolutely normal, and are well inline with established practices. What are economic sanctions, after all, but a restriction on the freedom to conduct commerce?
A widely held belief is both that free trade is good, when both parties engage in it, and that when one party prohibits it the other party is correct in doing the same. This is why reciprocating sanctions and tarrifs is standard practice.
For example, Canada just today announced tarrifs on some US goods in response to the US putting tarrifs on some Canadian goods. That's not because we don't want free trade with the US, it's because free trade only works if it's reciprocal.
Certainly: CCP has been able to fool the world for long enough. US policy of hoping that China would open up in the long run has proven to be extremely naive.
If by policy you mean trade policy, yes. By any another metric, probably not. Certainly not policies on freedom for instance, if you value that sort of thing. It's time the United States levels the trade game with China.
And this is where credibility matters. Do other countries believe that this is true, or do they believe that Trump is doing this because TikTok is full of teens & comedians that have made him look foolish?
Not really. There are other developing economies with serious tech sectors like India which operate according to the rules based open market system we have in place.
If the US doesn't take action against Chinese protectionism, why should other countries abide by the rules and give US access to their markets? The US provides China it's market even though China closes it down for everyone.
I think US being soft on China sets a bad precedent.
> I'm against this protectionist nationalism, it only leads to future conflict.
And unfortunately this is what the top comment preaches and I am very disappointed to see that the more-educated-than-the-average-person readers of HN fall into the trade war / retaliation fallacy.
Trade always benefits both parties. Otherwise they would not start trading in the first place.
The US has been a champion of global free trade for more than a century.
Of course, the US wants to be top dog in this free trade Utopia, and the means employed to get to those free-trade ends have frequently been terrible.
But just as frequently the means have been a reasonable (and moral / amoral) push to encourage globalization, which has demonstrably helped reduce poverty and other negative stats the world over.
The only thing that matters is long-term consequences. This could be war, but literally nobody wants that, least of all China. It also could be beating China down on its knees, and forcing it to free its people and its markets. That would be a remarkable outcome (not sure Trump can get there, though - I expected something in this direction in his dealings with North Korea, but he dropped the ball... I don't know, maybe he just got bored?)
it's not only about protectionism, WeChat is also used for tax evasion through wechat payments, let alone security risks with Chinese gov having access to all photos, documents and videos of residents of US who have this spyware on their phone
According to Sam Dean (LA Times): "Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order! White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat." [0]
So that clears up at least a little of the ambiguity.
Section 1. (a) The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.
I don't think it was vague, the executive order stated:
> The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.
Similarly, and I honestly feel a bit silly asking this, but does this ban US investors from purchasing Tencent stock? It doesn't seem so - are these literally just bans on app transactions? Or does this also mean that, for example, WeChat couldn't host infra on Azure in Africa?
Did you edit in the quote from the EO after? It specifically says "any transaction that is related to WeChat". The TikTok/ByteDance order doesn't include a "related to" qualifier like that, the same section in it just says:
any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, [...] with ByteDance Ltd.
It's still not clear what exactly that will mean, but the intention definitely seems to be to restrict it to WeChat and not hit everything from Tencent.
Tencent owns 40% of Epic Games, which owns Fortnite and the Epic Games store. This might be a symbolic move more then anything, because unless they intend to be rigorous about Tencent’s connections with all these companies (e.g Can’t buy anything on Epic’s store, or make micro transactions in games from companies owned by Tencent), they really are not stopping anything.
Your purchases through Epic or Riot (League of Legends, Valorant) are not seen as ‘direct’ transactions with Tencent.
Basically it’s exactly the kind of grandstanding Trump would partake in.
I think you're thinking of league of legends, unless they also have a controlling stake in Activision. I believe their stake a Activision is very much a minority position.
>That happened in 2012, the only legal challenge to CFIUS since it was established in 1975, when Chinese-based Sany Group’s affiliate Ralls Corp. bought wind farms in Oregon. Then- President Barack Obama ordered Ralls to not only divest the wind farms, but also forced it to remove items added to the facilities, including concrete foundation, and barred employee access to the premises. Sany complied.
The ban of an app like TikTok is absolutely unprecedented and is very atypical. This isn't par-for-the-course behavior by the US government, and the outcome of this ban will set a precedent for other apps the US bans on "national security" grounds.
The most recent example was Grindr which was first sold to Chinese company and the government had to force them to sell it back because the app contained location info of potentially sensitive military personnel.
How come? Clearly the app is used by the youth. Having gullible youth using the app of a country that's knows for its in-app propaganda is very clearly a national security risk.
I don't know that the US version has any. But there is a risk that algorithms get tuned to influence youth imo. I think all youth-oriented products have this problem, but China is a riskier actor in that regard.
There are a few video when you type "tiktok propaganda" on youtube. Not sure since I haven't used the app.
What are the national security concerns for these apps that are not present in the multitude of other apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Zoom, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Gmail, iMessage, Facetime, Vine, Snapchat, YouTube, etc?
What about the suspicions that Trump is upset that TikTok users helped sabotage one of his big rallies and this is retaliation and thus an overextension of his powers and an exercise in authoritarianism (something he's already done many times anyway)?
> What are the national security concerns for these apps that are not present in the multitude of other apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Zoom, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Gmail, iMessage, Facetime, Vine, Snapchat, YouTube, etc?
These are all American companies. Wechat and TikTok are controlled by Chinese companies.
> What about the suspicions that Trump is upset that TikTok users helped sabotage one of his big rallies and this is retaliation and thus an overextension of his powers and an exercise in authoritarianism (something he's already done many times anyway)?
I suspect that was actually his motive, and the national security reasoning is just a pretext. That said, a stopped clock is right twice a day.
This is hardly giving up freedom. It is literally the job of the government to be an interface between America and the rest of the world and it is within their purview to deem chinese companies that can collect data on americans a security risk.
Because many US companies have been at the receiving end of unfair trade practices, copyright theft and blatant IP violations from the mainland. It's good that we are finally doing something about that.
I dunno, it worries me to see popular narratives sinking back into nationalistic perspectives.
This entrenches us in the “they did A, so we will respond with B” logic, and from there, it only takes a few “reasonable” exchanges between nations “just looking out for themselves” for us all to end up in a situation nobody wanted.
I agree with you on the overall perspective. But I do think exceptions can and do exist.
This not just a case of “they did A, so we will respond with B”. It's a case of “they did A, B, C, etc. so we are responding with X after 10+ years“. To be fair, successive US administrations across party lines gave CCP a long enough rope.
> “they did A, B, C, etc. so we are responding with X after 10+ years“
It’s the same, reactionary logic, that fails to give first concern for the desired end state. Delaying reactionary measures is what many call patience.
The outcome of this ban has important implications for potential bans in the future that affect apps at odds with administrations. End-to-end apps like Signal come to mind.
No it means US has a leader who is finally thinking rationally about China, instead of falling into the greed trap that most other politicians have been stuck in.
In my opinion, if China wants to be a part of the global economy, China must let the globe be part of its own economy. Facebook, Google, Twitter have been systematically forced out of China. Why should we let Chinese social media sites in our countries?
The specific act of banning TikTok seems petty and uncalled for, but we have to start somewhere.
I understand that this makes sense from a libertarian perspective, but I believe there are certain exceptions to be made when dealing with authoritarian, abusive, and dangerous regimes.
An example would be nuclear material and technology. US places a lot of restrictions on individuals' rights to trade these materials, but I believe it is necessary.
So not all restrictions on individual rights are incorrect, when it comes to trading with foreigners.
you’re also ignoring that you’ve proved the rest of the world that investing in US is not as safe as everybody thought so. it may byte you in the near future (i don’t wish that, though).
At least in my social circles, this has been one of the few things trump has done that both dems/conservatives agree with. Why would you be ok with CCP collecting info on US citizens and spreading misinformation to benefit a foreign regime?
People share all kinds of private, exploitable information on social media platforms. And social media is a powerful platform for spreading propaganda. Sorry, it's just too dangerous to let the CCP, who are absolute experts in propaganda, have that much influence in domestic affairs.
It isn't the country directly collecting and analyzing data. It is a company. Chinese companies are required to share data, but so are U.S. companies.
If we focus on the companies, why is okay that U.S. companies are able to collect nearly arbitrary data on all U.S. citizens and participate in propaganda?
The (US-HQ'd) company I work for has a small but significant office in China. We are not a household name, even within tech, so I doubt we'd be a target of any retaliation by China.
However, my worry is this: Whilst we have a lot of really good people in China, we don't do any business in China (and there's no realistic prospect of us doing so). So at this point operating in China seems like a huge exposure to risk for relatively little reward in the long term.
But I don't see an alternative for us. Pull out of China and business continuity would take a huge hit; stay in China and accept the risks & uncertainty.
Your Chinese employees will be fine, but foreign personel coming in should indeed be very careful not to pique the party's attention as it will actively be seeking pawns.
How bad of a hit would your business continuity take? Not to get dramatic, but, is it worth risking the lives of your employees over? Personally I won't step foot within PRC borders given my staunch pro-Taiwan sovereignty stance. It's a vicious state that has in the past indicated it will go to any lengths to protect its stature.
I am going to ignore value judgment over whether it is fair, or whether it even makes sense and am going to jump straight to enforcement framework and EO interpretation.
EO appears to single out two entities WeChat ( Tencent subsidiary ) and TikTok ( ByteDance subsidiary ). EO appears to indicate that the restrictions will be governed by sanctions framework.
Tencent owns a fair amount of gaming outfits so based on ownership, for example, Grinding Gears could be affected since Tencent owns 80% stake there. Gears seems to interpret the order in an optimistic way leaning heavily on phrase 'any transaction that is related to WeChat', but ignores 'with Tencent Holdings Ltd.' and how it is likely going to be interpreted by the banking. In short, Tencent interpretation right now is 'it applies only if it only blocks transactions related to WeChat.'
I personally have less generous read, but if a lawyer could actually weigh in, that would work:P
Original text:
Section 1. (a) The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law: any transaction that is related to WeChat by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with Tencent Holdings Ltd. (a.k.a. Téngxùn Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī), Shenzhen, China, or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) under section 1(c) of this order.[1]
> In addition, the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives. //
Because only a fascissistic dictatorial government would be shooting on it's own citizens, eh.
Who is using TikTok for something that's got any business or political sensitivity?
I'm surprised Trump doesn't just admit 'China is beating us on internet platforms, we're not going to let them win financially'. He could present it as 'leveling the playing field'. That sort of overtly authoritarian dictatorial xenophobic fascism seems to be lapped up by the USA public at the moment?
Or does anyone want to defend that some video of me dancing to music is somehow critical to keep private??
I can see there's a side effect of the USA administration not wanting any apps they don't have a backdoor to being used in USA.
They don't say which companies will be subject to the order, really open and free (presumably to allow maximum market manipulation [fluctuation on the speculated actions, then controlled movement according to which companies the order covers] and a month and a half to get relevant bribes).
Tl;dr depends if Grinding Gears pays Trump enough campaign funding I'd guess.
The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them.
Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations.
Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.
If China wants their companies to be able to access western markets then they must allow western companies to access their markets.
Quite frankly, the entire western world should be banding together to oppose this nonsense from China. We should outright ban any goods or technology that originates in China until China changes its behavior and opens its economy.
Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this?
The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have received US tech giants with open arms. So our economies bleed money and lose jobs to the likes of Amazon, because hey, "the free market". What do we stand to gain by siding with US companies in this US companies vs. China companies wars?
Perhaps it would be better for us to just imitate China, start being protectionistic and banning foreign tech companies so we can grow our own and prosper. It works. In the US you're pretty much telling us that it works - so well that you are doing the same.
Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?
> Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?
One of the ideas behind the structure of our republic is that there can be peaceful changes in power between different governments.
What I mean to say is that the US is not one person, not even the US government.
So, the moralizing talk about the free market has not always been duplicitous as you seem to imply. The protectionist actions you see now are just taken by the current government, who even on its own, doesn’t seem to have harp on the need for a free market very much. This is especially true when you compare it to the last government that was backing the TPP, something that was promptly killed after the regime change.
Otherwise I agree with your conclusion, European countries should chart their own way.
Gotta watch those negative interest rates though, might be a little trickier in a closed economy.
I, for one, am glad the TPP is dead. We can have fair international trade without giving multinational corporations "the right to a business model" and letting them seek compensation from governments through tribunal over lost profits caused by changed laws. The TPP seemed absurd in that respect.
China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law.
European and foreign businesses get much higher fines compares to local businesses (e.g. Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Bayer (e.g. just after buying Massato), Toyota, etc...)
On the other hand Europe allows american businesses to access the european market without following the local laws. No user data can be transfered to the USA where protection clearly is not adequate, still they do.
> China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law.
You fail to mention that the law requires 51% ownership by a Chinese company and forced IP transfer.
You also fail to mention that there are many industries in which foreign company are completely prohibited.
And the Chinese version of “following the law” includes whatever the party arbitrarily decides you should do. Including things like forcing companies to remove any mention of Taiwan from material completely outside of China.
> - Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America?
Yes, regularly, via extensive caps and quotas on visas. That has to be a trick question. As of last year if a European wanted to work in America they had to pony up $6K+ for a 1 in 3 chance in April of landing an H1B for a job that couldn’t start until September.
Right now, it doesn't. But I don't think it is because they are OK with European companies dominating US market. It is rather because there are no European companies at the moment capable of dominating US market. The moment a company in Europe starts to gain significant market share from American companies in the US, the government would (most probably) step in and stop them.
I'm not European, but here in Canada, I have seen how the US treats its trade partners. Trump forced Canada to renegotiate NAFTA and got many concessions from us. Less than 2 months after his new trade deal came into force, he is imposing a 10% tariff on aluminum imports [1]. Before aluminum, it was softwood lumber. In the middle, there was Bombardier passenger airplanes.
The funny thing is, in order to force Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, the US imposed tariff's on Canadian steel and aluminum under the guise of "national security" [2]. That is why I don't buy any claims on national security excuses for putting tariffs or expelling companies. It's mercantilism, plain and simple. But because it is frowned upon to talk about mercantilism in this day and age, the US administration always covers its mercantilism with a thin veneer of market fairness and national security.
Either that, or Canada is actually a national security threat to the US.
While it's true that the US is backsliding in some agreements, this is mostly due to the current administration and unclear if this will continue.
Historically, the US has mostly been a free market to both Europe and Canada, and hasn't enacted protectionist measures overall. The US allows European car companies to sell here despite having domestic production. Nestle, HSBC, Astra-Zeneca, Siemens, SAP, Ericsson...these are all companies that are titans in their respective industries and also have a large mostly dominant US presence.
The level of US protectionism pales in comparison to what China engages in and it's hardly fair to compare the two. Obviously there are well sourced grievances but to compare China's protectionism to US protectionism isn't correct.
In Telecom, Ericsson and T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) are both VERY heavy players. Ericsson doesn't sell many phones, but tons of tower equipment. In IT, SAP is probably the largest competitor to Oracle for many companies Middleware.
Fights over trade tarrifs on those raw material and others existed long before Canada was a country.
To say the US is banning Canadian giants like shopify because they reached critical mass is very wrong and not based on reality. Using it to compare to China's relationship with western countries at best confused two different things.
> Right now, it doesn't. But I don't think it is because they are OK with European companies dominating US market. It is rather because there are no European companies at the moment capable of dominating US market. The moment a company in Europe starts to gain significant market share from American companies in the US, the government would (most probably) step in and stop them.
Airbus is a great example of this, the US repeatedly cockblocks Airbus from making major US military sales, puts tariffs on them, etc.
The USA protects its market by letting monpolies grow and abuse their dominant positions unchecked. And when that is not sufficient we now know what happens; competitors are banned.
>Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been
regardless of the administration's actual motivations[1], banning tiktok/wechat can be plausibly justified as retaliation for what china did. There's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching the free market but also engaging in anti-free market in retaliation against non-reciprocating countries, just as there's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching peace, but engaging in violence in retaliation against non-peaceful countries.
[1] eg. some people speculate that trump wanted tiktok banned because people shared videos on there that embarrassed him
Honestly, as an American, I would be totally fine with EU dominating US marketshare. Americans trust EU far more than any other conglomeration of countries.
I hope that sentiment is the same amongst other Americans. There is far more overlap between US + EU + Switzerland + UK + Australia + NZ than there are differences.
What I find dangerous is EU closing its doors and dismantling NATO, US collaboration and then fragmenting itself into dust. EU is already having a tough time keeping things together.
During a time of extreme nationalism, we need to be more collaborative.
Tariffs aside, considering Canada is our neighbor and has roughly 68k active military personnel vs 1.28 million in US, it should most definitely align itself with US on national security grounds. I believe that if Canada was ever under threat from another state, that US would definitely step in to help. Also, this is apples-to-apples comparison because the total land area (to be protected) covered by each state is approx. equal (6 million square miles or 9.8 million square kilometers).
- the 400,000+ number includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
- the report concedes that most deaths are caused by militants
- it covers years in which America was not even engaged in hostilities (e.g., after leaving OIF and before the Iraqi government asked the U.S. military back to counter Daesh)
Such perceptions are overwhelmingly imaginary and made-up, if the data and evidence are to be trusted, and meanwhile comments like this poison discussion badly. If you have evidence of abuse, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. If you don't have evidence, please don't post insinuations of sinister spying and all the rest of it.
Someone posting a comment you disagree with does not count as evidence.
> Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this?
That's some real cut-your-own-nose-off-to-spite-your-face territory. This is not aligning with the US. This is defending against China's policies that directly harm you and happen to also harm the US. The statement was "treat China exactly the same way China treats [you]". If you want to defend against the US too while you're at it, go ahead, but recognize what you just argued against here.
All this is leading me to have a stronger belief in Nassim Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins" theory[1]. Though, in this case there is no minority as such. China was intolerant to the US's ideology and exploited its openness for its own benefit. Now, unfortunately, it has come to a point where even US has to be intolerant like China to be able to get back at it. Thoughts?
'The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."'
I didn't know about Popper before. This rings so true today more than ever. I often joke about my home town of San Francisco that we are very open minded as long as you believe exactly the same things we believe.
Unfortunately, everyone seems to be keen on justifying their own intolerance with the supposed intolerance of the other.
If all it takes people to be freely intolerant is to convince themselves that the object of their intolerance is intolerant too, intolerance spreads everywhere.
Yeah, it's not like we have actual Neo Nazis marching in our streets chanting things like "The Jews will not replace us!". It's just a bunch of SJW calling everyone intolerant so they can be intolerant themselves.
>Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."'
Is it paradoxical? There's "no paradox of peace", the idea that "In order to maintain a peaceful society, the society must be violent against the non-peaceful"
That's the idea. Quakers will never take up arms. In both world wars they would actively help in peaceful ways (helping widows, sending care packages to POWs, etc), but their actions remain peaceful.
>Early Quakers were among the leaders of the anti-slavery movement in the United States. Quakers are also pacifists, responding to wartime calls for service seeking out non-combat roles such driving ambulances or serving in conscientious objector work camps.[0]
This would really only work in the US, where invasions are very rare. Also, there's a difference between refusing to fight on foreign soil (like in ww1/ww2), and defending your homeland. eg. if the enemy is right outside their village, and they're going to rape/kill/pillage them, are they not going to fight back?
There have been similar cultures throughout history and throughout the world. Many Native American or Pacific Islander tribes refused to take up arms. Those tribes are no longer with us, but the cultural idea that one should not inflict violence on your fellow humans keeps popping up.
I think the paradox results from a confusion of static vs. dynamic equilibrium. The consequence of not fighting back when attacked is that you end up dead. But that doesn't mean everyone will fight back - people end up dead all the time, there are plenty of human behaviors that lead to the death of their host and still persist (suicide being the most obvious one). Empathy is pretty deeply rooted in the human psyche, and is adaptive under most peaceful conditions. It's not a stretch to imagine groups for whom it becomes a way of life, at least until they're dead.
Any view can be described as intolerant. Stamping out, “intolerant” views is one of the reasons many authoritarian regimes uses to stamp out dissent.
The United States did this when it persecuted leftist sympathizing folks back in the 50's. "If we don't kill communism, then communism will kill our society. These filthy socialists and communists preach intolerance with rhetoric against the hardworking American. Tolerating them will only get us killed."
The USSR did this by sending people who questioned party agenda straight to the gulags. "By going against party thinking, these people are pushing for an intolerant society that is stratified with the class structures of old. We need to get rid of them before they ruin our perfect tolerant society."
The same logic is used to try to stamp out Muslims in countries like India right now and other places in the world historically. "If we leave the intolerant Muslims around, they'll bring forth Jihad and enforce Sharia law on everyone. The Koran is very intolerant about how non-Muslims should be treated, we need to force them out because their intolerant views are a threat to tolerance everywhere."
Literally every Christian country post-Martin Luther in the middle ages used that logic to wage wars on other Christian countries. Not just Christian vs. Christian of course. It's why countries in the past fought against each other over religion so much. When intolerance is defined as views that I don't agree with, it becomes kill or be killed world.
One of the best features of the enlightenment thinking is the concept of tolerance. One of the fundamental principles of Western thought. The idea that, we might have fundamentally opposing views, but can we interact without having to resort to a scorched earth policy. It started with Christians tolerating other sects of Christianity, but it’s now encompassed nearly every historical division.
The paradox of tolerance is inherently wrong, because true tolerance requires you to be tolerant to beliefs that you believe are intolerant.
What would you suggest the citizens of Weimar Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s do to prevent the rise of Nazism while also being tolerant?
Fascism and Stalinism are two endpoints of Enlightenment thinking. Is it merely utopian to aspire for tolerance when it's clear that it can lead to the depths of brutality and stupidity?
Please excuse me for my semi-rant. I don't mean to be too critical, but I think framing every news about China in this "the West vs China" angle is really counterproductive.
First of all, "the West" is a very vague concept, quite unlike talking about China. Does it include all of Europe? Does it include Moscow then? Does it include parts of Latinamerica? Maybe you mean NATO (but then you should include Turkey too). Or maybe you only mean Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, United States). This isn't just nitpicking: your point might make sense if you mean Five Eyes, but it might not make sense at all if you include, say, Greece , Turkey and Israel.
Second, talking only about "the West" vs China marginalizes the rest of the world. Most of the people in this world live in neither the West nor in China and yet they never seem to matter according to most discussions I see here in Hacker News (I, for one, identify with neither).
This is specially bad when people implicitly say things like "the West values freedom and democracy, whereas China...". If democracy and human rights were something unique for "the West", then you shouldn't be surprised that China doesn't like those concepts (in fact, they oppose liberal value precisely because of this: "this only works in 西方, not here in China").
Freedom, rational thought, free speech, democracy, rule of law etc. aren't "Western" values, they're "Enlightenment" values. After the "West" adopted them, it (the countries, and the people) enjoyed unprecedented improvement in living standards, a scientific boom and so on.
China is free to adopt those values anytime. In the meantime, I (and looks like many other Westerns) will be working towards ensuring that non-Enlightenment values don't creep back up into the West (from China, the Islamic world, Russia, etc. - not limited to what I wrote above but also things like corporal punishment, women's rights, separation of church and state, ...) - that would be a regression from our point of view.
The majority of Chinese people have seen an unprecedented improvement in living standards over the past 3 decades, with scientific and engineering breakthroughs to boot. Hard to see them adopt western values from their perspective, they're doing fine without it.
Get over yourselves. From an outside perspective I am concerned about the US’s treatment of its own minorities. Have you heard how Trump talks about minorities?! Sorry but no, from where I stand I don’t see any difference on this between China and the US. And before anyone says anything about detention centres, I’m sorry but you can’t have a prison populations in the millions made up mostly of minority people and point fingers there.
You mean – with how they want to consume like Americans (where mainly your coastal city populations benefit, not your inner provinces), they get education from Americans when they go abroad for university, they transfer trade secrets from American labs, and the way 海外华人 got recalled after accumulating wealth in other countries, including America?
Interesting that you mention the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment started with the depopulation of Black Death, the Great Famine, and the subsequent 3 centuries of warfare (Hundred Years War, War of the Roses, Wars of Religion, etc). Europe lost roughly 60% of its population. As a result, the survivors could bargain for higher wages, which led to a power shift from the entrenched landed aristocracy to the newly emerging merchant and guild classes. (Cynically, once the lords could no longer use peasant labor to quell any challenges to their power, they lost that power to a more egalitarian middle class.) Additionally, the survivors were overwhelmingly former members of the aristocracy - the new merchant classes were largely made up of the younger sons of noble families who previously would've been shut out of an inheritance by primogeniture. They were often educated the same way as their older brothers, but lacked control over resources in the feudal system. As the feudal system collapsed, they spread the values of the nobility into the rest of society. We got egalitarian values because everybody's ancestor used to be a lord, and most of the peasants died off.
There are some pretty obvious parallels to the current situation. It's very common for pandemics to lead to the collapse of current political organization.
Trump's administration has been pretty powerless to affect any meaningful change, and faces plenty of very vocal opposition on all fronts (public, legislative, courts, ...).
The West isn't vague. It is only semi-vague because, due to globalization, most cultures around the world have adopted Western norms of consumption, including China.
Politically the West is Five Eyes with support of NATO. If push came to shove these would be the nations called upon to support a global conflict with China.
Furthermore the hegemonic rule of the United States is a direct substitute to that of China. For every nation that China wants to exclude, overwhelm or subvert in its economic plans, the US will have an enemy or potential enemy of an enemy to ally with. Conversely if the US is separating economic ties with certain countries but building ties with others, it's this coalition that will operate against China as we move to our multi-polar world.
There is a legacy of intellectual culture between Russia, the Mediterranean, and some of the Middle East with Western Europe – mainly due to Aristotle and his influence on the intellectual practice of all of the Abrahamic religions – but a lot of that complexity is screened off by the real military commitments extant between the nations in these geographic regions. Post WWII history is what scoped out the structure of the modern world, so post WWII history is what makes sense to use in our analysis of what the West will be in practice.
As a proxy, English and the Romantic Languages as primary languages within a nation could be a decent heuristic of the what the West is culturally.
> If we were to start that ban many of Walmart's non-grocery (and some groceries) shelves would be empty for considerable time.
I always point out the price difference for the two models of the Purism Librem 5 phone. One model is manufactured traditionally and costs $749. The other model is manufactured in the USA and costs $1999.
Americans talk about bringing manufacturing back to the country, but I'm not sure anyone is ready to pay 2-3x for their goods.
The problem isn't much about labor costs in the US, but the dismantling of the supply chain.
Even Apple had problems sourcing screws when building a handful of its computers in the USA, which is well documented.
To re-build a domestic supply-chain, one has to start somewhere.
China started by exporting 'low-tech' products (plastic utensils, some toys) and it inexorably moved up the chain while USA and Europe eventually divested of much of their manufacturing infrastructure.
Yep this is a good answer. And it follows that if you’re serious about this issue & don’t just like to hear yourself talk, you should go do the work at the low level. It peeves me off to no end to see the lack of seriousness around this. It’s the same exact lack of seriousness that people had before the iraq invasion, and I pitched a fit then for no gain and I’ll do it again too!
Yeah, first comes assembly of parts. "Assembled in USA", frankly, USA brand has diminished so may we should do a bit of a friendly competition of branding between states. "Assembled in Texas" or "Assembled in California".
Once assembly lines are automated (even using Chinese parts), there is incentive to achieve local production of those parts.
There is nothing that China has, besides precious metals perhaps, that USA does not.
I would kill to buy an iPhone made 100% in USA. Or even in Germany or France or any EU nation.
As Elon said - "We've forgotten to build stuff. Someone's gotta do it. Might as well be us."
It would be a painful transition but we must do it to avoid the extremely painful long term costs of continuing this horribly lopsided arrangement with China.
What's most likely to happen if we try an outright ban is that Vietnam and similar developing countries will start slapping on a "Made in Vietnam" sticker on Chinese goods and exporting them to the US.
Often times it's raw ability to produce the product. We cannot suddenly produce the iPhone in the US. Other times the products produced are just too expensive. Go to your local Honda Powersports dealership and price a motorcycle then go to your local Harley-Davidson dealership and price a similar motorcycle. Even a made in Japan motorcycle, with Japan's most premium motorcycle brand, will be much cheaper than the made in America variety. Made in China is significantly cheaper compared to made in Japan. Finally it's also the raw quantity of products we important from China. $539.5B worth of goods imported in 2018. Producing this much would put a strain on our infrastructure, on our labor force, and on our ability to manage cultural shifts.
Say we want to manufacturer some item, say cellphones, in the US. Start out with a small tariff on imported phones of 5%, then announce a schedule of slowly raising tariffs until phones manufactured in the US are cheaper than imported phones. Add a definition of manufactured in the US that includes something about the percentage of parts that must be manufactured here to prevent companies form only assembling them here.
For phones if there was a profit motive, I think it would take somewhere around 5 years. Repeat for any item for which we want to ensure a domestic manufacturing base.
Or what about just adopting the Chinese playbook? If you want to sell phones in the US, mandate a certain amount of key manufacturing transfer to allow it.
Regardless if it’s justified or not I think this is a bad move by the US on the global stage.
The US just banned apps that didn’t break any law, for vague “national security” reasons. And due to the global reach of American tech companies it becomes effectively a global ban.
Now every country that’s not the US will need to 1) think twice about doing business in the US and 2) re-examine American control over the products and services their citizens can and cannot receive. Specifically Apple and google in this case.
Most countries and companies are already cautious when doing business in China because of the unpredictable and arbitrary nature of doing business in China. Now the US is headed towards the same direction.
So congratulations, the US is becoming more and more like China. Doesn’t sound like a win to me.
It's one thing to call for a system of fair regulations that provide a level playing field; it's another thing altogether to essentially expropriate a company through executive action because it was doing too well.
Your comment makes sense and I mostly agree with it, but not on this submission.
I understand the sentiment but there has to be a first company. Someone has to be the first casualty in forcing China to either open their markets or exit our markets.
I do wish this was part of a broader policy instead of a one-off.
The EO on bytedance is forcing Bytedance to sell all global tiktok operations. How is that a reciprocate issue? A reciprocate would be deny tiktok market accesses in US only. But clearly US gov doesn't want bytedance to exist at all. They want to kill it everywhere.
No thanks, while the US protects its digital economy from Chinese companies, it is also slapping tariffs (or is threatening) on European goods.
The US doesn’t have any friends any more because it acting like a shit to them all. Meanwhile every day it looks more like a dictatorship with no regard for its populace. Honestly it’s time the rest of the western world moved on. Relationship over.
The real loser of this battle will be Apple, not China; they may just lose all their Chinese users in the US to Android in a couple months.
The US is and will always be a free speech country, and they cannot go to the extent of imposing a firewall like China does. The extent to which they can take action is to require WeChat and TikTok off the app stores of the US. Which would leave Android users the option to install the app directly from an APK file, bypassing the Google store (no rooting required) while Apple users basically have no recourse without jailbreaking.
Well, if there was truly a quid-pro-quo, then the United Kingdom should pay China reparations for its atrocious actions during the opium wars, similar to what Germany had to do to survivors of the holocaust.
If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, the West would be clamoring for statehood for Puerto Rico like they do for Taiwan.
If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, calls for the 'entire western world' to band against China would make as much sense as calls for 'the entire western world' to band against the United States, who did quite a bit to rig the global economy in its favor after WW2 and Bretton-Woods.
If China treated the Western world the way the Western world treated China, there would be hell to pay. And yet people like you just can't stand that they would act in their own self interest, and become a superpower without asking the permission of the West.
Countries will take whatever advantages are available to them to develop and benefit their people. China never tried to hide what they were doing. All of the world's economists were aware of their economic protectionist policies for the past 50 or so years. Let's call a spade a spade. This 'outrage' about China's policies in the year 2020 is nothing more than a frustration with the West's ruling classes for failing to respond to China's rise at all in the last 50 years. And there is clearly a sense of entitlement as well, as though those of use living in the West deserve to live in the hegemonic country despite not working as hard or valuing progress as much as those in other societies.
The Western world never cared about Chinese people or what was happening in China until it started to threaten their own global dominance. Now all of a sudden you have elite clamoring for civil rights and justice in China, while those same elites profited for decades off of cheap Chinese labor after the Great Leap Forward and Tiananmen Square.
Sure, you should advocate for your country to change its policies if its getting a bad deal from China. But turning this all into a "West v. China" thing is how we got here in the first place.
I think China already promised that one or two years ago during the trade war with US but nothing major has come of it. I doubt China would follow through because it can have potential consequence in their censorships rules.
I guess eventually all other countries would resort to having laws specific to handling Chinese companies and all laws common for companies of all other countries.
China already enacted foreign investments law. Tesla uses it to enter the Chinese market freely. Build factories, sale electric vehicles, enjoy all tax and subsidy that local companies are. And so will VW, and any other auto maker. IP protection is strengthening as well. In the areas of internet service there is still the internet security law, which requires all internet services providers to store data locally and moderate content. Google fb Twitter doesn't want to comply so they don't operate in that market. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb and more are complying so they are operating in China. In other sectors, it's already open access to Chinese market and equality between local and foreign businesses. China is responding to criticisms.
Are folks unaware of the history of westerners and trade in China, and how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people not ignorant of their country's history?
In the late 19th century Great Britain fought two Opium Wars to force China to open up its markets to British opium. The British were forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and then taking it to sell to China. They wanted access to Chinese silver, but China had little reason to give it to them. So Britain's answer was to get Chinese people addicted to opium and get the silver through trade of opium for silver.
The Qing dynasty, for obvious reasons, didn't like this idea and forbid the British from importing their opium. So the British fought two wars to force them to accept their imports.
The Economist magazine was established in the mid 19th century as a pro-slavery, pro-imperialist magazine. Their arguments during the lead up to both opium wars sound a lot like yours. I want to make people aware of this, because it's important we understand how that kind of argument sounds to many Chinese people less ignorant of Chinese history than most westerners.
That’s an interesting piece of history, but how is that relevant in any way to this situation? Not just the fact that modern Western civilization doesn’t resemble 19th century England, but everything about the reasons/motivation behind/specifics of this trade conflict are different.
Not sure what The Economist or Colonialist Britain has to do in all this, but how are we to interpret that neither Google nor Facebook - nor pretty much any enterprise issuing from a liberal democracy - can operate freely in China? What do the people educated in Chinese history make of that?
Can you imagine asking “have the French forgotten what Napoleon did to the Italians?” to explain the inner functions of the European Union?
Modern Chinese geopolitics should not, and are not based on the events of two centuries ago. Any pretense of that nature is frankly condescending to the Chinese people.
> I want to make people aware of this [...] how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people
I hear this all the time from friends here in the US who think we are a horrible country and that we are only a superpower because we did a lot of terrible things to get there (which is true), so we deserve anything bad coming our way, and we should just step aside for China's ascendency because they're just using our colonial-era, upstart (ex: theft of intellectual property) playbook and if that upsets us we're hypocrites - the ultimate sin, apparently.
To which I say: So. What.
We need to be political realists, because China certainly is. Other considerations are simply irrelevant.
China has not forcefully seized foreign company's promising assets so good so it's impossible to consider for sale, by both a measly 'offer' of maybe 1/10, or less, of the market value and threatening from the leader, has it?
They haven’t directly done that, but what they have done is force American companies to form joint ventures with a Chinese company in order to operate in China.
This requires the American company to hand over intellectual property and trade secrets. And then, amazingly, some state funded competitor comes along doing the same thing the American company wants to do.
Would a Chinese company have this same problem entering America??? No.
We need to treat China the exact way they treat us. The entire western world.
No one is forcing companies to do joint ventures. These companies have the option to refuse and not operate in China. Are countries not allowed to impose restrictions on foreign companies?
What is being proposed here is to treat China, and Chinese companies, the exact same way as American companies are treated in China. So, yes, countries are free to have whatever restrictions they want. But we, the western world, must not allow China to abuse our open markets while shielding their markets.
I have no problem with this. Though US' strength has always been insidiously entering foreign markets and forcing developing countries to be dependent on US tech (e.g India, EU, GB). The more US decouples from China in terms of tech, the more incentive you are giving China to be tech independent and thus, be free of US hegemony.
You need evidence to support your claim that they are 'required' to hand over intellectual property. Joint ventures are formed based on terms and contracts, signing such contracts is a very silly move.
Also, the use of 'hand over' suggests they are all the way not willing to disclose the intellectual property but were forced to, but isn't there a patent system in China? Why would these companies refuse to disclose some intellectual property and make use the legal system, just as how they did it back home?
This isn't a new thing. It's been going on for decades. Huawei is a stolen corporation that would not exist if not for theft of technology, intellectual property, and trade secrets. It would further not exist if the Chinese market were as open as the American market and Huawei was forced to compete on a level playing field domestically.
These companies are after profit, so they chose to go to China to earn that profit. And for that profit, at some point in time, they must have deemed acceptable to give up something in exchange. Isn't this what trading is all about? Now somebody regrets they shouldn't have made certain choice, so they blame it on the other government? Be an adult.
Except it wasn't entirely their choice (to give up their IP).
Most of the companies when those joint ventures were setup were promised or told that their intellectual property was secure. It was then stolen and they were left with regret. Companies which refused to take that risk were compromised by Chinese actors and had their IP taken by force.
If you are talking about the military, hey, doesn't NSA spy on everybody on this planet? Or didn't Crypto AG spy on every client, even on the Germans, who are allies?
There is a marked difference between intelligence collection and economic espionage.
In the US, economic espionage is illegal and has been for some time, with legislation reinforcing that rule (such as the Economic Espionage act of 1996). If I as a private company engage in economic espionage I am liable to get prosecuted and may get time in prison. The same does not apply to companies in China, where economic espionage of a competitor is not only tolerated but encouraged.
The above linked suit was against individuals for economic espionage and not intelligence collection.
Stop moving the goalposts. First you asked for evidence they had to hand over trade secrets and IP and now you're saying "so that's just part of trading". You are not being an adult here with your argument.
They sure do. They also have restrictive laws that require foreign companies to sell majority stakes to government controlled companies... or at least partner with locals that have significant stakes in your company.
Even if you comply with all these regulations, you can still get booted out of the country and have all your assets and IP seized and redistributed, at the whim of their farcical of a judicial system.
Quite frankly, the entire world can learn from China on how to protect its own economy from bullies. I'd hate to live in a world where the Microsofts buys all the Skypes and ruins all sorts of innovations you all claim comes from this freedom. You shareholders only have $ in your eyes, this means shit to the young people looking towards their future. I don't mind you all protecting your interests, you're human.. but it definitely adds too much taint to your 'genuine' perspectives.
Lots of western companies are operating in China. If they feel it's too difficult they will pull it out, but please don't act like a representative to all of them as if you know everything.
BTW please stop purchasing anything that originates from China immediately if you want to follow your own words.
> the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations
A world ruled by corporations headquartered in a single country, with other countries having their politics and economy determined by the interests a single nation has been the rest of the worlds situation for 50+ years. It's somewhat ironic to see Americans suddenly getting concerned about this.
> Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.
The argument that if the Chinese market was fully open then their local companies would have been more quickly devoured by single, US based corporations doesn't do much to convince me that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.
And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans, all of this is so strong arm Chinese companies into surrendering to corporations that happen to be based in the US on favorable terms. This is the US government working as the goons to enforce Facebook, Google and in this case specifically Microsofts global dominance.
>The argument that if the Chinese market was fully open then their local companies would have been more quickly devoured by single, US based corporations doesn't do much to convince me that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.
If these companies were competing, and winning, on features and innovation, there would be no concern that the company originated from China. The point of that anecdote is that these companies have crap products that are only competitive because there is no competition.
>And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans
I hope this is the beginning of a broader policy on moving US business, interests, and manufacturing out of China. Play fair or don't play at all.
It is perfectly fine for China to protect their own market. But it is not fine for China to protect their own market and also expect open access to other markets.
"If these companies were competing, and winning, on features and innovation, there would be no concern that the company originated from China. The point of that anecdote is that these companies have crap products that are only competitive because there is no competition."
Try Instagram Reels and Tiktok and see which is the crap product.
Your fallacy is assume that we were previously in a state of "fair play". Viewing the last few decades US global corporate hegemony as "fair play" requires a tremendous ignorance of the methods and impact of US global corporate dominance on most other countries of the world.
There is no political or economic will to embargo Chinese made goods. It didn't get this way overnight, it wouldn't be possible to end it overnight. It would translate into wholesale asset destruction of many businesses who depend on supply chains that would take years to recreate. It would make hundreds of millions of poor even more poor: here and in China. It would take away cheaper versions that make people feel just a little bit more in touch with people who can afford every day things. It would be an economic nuclear bomb just to prove a point.
And for ~40 years the U.S. at least has considered attacks on its economy as a national security threat - it is extremely likely an embargo leads to an actual war. Making everyone worse off in the short term is a fast track to violence.
Besides, the vast majority of consumers have voted with their wallet.
There’s likely a lot that is not and will never be covered in the news that the NSA and CIA know. I’m sure they look at our commentary on here, with 1% of the geopolitical information, and chuckle.
Do you really think this has anything to do with national security? Don't be naive. Trump hasn't listened to the CIA or the NSA in 3½ years, he's not starting now. This is 100% pure political grandstanding and retaliation for the Tulsa rally. Assuming otherwise is giving way, way, way too much credit.
America primarily sells technology. China primarily sells goods.
China is totally free to sell goods into America. China has blockaded America's technology, unless the companies agree to essentially hand over IP so China can steal it (Huawei operated a cash bonus scheme for stolen IP, according to the DoJ).
Not just that, even companies willing to play ball and censor information for the local laws end up being operated with local partners like Apple's iCloud (run by AIPO Cloud (Guizhou) Technology Co. Ltd).
Lopsided how? Because the US has a trade deficit with China? That's not "lopsided". That just means that the US buys more stuff from China than China buys from the US.
Trump introduced tariffs. They increased costs for US consumers (they pay the tariffs). China lost some exports. In the meantime, China decided to buy soybeans from other nations. The US lost a lot more in exports, requiring government bailouts of farmers. Thus further increased costs to US consumers and taxpayers.
Given this increased sovereign risk of de-facto nationalisation of a foreign owned US company (TikTok et al), why should other foreigners invest in the US?
As a reminder, the US has a net foreign trade deficit of USD400B for 2020 so far. So the US buys $400B more than it sells.
When a marketplace transaction is taxed, it really doesn't matter which party has to hand over the money. The buyer and seller will split the cost of the tax according to elasticity. Consider a transaction that is worth $100 in a tax-free situation, using numbers relevant to the US/China tariffs:
Without tax: $100 is transferred from buyer to seller.
Buyer hands over money: The buyer pays $30 to government and $76 to the seller, for a total of $106.
Seller hands over money: The buyer pays that $106 to the seller, who then pays $30 to the government. The seller keeps $76.
You might wonder what would motivate the Chinese seller to reduce his price. He has unavoidable costs like loans. Keeping a factory partially idle is painful. There are fixed costs. He doesn't have the monopoly power to dictate a selling price. He can't force the buyer to buy.
That don't abide by Chinese law. There's a reason Bing and Skype are still allowed in China. The US government has no proof of TikTok or WeChat violating any US laws that other American companies haven't.
All companies in China are required to do whatever the CCP tells them to do.
If you have more than 100 employees, you must have a member of the CCP to provide oversight.
Zhang Zhiming, the CEO of Byte Dance publicly grovels to the CCP. Here is his public statement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZa0FGThXak&t=5m4s
Didn't Pompeo say something this week along the lines of banning China Mobile servicing telephone calls to the U.S.? That means if you carry a cell phone from China to the U.S. you can't get roaming service anymore?
I am surprised Lenovo hasn't been singled out yet. They supply enterprises throughout the U.S. a lot of corporations that hand out laptops to their employees all use Lenovo.
The ongoing anti China circus through executive orders is arbitrary and draconian to say the least... and while I've been mostly ignoring it so far, a lot of Americans live in China and have money on Wechat. Are they now violating this week's "law"?
I just managed to move part of my money to friends. Try in smaller amounts. Sending a bunch of hongbaos works up to a point as well (then it requires SMS verification which I can't do right now)
After fooling around with it, I was able to move or otherwise give away the balance in my account. I had to do in a combination of smaller hongbaos, transfers and business transfers. I triggered face verification with the first transfer I tried, but some how it reset after a while.
An important note that nobody seems to be reporting on: this is only possible because Apple and Google have control over which apps are permitted on your device.
The US government has no legal authority to ban publishing (including apps) in the US. They do, however, have the ability to regulate trade between the operators of the App Store (Apple) and the Play Store (Google), and app publishers, which is what they're doing here.
Ban the business relationship, and they've effectively banned the publishing. It's an end run around the US constitution, and everyone should be up in arms about it: not just at the US government, but also at Apple and Google for creating a legal chokepoint for mass censorship by the US federal government.
This would not be possible if end users actually exercised control over their own devices. This is how the web works, and it's how everything else on your device should work, too.
And this is why as a European I think that we should take a long and hard look at our dependency of US technology. Its becoming more and more clear that US is not a stable actor.
I think it would be prudent for us to force alternatives to apple and google app stores (and other software) that are housed and owned in Europe. I have no confidence that US intelligence is not accessing our data and setting up profiles on Europeans that could be used for nefarious purposes.
I think a dependence upon US technology should be evaluated separately from US services/companies/staff.
There’s nothing wrong with US tech. There is a lot wrong with US persons, subject to capricious US military/law/spying, having real-time control over your device or the services it needs to run.
You can say the same about Chinese tech. Nothing wrong with the device, everything wrong with allowing a government far away real-time remote access/power.
It’s time to peel away software from services once again.
If we break off the control of software distribution, and disable automatic remote updates (which is manufacturer backform/RCE), hardware in the general case can become reasonably safe again.
This is the likely result of what Trump is doing. Every major country/bloc will now look to create their own commercial internet/social network, etc. And the US will have no basis to complain because it paved the way (the Chinese did it first, but China doesn’t have the clout to lead other countries. The US does)
Setting aside how much of a step back this is from the global utopian internet I suspect the vast majority of posters on HN believed in even a few years ago, the economic impact is gonna be the greatest on the US, which is the biggest beneficiary of a global internet.
If every bloc builds its own siloed internet, its their companies that will benefit at the expense of American companies which currently dominate the entire planet.
On the bright side banning Chinese apps doesn't have an impact on the intentional users. By that I mean is that there seems to be a lot more app stores than just Play Store, and it's even common for Chinese apps to offer an apk download off their website. People who are unknowingly using Chinese developed apps are probably going to be the most affected because they're not familiar with side-loading applications and are just going to switch to their nation's version of the application which is probably the intention. It is kinda fair because as soon as a major country starts to practice protectionism then the rest have to or else they'll get unfairly exploited.
That isn't my impression of how the web works. The second your bits leave your LAN, they begin traveling over infrastructure that is owned and operated by another private entity. They could rescind your access at any time, especially if the government orders it so.
Eh, TikTok could set up some proxies on non-China non-US controlled shared infrastructure, and with modern https the US network carriers wouldn't be able to tell if the traffic was to them or someone else. The degree in invasiveness needed to enforce this policy via ISPs (prohibiting effective encryption) would probably end up violating the first amendment.
1. TLS is not the impenetrable black box it is made out to be. Every year there are about three papers published at the top tier computer security conferences about identifying applications within TLS. Check out the NDSS proceedings.
2. The EO prohibits conspiracies to evade the ban. This means anyone caught knowingly helping to evade the prohibitions would be subject to legal penalties.
1. Yes - but a law requiring US carries to perform cutting edge research to detect who you're talking to is... unlikely. It's also much more likely to violate the constitution than a law prohibiting trade.
2. Sure, but the entities involved in evading the ban wouldn't be US entities.
What if the app publishers stop taking payments and ads from the US, in that case there may not be no longer cash transactions, so will the restrictions apply?.
It's not about money, it's about the contract itself. US companies are legally (criminally) prohibited from legally (contract/civil) engaging with a whole designated list of people/entities (the SDN list), as well as an entire list of countries (DPRK, Cuba, et c).
I feel the same way! I can’t understand why there aren’t bipartisan calls for Trump to knock it off. Is it that most people aren’t fully comprehending what’s going on, or are those of us upset about this being dramatic?
I agree 100% with this. I mean, there are other developing economies with serious tech sectors like India which operate according to the rules based open market system we have in place.
If the US doesn't take action against Chinese protectionism, why should other countries abide by the rules and give US access to their markets? The US provides China it's market even though China closes it down for everyone.
I think US being soft on China sets a bad precedent.
I do wonder if there's a deeper connection than Facebook simply having this feature ready to go and releasing it early. Was there cooperation of the sorts "you ban TikTok and we'll release Instagram Reels early to help distract upset users"?
Facebook has had a Tiktok competitor called Lasso for 2 years. It failed though. They are shutting that down and simply porting the features over to their existing Instagram app.
My comment wasn't about whether they already had it or not. It is obvious they were already working on it. No one could develop and release a feature so quickly. It is about the timing of the release, which could have very well been cooperatively timed.
AFAIK , tiktok's demographic (teenagers) is no way going to do the same things on facebook . It's probably going to be a new company (Franken-Vine maybe)
I've had a number of tik tok-ers tell me they don't care what app it is. They care about the community and creators, and they will find each other on whatever replaces TT.
I was intrigued by this sentiment, the idea that the conceptual social network is the thing of value, not the application one interacts with it through.
For WeChat, how much impact will this have on Americans? As an American, I tried signing up to communicate w/ someone in China, and I couldn't get through the verification process.
> As an American, I tried signing up to communicate w/ someone in China, and I couldn't get through the verification process.
I signed up before there was a verification process. But my understanding is that you get vouched for by an existing account. Since you were signing up to communicate with someone, wouldn't that person have been a natural choice to verify you?
Here's a diff between the two orders, if anyone else is curious about the specific changes. I used the TikTok/ByteDance order as the "original", so removals and additions are relative to changing that one into the WeChat/Tencent one: https://gist.github.com/Deimos/8fcb95ec4017cf1a28e32f6057a91...
The GFW of China is to prevent its people to see outside. The GFW of America, at least for now, is to prevent China from peeking in. One is implemented as an allow list, the other one is a deny list.
"Threat" aside, it does seem fair for the West to reciprocate bans on Google/Facebook etc, but not sure the best way to communicate with family in China now if the western messaging apps are banned there and vice versa
Email? I know that seems dismissive, but people got along just fine before Facebook, texting, WeChat, etc. I suspect in reality there will be an endless whack-a-mole game with messaging services where people use a different one fairly frequently.
The great firewall of China does block email. If your email address is blocked
1. When you send an email to a recipient in China who is using an email service provider whose MTA does not support SSL/TLS/STARTTLS: the delivery attempt by your email service provider will result in a TCP reset.
2. Similarly, if someone in China want to send an email to your blocked email address but their MTA doesn't support SSL/TLS/STARTTLS: their attempt to send the email will result in a TCP reset.
I know this because my Gmail account is blocked in this way.
This goes both ways. If I want to send an email to someone but their MTA doesn't do encryption, I might choose to encrypt the content of my email, but I have no way to hide my FROM.
The problem with email is "most emails are unencrypted". Only the transmission over SMTP is mostly encrypted worldwide. So the ones who owns the MTA can eavesdrop the contents.
The mail content encryption, GPG/OpenGPG/PGP are not widely deployed, (complex setup for non tech users), and even in that case, the headers are not encrypted.
This is the gap Telegram, Line, Blackberry (partially) have filled over the years.
The family in China should contact their representative and ask them to unblock Signal, Telegram, or any other method of communication. If they care about their citizens abroad they will surely do so.
This also potentially has many ramifications in different industries. Tencent (owner of WeChat) is a big investor in media and entertainment companies. One side effect, for example, is blocking financial payments to Riot Games, Epic Games, Fortnite, and half the gaming industry.
Has anyone seem any details on what exactly it will cover?
FB would have too much scrutiny and chances for the deals to fail to pass regulators. If they are really looking for a quick and guaranteed deal, they’d look elsewhere.
yeah I'm still not convinced... I don't use TikTok but my gf does and from what I've seen, they've really tapped into young millenials/zoomers and created a product that people love. Facebook fatigue _does_ seep into IG (owned by FB). The most obvious sign of it is feature creep. FB is adding every feature to IG that they can to stay relevant, but ultimately that's going to bloat the app and turn it into Blue V2, which is no longer en vogue.
TikTok works because it isn't suffocated by ads and is hyper-focused on one format, aka it's a well-designed but simple experience.
IG can use their existing ad platform to convince TT content producers to switch so they can monetize.
There isn’t brand loyalty for social media platforms but there is for the content producer. The least amount of friction and most benefit to the content producer wins.
I see TT becoming another Snap.
Who knows though, I’m not invested in either company.
This is how war festers. You lose the common communication mediums. It becomes easier and easier to see the other guy as BarBar-speaking barbarians.
Fuck the fuckers that would rather punch back than uphold their own integrity.
You can't call the other team an asshole for cheating, and then go right ahead and cheat in the exact same way. It makes you even worse than they ever were, because you ever presumed you were better.
How absolutely sad.
We deserve to choke on the toxic fruits these seeds may bear.
Are we witnessing the end of free markets? Or the growth of decentralization? These sorts of moves are making a very strong case for decentralized platforms.
More likely the end of one-sided free markets. There's no suggestion that the US is about to pull the same shit on countries that don't try and hobble US tech companies.
The EU will probably start to tax tech companies that avoid taxes by registering in tax havens within the next few years. If that's the US' sole motivation, it seems like a receipt for disaster.
I don't have a problem with this. US companies haven't been bringing foreign revenue home because the tax rates are too low in other countries. If EU taxes them then they'll bring the revenue home.
Also wonder if this affects wechat pay, it's gotten pretty huge in Canada in the last few years. But we have much more mainlanders. The knock on affects will be interesting.
And if wechat allows web only, will US ban the service from browsers GFC style? Seems like a different can of worms than blocking apps.
I don't see why the executive order can't simply be to compel Apple and Google to display warnings on the download page, or one when the app launches. They already do thisshould you dare to install something that originated outside of their walled garden.
Let the consumer make the choice whether to use it or not.
The case against Huawei at least has merit; protectionist policies against threats to strategically important industries (telecom infrastructure) has numerous precedents.
This just seems like a favour to Zuckerberg after he gave the all-clear to unfettered lying in political ads. Surely that would have no impact on "national security, foreign policy and the economy".
Every step they take to distance the population from Chinese products makes the next steps towards heightened conflict easier for the government. China isn't an enemy of the US people, only of our elites. Part of what they're doing is protectionism for US buisness, which is funny because when US business is strong they promote zero trade barriers so that the "free market" means total domination by US interests. Part of what they're doing is creating a foreign enemy so they can blame the grotesque failures of the government on external enemies in an election year (both Rs and Ds).
I haven't seen any discussion about how other non-China non-US countries feel about TikTok being forced under American ownership. For example, I understand that TikTok is quite popular in the middle east, and I imagine that some countries there might not be happy with American intelligence services having access to their citizens data, at least if they are also subscribing to the beliefs that short video clips are a national security matters. I suspect those countries wished that Bytedance sold just their US operations, but it appears they are instead selling _all_ non-China operations.
Wouldn't there be some value in decentralizing social media? Surely, countries where most of their users are communicating via Facebook puts them at extreme disadvantage, especially if they need FB to comply with some sort of subpoena. We don't really have global central news networks, so why would we ever think global social media platforms would ever work? Plus decentralizing social media could possibly help with bot/hatespeech/fakenews problems, or at least localize them a bit more to reduce the speed and scale problem.
I can understand the US decision of banning huawei reasoning for national security, but case against TikTok is not something I grasp understandable.
Even India(where I live) banned Tiktok. At first I believed,its just temporary and will be lifted in few days but it didn't.
These types of actions will not benefit anyone, just toss name of china with other country in above scenario. It will be something like,
- EU banning Tesla because of its USA origin
- US banning Reliance/Tata because of its Indian Origin
- Russia banning google/facebook to favor their local companies
- etc.
This is something that should never happen,but sadly it is.
Only took a couple decades to do this. A messaging app that allows China to read everything but not other countries should be illegal to begin with. Entirely secure or not at all is the way.
There is a difference between companies and governments. In the US, it is not so easy for the government to get access about non-Americans because it can risk the the international business of US companies.
There's a lot of practices that China has that I disagree with.
There's a lot of practices that US has that I disagree with.
China has traditionally been very closed and is very slowly moving to be slightly more open to other countries.
The US used to be kinda open, but is shutting itself in like crazy.
This is way so many countries are pushing so hard to reduce their reliance on the US. This can only bode badly for the US, while the rest of the world continues slowly uniting. Not _against_ the US, just uniting to work together.
No one forced American corporations to do business with China. America's current lack of "greatness" is America's own fault. There is a nonzero chance that America is going to face serious economic distress in the coming decade. Those who made poor leadership decisions for America's economy are desperate to find a scapegoat. No one forced American corporations to do business with China.
Your scapegoat narrative is an unproductive one and apologist at worst. As usual, people are getting wrapped up in the "America bad" trope while ignoring the fact that there are real people being targeted and having their lives tracked and terrorized by the Chinese government. I don't know what country you're from but if someone was behaving badly in your house, I would be kicking them out too. You'd have to be stupid to let a burglar in your house and offer them a room.
No one seems to be asking the most illuminating remark about this situation:
The US should allow TikTok if China agrees to allow unrestricted use of Instagram in China. That should have been the deal that Trump could make to expose the assymmetry of "open market" that China keeps touting about.
Everything, all arguments in this thread fall apart if people are complaining, condemning US's move to block TikTok. I agree, the justification provided by President Trump hides behind national security, it would have been far better to make a case for free trade and unrestricted access to China's domestic market.
Imagine, the opportunity for Instagram to advertise to a country of 1.4 billion people. The opportunity cost is massive.
I feel like the underlying third variable in this whole thread rests in the question, "Have you or your company ever accepted or considered Chinese investment?"
I would absolutely love to know how many of these folks saying "We need to uphold Western open values and not reciprocally punish" have business entanglements with Chinese funds.
Wechat is used by a vast majority of overseas Chinese (and increasingly non-Chinese as well), and a lot of the employees would message each other about work matters over WeChat because of convenience. All these messages are routed through Tencent's Chinese servers.
Let's face it: it has nothing to do with "treat people the way they treat you." It's just Trump trying to win/secure the votes from his loyal supporters.
Does TikTok grab user data and analyze them for ads, recommendations, etc? Sure, so do Instagram. But does TikTok send those data back to Chinese government so that it would potentially threaten U.S. national security? We need proof, but so far none. Here's an article of French hacker Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) analyzing TikTok code: https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626...
So IMHO the two real reasons Trumps banned TikTok and WeChat are:
1. His supporters are mad that everything is made in China. It violates some basic economics principles but that's fine.
2. What happened to that Oklahoma rally, Trump really took it personal.
This ban put hundreds of thousands of Chinese people (including those who are already U.S. citizens or green card holders) in the U.S. to a difficult position. They don't have other ways to communicate with there friends/families in China other than WeChat. But I guess, those people (including myself), are the least important factors Trump worries about, if he even cares at all.
> But does TikTok send those data back to Chinese government so that it would potentially threaten U.S. national security? We need proof, but so far none.
How about the No place to hide laws that mandate this? Proof enough for you?
It's one of those American policies that has a triple motivation: it provides an opportunity for the GOP to look "tough" on foreigners, it provides the opportunity to protect the US tech sector's market position by outlawing a potential competitor, and it satisfies nationalist ("national security") factions in Washington that want to roll-back Chinese economic development.
Foreign policy initiatives that satisfy the needs of three or more power blocs in Washington DC tend to have extremely bad outcomes; the last major policy that had a triple motivation was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The stated motivation is to reduce misinformation from China in lead up to election.
Pretty wild that Facebook which was 100% proven to have been used for Russian misinformation in the last, and this election, somehow dodged a bullet on this...
My (totally personal opinion guess) is that this is just another way to poke the bear as part of the tit-for-tat with China and maybe a minor contributing factor that someone has got in his ear and blamed TikTok for his low campaign event turnout after there was a TikTok meme to RSVP to his events to make them sound like they were going to be huge, then embarrass him with low numbers.
Cynical perspective is that one of his friends with a stake in Facebook got in his ear about China using TikTok to make fun of him or something, and now Instagram Reels is right there to pick up the slack. Nothing would surprise me with this govt anymore. I mean the news is all talking about TikTok now instead of COVID-19... troop bounties... so on...
I don't see anything about misinformation or the election in the executive orders [1, 2]. It talks about data collection, e.g. "potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage" and " the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives".
Edit: okay, there is a bit, e.g. "This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus"
I’ll be impressed when US says we’re not depending on China to manufacture and instead bringing the big dogs like Apple and the Fashion behemoths to US.
We want a net export to China instead of a net import. At-least a resilient manufacturing industry.
If both sides can be in ... but now only China can be in, influence the media, use $ to buy and work with USA firm in USA etc. etc. But not USA. It is so one sided that China will win only in the arrangement.
Although the focus of the discussion seems about TikTok, what really should get more attentions WeChat and Tencent - this is basically the only way one can communicate in modern fashion with people in China.
This is what Monero is for. Any cryptocurrency which hides the value and participants of transactions on its chain will always have value as long as asymmetric power exists in society.
This brings to mind the US auto industry where GM and Ford kept thinking that building cars their way would win and then lost to cars from Japan that were more attuned to customer needs.
If WeChat is taken off Samsung and Apple phones, it would drive more purchasers to replacing their existing with Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, etc phones because digital payment is a way of life in China now. Overseas business users may buy 2nd phones to be able to access the China partners and markets.
BTW, Tencent is not going to cripple WeChat to not do transactions. They make too much money from it and can afford to ignore this autocratic request.
Theres an incredible amount of foreign propaganda in western social media anyway. Twitter took down like a million CCP accounts the other month (they made an announcement about it) and thats just the ones they know about. This is a step thats at least in spirit probably makes sense but there are more larger issues. Reddit literally has an API to comment...you think all those policial default subs are real comments? Not a chance. Reddit doesnt care because it drives engagement.
Almost every CCP-owned channel on Facebook has bought fake subscribers, it's so visible they don't even try to hide it. As an example, CGTN French has 20M subscribers, more than any local French newspapers despite being virtually unknown in the country. If you go by subscribers count, it would be the most popular news platform of the country...
I help mod a medium-sized subreddit (non-political). We get more mobile-app-based traffic than web traffic by a considerable margin, and I believe this is pretty typical.
Political PACs were openly bragging about manipulating reddit's political subs in 2016 with thousands of accounts and reddit did absolutely nothing. [1] [2]
That really depends. What if they require a login that uses a cookie based session? What about CSRF tokens? What if they put in a captcha cause your requests look funny. At some point it quickly goes from API to BOT.
Unclear, but defining accessing a server as a "transaction" for these purposes would be extremely aggressive, difficult to enforce, and challenged in court.
Can't have China influencing the election. That's Russia's job. It's not like these companies are new or doing things that every tech company in the world isn't doing. National security is clearly a pretense that's laughable. If that was the case, we'd see Facebook, etc. banned in many countries.
This feels like the kind of thing that could make sense as part of a broad portfolio of carefully analyzed actions to thwart the rise of CCP soft and hard power, but instead is a one-off poorly considered fit of pique from a self-dealing bona fide moron right before an election.
Does anyone think Facebook is requesting for this to happen? Trump and Zuckerberg are friends (on friendly terms anyways). Trump needs Facebook for reelection purposes, Facebook is losing users to TikTok. Seems like a win-win for these two to team up like this? A little quid pro quo?
Seems arbitrary and capricious to me. USA is a democracy. If foreign apps are a threat laws should be passed to protect user data privacy and maintain data sovereignty and made equally applicable to all.
Time to ban AWS in Europe too. Maybe cut the transatlantic cables too. I mean we ve known for ten years we are definitely being spied on and did nothing
I have two of their drones. Hope I can continue to fly. It’s helped me a lot since this pandemic started, being able to take a fun distraction. I’m able to just zone out from all those meetings, calls, reports, emails, code etc. etc.
I wonder how the TikTok userbase in the US is going to react to this? This could galvanized teens to action against the Trump administration. On the other hand, they could just ignore it aswell.
Trump doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
China is creating a social credit system that exerts a ridiculous amount on control over its citizens, and spies on their every move. Who in their right mind doesn't think that they would force TikTok to do the same on global citizens - not to mention manipulate them with propaganda.
Not to mention that whole imprisonment, torture, enslavement, and sterilization of the entire Turkic Uighur population. The real question is why do we tolerate ANYTHING Chinese?
I wonder if he's actually followed the administrative procedures act; often a lot of Trump proclamations end up being stricken down by the court for not following the proper rules. That's exactly why DACA remains in place; while the president has a lot of power over this area, there are still rules and processes that have to be followed.
Our 70s-era national security regime needs desperate Congressional overhaul. I take particular peeve with the prohibitions on judicial review of CFIUS actions.
This is obviously just a tactic by the Trump administration to distract people from the US economy tanking because of the mishandling of covid-19. If you haven't noticed, the US has much bigger problems. How about covid-19, the economy, lack of universal healthcare, weak education system, huge deficits, etc?
I am not blaming the mishandling of covid-19 solely on the Trump administration. I am just pointing out their Wizard of Oz distraction tactic and how the vast majority of people fall for it.
There is an economic competition between the US and China but this move is pure silly. WeChat isn’t doing anything in the US. It’s for Chinese people to talk to family in China.
Stoking animosity towards outsiders is a time honored tactic of all bad regimes (including that of the PRC) to distract citizens from their own failings. Time honored because it works almost every time.
I think most likely Apple and Google will have to remove TikTok and WeChat from the app store in U.S. If you install manually on Android you would probably be able to continue to use it. The executive order only bans transactions (since that is the limit of the power granted to president by IEEPA), so the executive has no authority to "block the app at the network level" -- the IEEPA explicitly restricts the prohibition of "any postal, telegraphic, telephonic, or other personal communication, which does not involve a transfer of anything of value".
AFAIK the term "transaction" comes directly from IEEPA since that is the law that lets the president make this executive order, so if you want more details on what is included in "transaction" you can see the text at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-35
If transaction refers to a payment transaction, then I don't understand how this isn't an abuse of power if it leads to removal from app stores, thus removing all functionality. If the president has the power to ban financial transactions, fine, but by effect, if the app is then removed from the app stores, then that effectively bans it for any other use as well, such as text, video chat, and audio calls, which is against the restrictions you quoted.
If I travel to China while this ban is in place, am I allowed to use the app while in China (assuming it's not removed from the app stores)?
This is all such a slippery slope. I am just so scared about my family's future. Trump is keeping my family outside of the country, needlessly, and now he is preventing effective communication.
You're right in that (at least under IEEPA) the executive order doesn't seem to have the authority to ban free usage of these apps. In fact it also excludes regulation of "the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials" (which include films so may include video clips as well).
So maybe the implementation won't be a complete ban from the app store, and instead something much smaller scale that only prevents payments, or if app stores are asked to ban it, maybe the courts will strike it down.
If their government is going to aggressively intervene in their "free market" so we can't compete by doing exactly what I just said, then we are forced to reciprocate.
Laws and law enforcement are the only sane ways to deal with espionage or whatever the accusation is. What Trump is doing here must be illegal, I hope it is challenged and defeated in court.
The free world gave the criminal CCP regime a free pass after the 1989 massacre. The same criminal regime get stronger in the last 30 years and put on a capitalist shell on its bloody skin. But it never stopped its criminal practices but has been doing it more relentlessly just with more concealment. For about 20 years it made large scale human organ sells from people they kidnapped or arrested. It put up huge concentration camps in Xinjing to get rid of some minor race people in the number of millions. That is just a small sample of its crimes still actively happening. I am glad US starts to realize the CCP regime is not a country following normal human ethics.
OK This is huge. Trump isn't just banning TikTok he's banning Tencent and it's holdings too from operating in the US. To put this is perspective Tencent owns Riot Games (League of Legends) and has stakes in Epic Games (Fortnite), Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed) and Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty). Overall Tencent owns 108 companies across media, entertainment, fintech and education. This is going to be a mess. (universal music and Spotify also owned partially)
Also how will impact companies of which Tencent owns less than 50%?
If the justification is that these apps are going to be used as social surveillance and manipulation apps, then surely Reddit and games with social features are next.
an EO is up to the executive branch to enforce. so unless you think they are lying, the wording doesn’t really matter but rather how they enforce it. (unlike a law)
I know much of western people agree with Trump's decision to ban ByteDance and Wechat, and it's fair to me when it's based on reciprocal.
But actually, ByteDance and Wechat(Tencent Holding) was and is growing more like a US company then a company with China Communism background. A lot of employee of ByteDance/Wechat are engineers like the engineers in hackernews. Even the CEO of bytedance, Zhangyiming, is now cursed in China for earlier friendly voice to US and western world.
I mean, why hurt the companies and engineers are or was friendly to US. The recently ban action is turning friend to enemy, why not put the punishment to other unfriendly subject or entity.
After seeing some of the comments here and seeing their half-baked "libertarian' views which are grounded in fantasy, I am speaking out and saying:
Good job! It is about time! I fully support decisions like this.
There is no point in playing a "fair" game if the player (China) won't follow the rules.
> By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I’m mixed about this. On one hand the US as the most powerful country should lead and be an example of the free world. On the other hand China is playing an asymmetric game with foreign companies and has banned many US companies from entering their market.
Now they’re still a developing country, so this would be fine by me, except that the Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity and getting more and more powerful at the same time. This is really dangerous, and the only thing I can think of is germany pre-WWII where Hitler had huge approval ratings. Chinese people are extremely pro-CCP even in the US, this is frightening imo. And most countries are doing nothing about the xinjiang and hongkong situations. So maybe this is a good move...
To be clear, TikTok and WeChat are quite different 'threats', both real, but it's not clear how dangerous:
TikTok is aimed at a wide market, and it's a content app - there are two worries with it, data and influence. If they are installed on a significant number of devices in the US/the 'West', and their user data is stored in or available to Chinese networks, that data is available to the Chinese government on-demand. Secondly, if they have significant enough cultural influence, they can use that to promote/demote certain topics or specific content, for a variety of purposes.
WeChat seems to have no serious ambitions beyond China and the Chinese diaspora, nowadays. It's used by people all over the world to keep in touch with their friends and families, and to do business, with people in China, and it's widely-known that the content is actively monitored and censored by/on behalf of the Chinese government. Although VPNs etc are available, it's really the only significant communication and social media platform available in (and into) China. There's also pretty good evidence (although mostly anecdotal, AFAIK) that it's a channel for nationalistic propaganda, government-coordinated action and similar amongst the Chinese diaspora - actively so, beyond the passive effect of censored content.
None of these things are to say that billions of people can't happily use those platforms, every day, all over the world! But they also cannot be completely ignored...
And before anyone starts with "but the American government is just the same!", it's not, it's really not. The Chinese government is a literal totalitarian, authoritarian, one-man dictatorship. However much Trump cosplays as a dictator, and however much authoritarianism he demonstrates, there are huge qualitative differences.
At least the Chinese Communist Party has the decency to make policy that has the effect of banning foreign businesses from operating and kangaroo courts to keep up the charade.
I think this is going to be tossed out in court. The President does not have the power to unilaterally decide trade policy, and it's really hard to argue that a consumer software product has national security implications (even if I think it does, I don't think our courts have technically literate judges who would agree).
If you want to provide consumer privacy protections that would prevent the alleged (and very likely) malfeasance of nominally-private businesses from China, write some fucking policy instead of signing an EO with no weight.
Another day, more disillusionment from our federal government's ability to govern. Regardless of how much I want something like this to be in place, I want Congress to write a law that enshrines consumer privacy protection and recognizes that any business doing what they purport Chinese businesses to be doing is a national security threat ; be it from businesses foreign or domestic.
This is frequently an unreasonable request. To take an example from higher in this thread (not proving his claim), you can easily say that CGTN French does not have 20 million subscribers, but you can't easily say that any individual subscriber is fake.
The same can apply to social media, it can be pretty obvious based on commenting patterns that there is some propaganda going on in posts blatantly about China, without it being able to identify with any degree of certainty which comments are problematic.
(I take no stance on whether or not there is obviously propaganda here, the commenting and voting does strike me as suspicious, but not to the degree that I think it's a slam dunk that it's not just the result of a biased sample of HN users being interested in posts like this).
If you point to a comment that only has pro-China comments, then yes, it could be seen as propaganda.
But especially when it comes to China, when someone has an opinion that slightly goes against the general sentiment, it's marked as propaganda, or a paid troll, just as a way to invalidate their opinions.
Hence why I'm asking, because I don't see any obvious propaganda here. Just people with a different opinion trying to have a discussion about it. And I'm only asking because someone pointed it out without posting evidence.
Well China does have a valid reason to outlaw Google et. al, because they publicly siphon your data and are not shy about it. Also if you're gonna downvote, provide a reason and counter-point. This isn't reddit and the downvote button is not for "I don't like this".
More people need to become aware of what China is currently doing with their so-called "reeducation camps".
I would like to see other countries doing the same, and not just with fancy (but mostly useless) things like TikTok, but cut off Chinese involvement in anything critical where countries depend on them.
It has become clear they have total disregard for human rights.
