> I don't understand why China is allowed to have web products in our markets but we don't seem to be allowed Google, Facebook, WhatsApp etc. in theirs.

Because we're a democracy with free speech and open markets, and China is not? Banning foreign speech and competition is not the victory for our way of life that some people seem to think it is.

There is a problem with TikTok - like ALL social media it uses opaque ranking algorithms that serve nefarious interests, and like ALL social media it spies ruthlessly on its users. How about we address those issues, thereby indirectly resolving the TikTok issue too?

There's no such thing as a free market, regulations are everywhere. One such regulation that I think is perfectly reasonable is that if you want to sell us things we need to be able to sell you things. This is largely true with hardware (e.g. Apple, Tesla sell into China just fine) but most software companies and especially social media have been outlawed.

Just because we are a democracy with different values to the CCP does not mean we should be taken for fools.

But we aren't banning foreign speech, we are banning a foreign platform for information dissemination. I don't see anyone promoting not allowing Chinese citizen's posts to be viewable in the USA. That is what banning foreign speech would look like.

If you don't like how the chinese government operate, you probably should not want your government to imitate everything they do.

And then why would we want to give a country that's not a democracy free access to our markets?

Do it through tariffs on trade vs banning speech!

really you don't understand that? fascinating.