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I agree with you that TikTok was unfairly singled out. I also agree with you that many US companies have operated legally inside of China. I also agree that the

• pishpash 6y ago
  I think a point of broad agreement is that the US can set up rules of market access reflective of values rather than interests -- things like labor rights or environmental protection for physical goods, or like privacy, non-censorship, clean IP ownership for informational goods -- and they should apply to the whole market. If there are value differences between countries that truly rise to a level that can be considered existential or a threat to national security, these rules will automatically work to discriminate and protect long-term local interests in a way that isn't arbitrary. And if there are not differences, then why should anything be done anyway? Let the winners win. At the moment there is skepticism due to the US never having consistently demonstrated the values it purportedly cares about during all of globalization, not domestically, certainly not abroad. So the fuss about China becomes one of sour grapes more or less, coming to fore because the profits are no longer justifying the loss of competitive advantage. It is an about-face built on opportunism, not strength and moral backbone. Negative reactions built on those grounds will never be as effective as positive and morally defensible ones.