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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 bann

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.

learnstats2 6y ago
It feels unequal after this was called censorship and anti-democratic, being used as a basis for propaganda against China, for years?
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I suspect the ban will just be on the monetization. So they can keep TikTok and WeChat, but will not be able to profit from them.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    The order seems sufficiently broadly worded to ban ads on either platform, hosting them in the US, etc.
  - est 6y ago
    Monetization is also the reason China banned every US Internet service.
    - yorwba 6y ago
      Google is still selling ads in China, so monetization doesn't appear to be considered problematic.
      - est 6y ago
        > Google is still selling ads in China, More like Google is selling ads outside China for Chinese companies. Google Ads market share in China is really small.
    - powerapple 6y ago
      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.
  - JulianMorrison 6y ago
    It's pretty ridiculous to claim that "you can exist, but not do business" is anything other than a ban. What are they supposed to do, panhandle?
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      It makes it clearly a business conflict, not a free speech one.
      - JulianMorrison 6y ago
        That's a false dichotomy - it's a third thing: nakedly political posturing.
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    They have 45 days to agree on something, and that will determine "transactions" in this case. Pure pressure.
  - modo_mario 6y ago
    Trump's set an ultimatum whereby tiktok's American operations will have to be sold to Microsoft or it gets banned.
- rtx 6y ago
  We can call it digital warfare.
- stale2002 6y ago
  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.
  - ulfw 6y ago
    Childish. Then again, that‘s the US in a nutshell in 2020.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      Tit for tat reciprocity is the basis of most modern trade relations. To give a related, similar, but not exactly the same example, in order to demonstrate this idea of reciprocal trade relations: If country A puts a tariff on country B, then it is almost guaranteed that Country B will put the same exact tariff on country A. This example is used to demonstrate the principle of trade related relations. This is how trade relations have worked for a very long time. And actions regarding international, hundred billion dollar companies, are going to be related to this idea of trade and reciprocal trade relations.
      - ulfw 6y ago
        What tariff? What trade? What does this action have to do with either?
- kortilla 6y ago
  Unequal? You’re suggesting that blocking just monetary transactions with two companies is somehow worse than the thousands of sites blocked in China?
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    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.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      TikTok is not in the US. "Land of The Free" never applied to different lands with different government. Land of the Free didn't mean the British could move in and run things.
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        >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??).
        exclusiv 6y ago
        In order to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to address those that infringe upon it.
- _lsq 6y ago
  No it's not. 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.
  - ethbro 6y ago
    > 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. Look at industries where foreign companies are outright restricted (must form non controlling joint venture with local partner) or prohibited from operating in: http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/policyrelease/aaa/201203/20120308027837.shtml http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/policyrelease/aaa/20120... See: "Catalogue of Restricted Foreign Investment Industries" and "Catalogue of Prohibited Foreign Investment Industries"
Lambdanaut 6y ago
"Just" reciprocity? "Just" an eye for an eye? And when the other guy takes out our spleen, we should take out his too? And his muscles? His brain? And heart? Until we are both nothing but dust. Yes, let's reciprocate. Let us take until we are shit in the wind.
- unishark 6y ago
  Or until both sides agree to bilaterally remove bans? Because unlike eyes, messaging can grow back.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lambdanaut 6y ago
    I have a trillion eyes. When I remember that, I can stop trading eyes for eyes, and be content with the eyes I already have. There is one of me: Life. And I am sick and tired of this self-mutilation.
  - mola 6y ago
    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
    - abc-xyz 6y ago
      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.
sdigital 6y ago
What's the point in reciprocity here? "And if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you".
- tekkk 6y ago
  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.
  - pishpash 6y ago
    Last year you may have been right, but with Pence, then Pompeo making Cold War declarations, it seems quite a bit more than that.
  - loceng 6y ago
    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.
Thorrez 6y ago
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.
- ooobit2 6y ago
  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?
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    >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.
dirtyid 6y ago
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.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  > FB, Google sell billions in ads to China Citation needed. Both are effectively completely blocked in China by the GFW.
  - dirtyid 6y ago
    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. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-china-focus/facebook-defies-china-headwinds-with-new-ad-sales-push-idUSKBN1Z616Q https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-china-focus/face...
  - pishpash 6y ago
    Ads are sold on the platforms for clicks outside China. There may be other B2B revenue streams.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    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/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-bans-vpn-ads-in-china/
withparadox2 6y ago
China asked these companies to obey the local law, but none of them 'surrendered', not including Apple and Microsoft.
- input_sh 6y ago
  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.
hn_check 6y ago
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.
ookdatnog 6y ago
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.
- walkingolof 6y ago
  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. Insight: How U.S. spying cost Boeing multibillion-dollar jet contract https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-brazil-insight-idUSBRE9BJ10P20131220 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-brazil-insight-idU...
- fastball 6y ago
  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.
  - ookdatnog 6y ago
    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.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
This is a fallacious argument. For example when Google worked in China they were ripped apart for doing that, and so decided not to. Most of these companies could work in China if they followed Chinese rules. They decided not to, so they don't.
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  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.
  - mrjin 6y ago
    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?
  - joyeuse6701 6y ago
    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.
bmcn2020 6y ago
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.
- wallfacer4 6y ago
  For many Chinese living in America, it's the only way to reliably communicate with family back in China.
yorwba 6y ago
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.
- api 6y ago
  > 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.
kinnth 6y ago
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.
- ethbro 6y ago
  Nobody in the US has an appetite for forcing TikTok into a 49% joint venture and mandating key escrow.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    US rules could be "key escrows are banned".
- khuey 6y ago
  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 ...
- tatrajim 6y ago
  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". https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longer-immune-to-chinas-scrutiny-of-us-tech-firms.html?_r=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...
powerapple 6y ago
Just to correct some details: Netflix, LinkedIn, Bing are not banned in China.
- hintymad 6y ago
  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.
throw33432 6y ago
Did China ban them? I thought they refused to follow China’s censorship laws? Skype is available in a China.
- usaar333 6y ago
  Well, they have a national firewall that blocks connections to them, so I'd consider that banning.
  - hintymad 6y ago
    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.
Barrin92 6y ago
>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
- pydry 6y ago
  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.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    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.
thecureforzits 6y ago
Is free speech conditional on reciprocity?
sct202 6y ago
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.
- sukilot 6y ago
  What other Chinese-government controlled apps are hoovering data?
  - wh1t3n01s3 6y ago
    All of them
pgrote 6y ago
>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.
- MentallyRetired 6y ago
  We're not a communist dictatorship.
  - TheJoeDonger 6y ago
    Well, that helped, thanks for stating the obvious.
  - michaelscott 6y ago
    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?
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Neither is China
    - sidlls 6y ago
      It's literally run by the CCP in an authoritarian regime (i.e. dictatorship).
      - hungryhobo 6y ago
        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.
jdietrich 6y ago
>China banned a long list of media companies 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.
- will4274 6y ago
  > 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.
  - Thorncorona 6y ago
    How is freedom of the press a fundamental right? That is a uniquely American idea. Looking at Australia, allowing foreign companies (Newscorp) free reign over the press can have incredibly negative consequences.
    - will4274 6y ago
      From the universal declaration of human rights: > Article 19. > 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.
KKKKkkkk1 6y 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.
amaccuish 6y ago
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.
draw_down 6y ago
Repeat after me: it’s okay when they do it.

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.

learnstats2 6y ago

It feels unequal after this was called censorship and anti-democratic, being used as a basis for propaganda against China, for years?

MattGaiser 6y ago
I suspect the ban will just be on the monetization. So they can keep TikTok and WeChat, but will not be able to profit from them.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  The order seems sufficiently broadly worded to ban ads on either platform, hosting them in the US, etc.
- est 6y ago
  Monetization is also the reason China banned every US Internet service.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    Google is still selling ads in China, so monetization doesn't appear to be considered problematic.
    - est 6y ago
      > Google is still selling ads in China, More like Google is selling ads outside China for Chinese companies. Google Ads market share in China is really small.
  - powerapple 6y ago
    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.
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  It's pretty ridiculous to claim that "you can exist, but not do business" is anything other than a ban. What are they supposed to do, panhandle?
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    It makes it clearly a business conflict, not a free speech one.
    - JulianMorrison 6y ago
      That's a false dichotomy - it's a third thing: nakedly political posturing.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  They have 45 days to agree on something, and that will determine "transactions" in this case. Pure pressure.
- modo_mario 6y ago
  Trump's set an ultimatum whereby tiktok's American operations will have to be sold to Microsoft or it gets banned.
rtx 6y ago
We can call it digital warfare.
stale2002 6y ago
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.
- ulfw 6y ago
  Childish. Then again, that‘s the US in a nutshell in 2020.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    Tit for tat reciprocity is the basis of most modern trade relations. To give a related, similar, but not exactly the same example, in order to demonstrate this idea of reciprocal trade relations: If country A puts a tariff on country B, then it is almost guaranteed that Country B will put the same exact tariff on country A. This example is used to demonstrate the principle of trade related relations. This is how trade relations have worked for a very long time. And actions regarding international, hundred billion dollar companies, are going to be related to this idea of trade and reciprocal trade relations.
    - ulfw 6y ago
      What tariff? What trade? What does this action have to do with either?
kortilla 6y ago
Unequal? You’re suggesting that blocking just monetary transactions with two companies is somehow worse than the thousands of sites blocked in China?
- Thorrez 6y ago
  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.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    TikTok is not in the US. "Land of The Free" never applied to different lands with different government. Land of the Free didn't mean the British could move in and run things.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      >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??).
      - exclusiv 6y ago
        In order to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to address those that infringe upon it.
_lsq 6y ago
No it's not. 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.
- ethbro 6y ago
  > 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. Look at industries where foreign companies are outright restricted (must form non controlling joint venture with local partner) or prohibited from operating in: http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/policyrelease/aaa/201203/20120308027837.shtml http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/policyrelease/aaa/20120... See: "Catalogue of Restricted Foreign Investment Industries" and "Catalogue of Prohibited Foreign Investment Industries"

Lambdanaut 6y ago

"Just" reciprocity? "Just" an eye for an eye? And when the other guy takes out our spleen, we should take out his too? And his muscles? His brain? And heart? Until we are both nothing but dust. Yes, let's reciprocate. Let us take until we are shit in the wind.

unishark 6y ago
Or until both sides agree to bilaterally remove bans? Because unlike eyes, messaging can grow back.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Lambdanaut 6y ago
  I have a trillion eyes. When I remember that, I can stop trading eyes for eyes, and be content with the eyes I already have. There is one of me: Life. And I am sick and tired of this self-mutilation.
- mola 6y ago
  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
  - abc-xyz 6y ago
    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.

sdigital 6y ago

What's the point in reciprocity here? "And if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you".

tekkk 6y ago
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.
- pishpash 6y ago
  Last year you may have been right, but with Pence, then Pompeo making Cold War declarations, it seems quite a bit more than that.
- loceng 6y ago
  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.

Thorrez 6y ago

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.

ooobit2 6y ago
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?
- Thorrez 6y ago
  >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.

dirtyid 6y ago

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.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
> FB, Google sell billions in ads to China Citation needed. Both are effectively completely blocked in China by the GFW.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  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. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-china-focus/facebook-defies-china-headwinds-with-new-ad-sales-push-idUSKBN1Z616Q https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-china-focus/face...
- pishpash 6y ago
  Ads are sold on the platforms for clicks outside China. There may be other B2B revenue streams.
- yorwba 6y ago
  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/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-bans-vpn-ads-in-china/

withparadox2 6y ago

China asked these companies to obey the local law, but none of them 'surrendered', not including Apple and Microsoft.

input_sh 6y ago
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.

hn_check 6y ago

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.

ookdatnog 6y ago

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.

walkingolof 6y ago
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. Insight: How U.S. spying cost Boeing multibillion-dollar jet contract https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-brazil-insight-idUSBRE9BJ10P20131220 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-brazil-insight-idU...
fastball 6y ago
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.
- ookdatnog 6y ago
  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.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

This is a fallacious argument. For example when Google worked in China they were ripped apart for doing that, and so decided not to. Most of these companies could work in China if they followed Chinese rules. They decided not to, so they don't.

FooBarWidget 6y ago
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.
- mrjin 6y ago
  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?
- joyeuse6701 6y ago
  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.

bmcn2020 6y ago

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.

wallfacer4 6y ago
For many Chinese living in America, it's the only way to reliably communicate with family back in China.

yorwba 6y ago

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.

api 6y ago
> 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.

kinnth 6y ago

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.

ethbro 6y ago
Nobody in the US has an appetite for forcing TikTok into a 49% joint venture and mandating key escrow.
- sukilot 6y ago
  US rules could be "key escrows are banned".
khuey 6y ago
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 ...
tatrajim 6y ago
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". https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longer-immune-to-chinas-scrutiny-of-us-tech-firms.html?_r=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...

powerapple 6y ago

Just to correct some details: Netflix, LinkedIn, Bing are not banned in China.

hintymad 6y ago
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.

throw33432 6y ago

Did China ban them? I thought they refused to follow China’s censorship laws? Skype is available in a China.

usaar333 6y ago
Well, they have a national firewall that blocks connections to them, so I'd consider that banning.
- hintymad 6y ago
  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.

Barrin92 6y ago

>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

pydry 6y ago
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.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  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.

thecureforzits 6y ago

Is free speech conditional on reciprocity?

sct202 6y ago

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.

sukilot 6y ago
What other Chinese-government controlled apps are hoovering data?
- wh1t3n01s3 6y ago
  All of them

pgrote 6y ago

>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.

MentallyRetired 6y ago
We're not a communist dictatorship.
- TheJoeDonger 6y ago
  Well, that helped, thanks for stating the obvious.
- michaelscott 6y ago
  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?
- xxpor 6y ago
  Neither is China
  - sidlls 6y ago
    It's literally run by the CCP in an authoritarian regime (i.e. dictatorship).
    - hungryhobo 6y ago
      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.

jdietrich 6y ago

>China banned a long list of media companies 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.

will4274 6y ago
> 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.
- Thorncorona 6y ago
  How is freedom of the press a fundamental right? That is a uniquely American idea. Looking at Australia, allowing foreign companies (Newscorp) free reign over the press can have incredibly negative consequences.
  - will4274 6y ago
    From the universal declaration of human rights: > Article 19. > 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.

KKKKkkkk1 6y 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.

amaccuish 6y ago

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.

draw_down 6y ago

Repeat after me: it’s okay when they do it.