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Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by keiferski on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:44PM (#24077954)
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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by toomuchtodo on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:45PM (#24077969)
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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by keiferski on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:49PM (#24078007)
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.
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by chrischen on Friday August 07, 2020 @07:28AM (#24080740)
Should we start rounding up Muslims too?

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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by throwaway0a5e on Friday August 07, 2020 @08:37AM (#24081173)
>Should we start rounding up Muslims too?

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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by chrischen on Friday August 07, 2020 @08:57PM (#24088023)
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.
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by gruez on Friday August 07, 2020 @11:35AM (#24083000)
> Should we start rounding up Muslims too?

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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by dspillett on Friday August 07, 2020 @09:36AM (#24081622)
> Should we start rounding up Muslims too?

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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by chrischen on Friday August 07, 2020 @09:00PM (#24088034)
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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by michaelgiba on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:57PM (#24078072)
I’m confused too, this seemed like a normal comment
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by ArnoVW on Friday August 07, 2020 @03:52AM (#24079440)
I would imagine because "two wrongs don't make a right" and because "doing like the others" validates their doing.

Giving up the moral high ground is not a move of a superpower, and aides in destabilising the geopolitical playing field.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by makomk on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:52AM (#24079822)
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.)
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by cthor on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:00AM (#24079491)
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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by keiferski on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:08AM (#24079530)
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.
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by loopz on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:15AM (#24079580)
Hiding the discussion does not fix the issue.
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by sbmthakur on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:55AM (#24079838)
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.
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Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by dang on Friday August 07, 2020 @03:08AM (#24079169)
You can't do this here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24079115 for more.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by lambdasquirrel on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:58PM (#24078082)
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.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by perennate on Friday August 07, 2020 @12:35AM (#24078355)
> 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).

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by xvector on Friday August 07, 2020 @01:14AM (#24078597)
> under American laws and directives

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.

This is unprecedented.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by perennate on Friday August 07, 2020 @01:18AM (#24078620)
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.)
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by sbmthakur on Friday August 07, 2020 @07:25AM (#24080724)
> Companies are banned in China for not following Chinese laws or directives

One of those laws is China's National Intelligence law which requires all companies to cooperate with and aid national intelligence.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by zolosa on Friday August 07, 2020 @11:42AM (#24083082)
Same in USA.
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by toomuchtodo on Friday August 07, 2020 @12:02AM (#24078119)
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.

https://fortune.com/2014/08/11/china-western-companies-monop... (China vs. Western companies: Best defense is a strong offense)

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-s... (1 in 5 corporations say China has stolen their IP within the last year: CNBC CFO survey)

https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/05/news/economy/china-foreign-... (How China gets what it wants from American companies)

https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/23/technology/china-us-trump-t... (How much has the US lost from China’s IP theft?)

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by RavlaAlvar on Friday August 07, 2020 @04:40AM (#24079741)
Foreign investors were forced to sell their shares on Ant finance(Alipay) few years ago.
Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by est on Friday August 07, 2020 @05:46AM (#24080170)
> As far as I know, they are still banning Houston Rockets games because Morey supported Hong Kong in a tweet.

As far as I know, you trust media reports more than a random search on Chinese video sites.

https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4534875236007949

It's the Rockets vs Trail Blazers math on 4th Aug.

Re:US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days by keiferski on Friday August 07, 2020 @06:02AM (#24080251)
According to this link from two weeks ago, it still hasn't been resolved.

https://www.scmp.com/sport/basketball/article/3092980/nbas-c...

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.