US buys from Germany because German products are on average better than US products. Nothing else.

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.

you left out the parts about having to operate via a chinese 'partner' and having to transfer your IP to that partner (full source code)

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.

[1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/huawei-gchq-security-evaluat...

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.

Depends, do UK companies have a long history of stealing IP from outside companies and profiting off that IP with no repercussions from the UK gov?

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.

AWS must have the means to bribe the right people then. GCP does not work in China at all.

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.

At least for fb and google, not the case.

Path that is harmful and injurious to conscience and business is worse than daylight robbery.

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.