This isn't the beginning, the beginning was years ago.

> It's very probable that the Apple store will be forbidden in China. This will destroy Apple in China (impacting 18% Apple revenue), and it will at the same time preserve the image of China as the factory of the world

China has already forced Apple to hand over iCloud to a local Chinese company. iCloud in China is operated by GCBD (AIPO Cloud (Guizhou) Technology Co. Ltd).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

Exactly this. The ban itself was fine. But to force sale of assets to a US company (which reduces bidding prices significantly) is just corrupt thuggish politics. At this point, a third country should be wary of doing any business in the US.

I took that as a big warning message, and started to reduce my US exposure as much as I can. I was already going self hosted so it’s easier for me. The only new requirement is avoiding American companies as much as possible.

China very often does it to the US though. It’s just tit for tat.

Weakening the dollar makes our exports look more attractive and encourages more spending at home.

> Weakening the dollar makes our exports look more attractive and encourages more spending at home.

How is this relevant to app bans and mafia sales?

What? its not worse than a ban, its so not worse that ByteDance could simply not sell its US operations and stop being present in the US, making it just like a ban. A ban would leave no option.

This is pretty much what China does, but for every service.

> This is pretty much what China does, but for every service.

Since when did we aspire to become more like China?

> its not worse than a ban, its so not worse that ByteDance could simply not sell its US operations and stop being present in the US, making it just like a ban

The difference is, why should a US entity own this asset for it to have operations in the US? Why can't it be a EU entity or Australian entity or Canadian entity or Ugandan entity?

Does this mean that US government is going to erratically force foreign businesses to sell US assets when they want?

The equivalent of this would be EU asking Apple to sell all EU operations to Nokia or whatever to be able to operate in that market. Does this sound business friendly?

This is not what China does.

China requires a proactive censorship policy and all Chinese data to be hosted in China. If the company complies, they can operate in China.

This is why Skype and iMessage work in China.

Expect an escalation if that happens and more bans on Chinese companies.