Only because Facebook does not follow China’s censorship and data storage laws.

Actually I don't believe that's the real reason. I think Facebook would be more than happy to co-operate.

For China, the problem with Facebook isn't control or censorship, but rather providing protectionism for their own brands, i.e. WeChat.

That's exactly right. Anybody who has been at a moderately successful startup knows all too well the step where a Chinese company will approach you to "partner"[0] into the Chinese market

[0] Where "partner" means - setup a local JP we control and give us your IP and you will own a "share" (but good luck with the local courts when things go wrong!)

The fact that anybody could point fingers at the US for making it difficult for China to do business here is absurd. China is one of the most hostile protectionist economies. The US has never done anything that even approaches how difficult it is for a foreign business to trade in China.

I’m quite a strong advocate for free trade. But if a country has locked you out of their market, I don’t think you should give them easy access to yours.

Whether an eye for eye works is a matter for debate.

As for US, FISA courts, NSLs etc were a worry when AMS-IX wanted to start a subsidiary in NY, USA.

The argument "what about ..." or "they are worse" isn't strong.

An eye for an eye isn’t really relevant. If a country is manipulating its markets, and denying another country access to them, then the country that is denied fair access is putting its own economy at risk. A US business cannot be expected to fairly compete with a Chinese business, and trade barriers are a perfectly reasonable response to that.

Regarding the US intelligence apparatus. It’s a threat to the liberty of US citizens. But it’s not a threat to US national security.

Well, letting a group of people with 4-5x your population run rampant over you is a risk..

6 Businesses with Success in China (and How They Did It)

https://blog.btrax.com/6-businesses-with-success-in-china-an...

It's hard to tell since details are scarce in the article, but perhaps this is the same model that Oracle and TikTok are aiming for? (Oracle provides the U.S. footing for a partnership, and that relationship enables TikTok to (continue to) operate in the country)

Facebook was banned in China following the Urumqi riots in Xinjiang. Facebook was partially used to organize the protest, and then refused to cooperate with law enforcement on apprehending the organizers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Facebook#China

Conversely Microsoft, Uber, eBay, Tesla etc are all pretty scary competitive brands that ran fine in China because they elected to follow local laws. Uber and eBay were just not competitive because they elected to not do any amount of adaptations to localize their services. Skype could have been competitive if Microsoft cared enough to add relevant features for the local market but didn't. Tesla we'll see.

Most of these companies would kill for an opportunity to enter China.

I don't know what the latest is [0], but 5 years back following these laws meant you'd have to be a standard domestic company which a non-citizen cannot incorporate or own.

[0] China has a tendency of introducing new mechanisms giving impression of potential for more access that never pan out. Back in the day AWS was promised unprecedented terms in a Shanghai free trade zone. Was supposed to have access to unfiltered connections. None of that has ever happened and "AWS China" is now just a cloud service operated by Chinese companies under the AWS brand.

Even YC fell for this with their China operation now being 100% China-run leeching off their brand. Though I don't know if anything was being promised to them.