Because as Milton Friedman pointed out, don't do to yourself what you do to an enemy in war. China banning American services is to the detriment of Chinese users and competition in China, there's no reason to emulate censorship.

If data harvesting was a genuine concern you might as well ban Facebook and every other social media app while you're at it. It's just hysteria and nationalism.

But China already bans tons of American services from Google to Twitter, no? And otherwise makes the regulatory burden so incredibly onerous it's very difficult to operate (e.g. LinkedIn) for some tech companies when they want to build up domestic champions

There's no hysteria here, and surprise, most nation's act out of self-preservation or with interests of their citizens, or what you call nationalism.

> If data harvesting was a genuine concern ...

It is, and that is what is going on here, with TikTok the beginning. EU is also helping here, so kudos to them. Hopefully Discord next.

>China banning American services is to the detriment of Chinese users and competition in China, there's no reason to emulate censorship.

This is not true. China financializes everything, and pumps capital into projects at rates unseen and unmatched in the history of the world. There is plenty of competition, as evidenced by the fact that China has apps that are fare more efficient and feature rich than anything in the US. See: WeChat.

> as evidenced by the fact that China has apps that are fare more efficient and feature rich than anything in the US. See: WeChat

You just confused a claim of fact with a personal opinion.

"Efficient" and "feature rich" are close to meaningless when thrown around like that. You can't actually support what you said because it's very heavy on being subjective.

Feature rich is corporate speak for: bloated with garbage that's unnecessary.

> China financializes everything, and pumps capital into projects at rates unseen and unmatched in the history of the world.

Evidence please?

I have long been suspicious of China's financial strategy, and had not found satisfactory sources on this topic.

""" Such processes of capital market development are often described as important characteristics of financialization processes. And while not yet on par with highly financialized economies such as the United States """

So this means China's financialization is unmatched? Yet the statement suggest US financialization is superior to China?

What do you want to express with this citation?

Nah, the title itself is too propagandist. What the hell is "authoritarian capitalism"?! Corporations are all authoritarian, to facilitate individual control of large resources owned by the corporation. Capitalism is just a nice term to coat the brutal underlying profit seeking gangster. Corolally, there is no such idea of liberal capitalism.

WeChat has more features than WhatsApp but probably not the Facebook ecosystem. It's also far-fetched to say it's "far more efficient", given Facebook has to serve many more users and doesn't seem slow.

If there is so much competition, why does it all end up in WeChat, the fucking AOL of apps?

Good luck winning a war if you're not censoring your enemy's propaganda.

>but the fact that China bans so much US internet like Facebook

This seems like a poor reason to ban an application/website/whatever. Reminds me of elementary school drama. Find a legitimate and/or legal reason (e.g. the mass harvesting of biometric data, unbeknownst to the users, being fed into some opaque government-ran database) or it should not be banned.

> This seems like a poor reason to ban an application/website/whatever. Reminds me of elementary school drama. Find a legitimate and/or legal reason (e.g. the mass harvesting of biometric data, unbeknownst to the users, being fed into some opaque government-ran database) or it should not be banned.

Um, no. Reciprocity is a pretty key concept in international relations, and a legitimate reason to take retaliatory measures. Also "we would rather not grant our adversary this advantage" is another legitimate reason to take action.

>Um, no.

Um, yes?

>Reciprocity is a pretty key concept in international relations

This makes much more sense in the context of physical goods and materials and international trade. It makes much less sense (I argue near-zero sense) in the context of some random non-lawbreaking, legitimate application or website.

Edit to clarify:

Refusing to export X to country Y hurts country Y, assuming they want X.

Banning legitimate application X developed in country Y does not hurt country Y (unless the majoity/all revenue is from your country), it just hurts your own citizens who may rely on application X. "Cut off your nose to spite your face"

> This makes much more sense in the context of physical goods and materials and international trade. It makes much less sense (I argue near-zero sense) in the context of some random non-lawbreaking, legitimate application or website.

I'm sorry, I'm not seeing the difference. Even if the context was only business/trade (which it isn't), the American company is not able to operate in or make money from the Chinese market, while the Chinese company is currently has free reign to make money in the American one. The obvious thing to do is to reciprocally restrict the Chinese company to incentivize the removal of restrictions from the American company.

>the American company is not able to operate in or make money from the Chinese market, while the Chinese company is currently has free reign to make money in the American one

I think this is our disconnect. I don't care if some random American company can't make money in China. Nor do I care if a legitimate application that happened to be developed in China is able to make money in America. Why should I care?

And assuming I use that application or website, why should I be the one to be punished? Just so some other company can gain some market segment? The context here isn't war or something else severe like that, my point is and has been only in the strict context of legitimate websites and applications (i.e. they aren't breaking American laws, they aren't siphoning American data, etc.).

But hey, maybe this is why I'm not a foreign policy expert and instead I'm just some guy on the internet, enjoying what people all over the world have developed and hoping that my government doesn't ban them because of spite.

> I think this is our disconnect. I don't care if some random American company can't make money in China. Nor do I care if a legitimate application that happened to be developed in China is able to make money in America. Why should I care?

You or I might not care personally about the specific case, but I was speaking from the perspective of the government. They certainly care because they have responsibilities for the economy. I care too, indirectly, because I have interest in the economy doing well (e.g. if Facebook hires a bunch of American developers because they're making bank in China, that's a better for me because the increased demand makes some things a little better for me).

But the trade/economics thing here is a distant second to the national security concerns at play. It's significant that TikTok is under the control of a geopolitical rival, not an ally.

> I care too, indirectly, because I have interest in the economy doing well (e.g. if Facebook hires a bunch of American developers because they're making bank in China, that's a better for me because the increased demand makes some things a little better for me).

Valid point, although I still think that banning a non-related, legitimate application that is used by Americans is a poor way of approaching the issue. But I concede that there is more variables at play than I had in my head during my initial comment.

>It's significant that TikTok is under the control of a geopolitical rival, not an ally.

I never disagreed with this point, and tried to make that clear in my initial comment where I specifically used the mass harvesting of biometric data as an example of a reason I would consider legitimate.

It's quite the opposite. Reciprocity hurts more with physical goods.

In a trade war, if a country bans export X in retaliation, the citizens of the country also hurt because they have to pay more to buy from other sources.

But with a social web site, citizens lose nothing by having to switch to another data-sucking web site, especially since their contacts are now less fragmented across social media sites due to the ban.

The reason China bans Facebook, I think, is about stifling competition because they know these internet platforms are about creating global monopolies and they want to win or at least not lose.

Edit: this was meant for the parent thread

My understanding is that Chinese bans on US technology have reasons clearly codified in law and would not be banned if they followed the regulations.

That being said, what US laws does TikTok not follow?

> My understanding is that Chinese bans on US technology have reasons clearly codified in law and would not be banned if they followed the regulations.

My understanding is that Chinese law is usually pretty vague and unclear, especially in areas like this, and in any case doesn't actually bind the government.

Yeah, my understanding is a lot of Chinese laws are vague on purpose so that they can be interpreted to benefit companies the state likes, while punishing those the state does not like

“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” - General Óscar Benavides

Sounds like America. Didn’t we just ban Juuls while countless other electronic fruity vapes are on the market?

Didn't a judge just stop the ban?

This is a good point.

I would much rather we codify data protections, and then ban TikTok (and domestic) apps that do not comply.

I think you're right. I'd love to see a BRICS-oriented data protection law for the US, for example.

That's what the EU is doing and it's a great approach.

The regulations include being completely subservient to the state.

The US could make something similar to eliminate Chinese companies in terms of democracy vs dictatorship: pass a law saying that social media websites can only operate if their employees have the right to vote in their own countries.

Then TikTok would be banned because it does not (/could not) follow the law.

Because China doesn't ban US internet platforms, US internet platforms choose not to comply to PRC laws, which domestic PRC companies has to abide. Facebook/Twitter left because they couldn't/wouldn't censor calls of revenge killings during 2009 minority riots in PRC. It wasn't until NZ shooting and FB role in Rohigya genocide years later that political culture changed globally/domestically in US enough for FB to up the moderation game, around the time they wanted to re-enter PRC market. Except their employees protested and killed the initiative.

Flip side is Bytedance/TikTok bending backwards to follow US laws, because Douyin is used to dealing with PRC regulatory bullshit, meanwhile their employees just want to make money instead of undermine company expansion plans with geopolitical culture wars. Like it's not hard, follow the law in the country you operate in and be competitive. TBH that really leaves some Google services, a lot of western platforms simply can't hack it against PRC competitors for domestic PRC market.

And when US companies attempt to obey Chinese law and are banned anyway? Nice to know that Apple was given "equal legal consideration" in China in 2016 when its iBooks store and iTunes movie store were suddenly ordered shut after six months of operation. Oh, wait. . . they weren't given any legal recourse at all and the Obama administration did nothing about it while Silicon Valley grandees kept conspicuously silent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...

And? Laws change... PRC updates law to ban foreign publishers, ergo ibooks/itunes got killed. US also has national security negative lists that they use to kill China Telecom in US.. who followed US laws until it got updated. But Apple rolled with the punches are still doing great in PRC. If US laws wants to mandate TikTok to remove some service segement, Bytedance will also comply. Like they're doing with Oracle data siloing under CIFIUS. TikTok is rolling with the punches like Apple did in PRC because you know... they understand following local laws is business 101.

>But Apple rolled with the punches are still doing great in PRC.<

But not allowed to sell books or films, apparently too corrupting of the delicate moral sensibilities of the Chinese people.

You make a good point about how laws might and should change. A return to the wisdom of the Ming period trade with Japan seems in order: a strict tally-trade quota system, based on transparent reciprocity.

One university student for one university student. One streaming service for one streaming service. One telecom for one telecom. One chip for one chip. Disruptive at first, perhaps, but eventually both fair and salutary.

The days of casual forbearance of 骗老外 attitudes belong to a halcyon past for China.

> too corrupting

Why sponsor foreign propaganda? No surprise foreign NGO crackdown, dismantling of CIA network, exposing how many CCP bureaucrats were being bribed by US intelligence around this time.

> strict tally-trade

Is this going to be a "fair and salutary" arrangement where PRC high tech exports don't get sanctioned on geopolitical whims and US networks has their portion of huawei gear, roads their portion of Chinese cars, US tech stack has their portion of Chinese IP. If so, sign PRC up. I imagine limiting outbound students alone is good for PRC brain drain.

> If so, sign PRC up

Glad we agree. The reciprocity should also include internet packets bit for bit and farm land ownership, acre for acre.

This is an intelligent and informed response.

Bytedance/TikTok are ignoring US law, as we saw in the news last week.

>ignoring US law,

They didn't. The entire Project Texas / Oracle / CFIUS agreement is in process of implementation. The drama is over China-based staff accessing data while working on Project Texas (to silo US data/traffic), even though Chinese nationals were not on the United States Technical Services team. The ultimate concern is China-based staff will have access to protected US data/traffic after and the effectiveness of implementation. No laws were broken, but doubt whether Bytedance efforts would effectively prevent access. No laws were broken.

You either operating on an open market, or in the government-controlled market.

Is there a reason why you want to model yourself after China?