Nobody is calling for blanket bans of foreign apps. This is a straw man argument.
What about that is that the US congress allocated $500 m for anti-China propaganda in its last budget and all the free, knowledgeable Americans who are littering this thread with their McCarthyist Cold War comments are just taken in with the 'latest thing' from their government propaganda.
Nothing more different than how Saddam was the 'greatest threat to civilization' in 2003, or Gaddafi was in 2011 etc etc.
And the 'civilization' they are stanning for is the one that kills its people if they cant pay for healthcare. Without even touching how poor are starting to choose euthanasia in Canada instead of being homeless.
...
I see this as a way in which Angloamerican denizens direct their frustrations to external 'enemies' by taking their attention away from the problems at home, which they are powerless to fix. They vilify and demean chosen 'enemies', and direct all the criticism that should happen at home towards those enemies. This avoids both alienation from their own society and the pressure to address the problems at home.
Long story short, they just avoid cognitive dissonance.
This reminded me of the two-party system...
Yes, well spotted - the two party system definitely employs the same mechanic: all the evils are projected out to the 'enemy', and all the wrongs in their own group are ignored. This provides group cohesion and allows them to avoid cognitive dissonance and taking responsibility for the results of their own choices.
If there were more than two viable parties, or, god forbid 3-4 viable parties like in many European countries, this would be near impossible to make work. You cant vilify 2-3 other groups as the 'ultimate' evil at the same time...
My point is that the rules should target what it does rather than simply "China=Bad", since that offers a way back into compliance with the rules. However unlikely that actually is.