Jack Ma is a good case study, one of the most influential and successful businesspeople in china, and he was summarily thrown in jail for merely discussing ideas the CCP didn't like. There was no legal process, he just dropped off the grid completely, and then some time later the chinese government made ominous statements about how he was "embracing supervision."
No, it isn't. The idea of private companies existing to make money is exactly the same in China as everywhere else. Companies talk about serving the public good (as they do in the US as well), but they really just care about the bottom line.
> he was summarily thrown in jail for merely discussing ideas the CCP didn't like
He wasn't thrown in jail. He was pressured to stop directly criticizing the government, after he publicly criticized China's financial regulators.
Right now, TikTok faces much greater political pressures from the US government than it does from the Chinese government. It's a private company trying to make money, and trying to avoid scrutiny from both the Chinese and the US governments.
No, not everyone in China is a state bot. However, every company has to keep at least a few party members on their board and obey state controls constantly.
Couldn't the same be said of companies here in the US? We know the government is collecting data from US corporations. Should other countries be blocking Google, Facebook and Microsoft?
Companies do cooperate with the government, but for the most part that cooperation is either voluntary, or clearly defined by law which mandates cooperation.
There is still some reason for concern, but there is much less reason for concern.
That's why the sudden concern about TikTok theoretically being a problem comes across as an excuse for going after yet another Chinese company, as a way to pressure China and hamper its development.
Contrary to the current American discourse, not everyone in China is a government bot.