> As long as western companies can’t do unrestricted business in China, neither should Chinese companies be able here.

Well, they can't and they don't. They have to follow the local laws.

True, but it’s not like there is any parity between the laws. China now is not the China of twenty years ago.

There. Is. No. such. Thing. As. Local. Law.

There is a fine mist of ilusion of rule of law. But the party is outside of it. And the truth is, the laws is more similar to the law of network connections within the family graph of a mafia clan.

Its basically just used as a body wrapping foil, once the graph has decided to finnish of some node. Stop projecting western values upon a completely different scenario, just because its apt at mimicrcy.

What do you mean by “there is no such thing as local law”?

You mean in the context of China specifically or in general?

In the context of china. And its reflected in the sallaries. Its a decorative position of a society pretending to be ruled by law. But in the end its not. So why pay them as good as they do in the west.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-lawyer-in-Chin...

Who are you quoting here when you link to that Quora question, and what does pay have to do with anything?

I'm as lost as you. How did we land on a quora question about Lawyers salaries in China in a discussion about following laws. Go figure.

A lawyer in the west is basically a guidance councelor for CEOs or politicians, determinating how much and how they can move within the system to a position. It is paid accordingly, if work occurs in this capacity. The rule of law is detectable by the price that can be extracted for providing the service to move within the framework and not violating it, aka incur punishment.

If that pay is low, then there is no punishment for violations, or the punishment depends on different criteria entirely. Which could be formulated as a lack of rule of law. There might be invisible rules, ceremonys, within the party, but they are not enforceable, except by higher layers in court. And they are also not part of the discussion scope.

Honestly this is my main problem with TikTok. I know Meta and Google spy just as much as TikTok. However it is problematic that Chinese app companies have full access to Western markets while the reverse is severely limited.

I'm not sure why this point isn't rammed home at every opportunity. Reciprocity is a cornerstone of many trade agreements and tariffs/protectionism are a common answer to foreign government favoritism of domestic companies (e.g. CCP protecting its own).

No one should be able to do unregulated business anywhere. Trading with China is good but they shouldn't be able to influence our culture to conform to the whims of their government at all

Good luck buying any* kind of products when China is out of the picture.