Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that it justifies our behavior, but I can’t help but cringe a bit when considering how China locks American companies out of its market but expects better access for Chinese companies in the American market. America-Chinese relations started going downhill in 2009 when China thought it prudent to start blocking most Americans services, America just took a decade to follow up with similar bad behavior.
> China locks American companies out of its market This is something that is often claimed, but it doesn't reflect reality. China does not generally lock American companies out of its market. In fact, American companies have a far greater presence in the Chinese market than vice versa. For example, take a look at the 2017 China sales figures for a few American companies: [1] * Apple: $44.7 billion * Intel: $14.8 bill…
IIRC, Foreign companies need to have majority-owner Chinese partner entities to "own" business operations in China. So a non-Chinese car company that wants to have ownership over it's Chinese assembly line operations and sales in China needs to partner with a Chinese company (typically another automaker) that actually owns >50% of the joint subsidiary that actually makes and or sells the cars. The alternative is Apple, which owns no manufacturing and had everything produced on contract from independent manufacturers. And again, none of this involves user data. Also, both the play store and Apple iOS store's content are at the mercy of the CCP gatekeepers, so even if a person in China can buy an apple product, they experience a different app ecosystem.
I don't think there's a non-Chinese-owned company that has access to and stores user data streams, like a foreign-owned weibo or something, but I'd be curious if someone had an example.