Live data from Hacker News

TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

reuters.com

471–480 of 723 posts

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#471
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes I misread it. Public opinion in China is going to be almost always anti-US. That's just regular propaganda for decades. It's not safe to have differing view in China regarding nationalism. Not sure why this is news though.

because contrary to what you believe, many Chinese looked up to aspects of the US.

Don't anymore since Huawei and COVID-19, it has always been a minority and got smaller.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#472

As someone from the third world this leaves a very bad feeling if it happens. I do expect it runs into legal hurdles before that. Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws. Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible. The President shouldn't have authorit…

> Ultimately I feel that it is US who has been more to blame (contrary to much of Western media coverage) for the deteriorating US-China relationship, and drumming up the chorus for a new coldwar. Chinese policy seems to have not significantly changed in the last 5 years towards the US, but on the other hand US seemed ever more keen and eger to pursue a hostile attitude towards China. In what universe? The Chinese gl…

> Not to mention they have literal concentration camps where they are harvesting organs, hair, using them as slave labor and stealing their possessions.

If you dig into this deeper, this is literally fake news. The sources for these claims are either the World Uighur Congress, a NED funded organization, or Adrian Zenz, a Christian fundamentalist who believes in the rapture, is Anti-LGBT, and praised the Nazis.

If you are so inclined, you can actually visit Xinjiang yourself and ask Uighurs there about the situation. China has been actively been encouraging foreign inspectors to visit Xinjiang to see the situation.

Given that America was wrong (or blatantly lied) about WMDs, Iraqis stealing incubators, Iraqis murdering babies in Kuwait, and is a geopolitical rival to China, Im doubtful about some of these claims.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#473
post #61

I'd like to see any YC users come by and claim the US has a "free market" at this point.

No-one argues that the US has an unregulated free market and no-one respectable argues that it should. Keeping spyware-collected data of private citizens out of the hands of antagonistic authoritarian regimes seems like an appropriate use of regulation, no? Hard to argue its less appropriate than trust-busting or consumer protection regulations.

> No-one argues that the US has an unregulated free market and no-one respectable argues that it should.

No, but plenty of people vacuously and consistently argue that regulations should be eliminated because "free-market". And have no issue with most companies eliminating competition through any means other than producing a better product.

Taking an example people agree with. Apple should open up it's phone platform to other stores. If they're concerned about security, they can still be the final arbiters of what apps can ship. Ie they approve apps for all stores. However, each store can have it's own experience and crucially it's own cut of apps sold. Let's see how many consumers feel there is enough value in apple store to pay a 30% premium on apps they buy. More rent seeking.

But that's one of the few cases HN actually agrees with. the 1000s of others out there, people don't blink an eye.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#474

As someone from the third world this leaves a very bad feeling if it happens. I do expect it runs into legal hurdles before that. Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws. Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible. The President shouldn't have authorit…

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's actions are actually legal under 1. WTO rules which allow developing nations to have some sort of protectionism to foster their own industries, and 2. Their own laws, which companies can choose to abide by.

Google and Facebook were never wholesale banned by China. You can see this with the fact that Google tried to re-enter China with project Dragonfly (a China-law compliant search engine), until it internally became politically unfeasible. Note that Microsoft operates Bing in China, and Yahoo as well.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#475
post #469
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should US policy makers care what Chinese public opinion is?

Don't have to, but unless the policy is seperate the people and the party and win over the people. https://www.state.gov/communist-china-and-the-free-worlds-fu... >He was a brilliant student of China, a fierce cold warrior, and a tremendous admirer of the Chinese people, just as I think we all are. >We must also engage and empower the Chinese people – a dynamic, freedom-loving people who are completely distinct from…

To put it bluntly, MikePompeo is an idiot and that's never going to work.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#476
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because we believe in the free market and they believe in a controlled market? We pay lip service to the free market, but in practice we believe in controlled, privately owned markets and China believes in controlled, state owned markets.

Just randomly thinking out loud: Is it possible to stop privately owned markets without the state having more control? I suppose the concern is with large private corporations, as opposed to smaller to medium sized businesses. I think that's what a lot of Democrats want to do, but I often associate them with bigger government. I know very little about politics though.

Of course it is. Private property in general is only possible because of enforcement by the state. Relaxing IP laws and other measures that limit the power of the state to enforce negative liberty would fit the bill.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#477

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's actions are actually legal under 1. WTO rules which allow developing nations to have some sort of protectionism to foster their own industries, and 2. Their own laws, which companies can choose to abide by. Google and Facebook were never wholesale banned by China. You can see this with the fact that Google tried to re-enter China with project Dragonfly (a China-law compliant search engine), until it internall…

Google trying to re enter China has no bearing on whether or not they were banned or are banned.

And actually, I was living in China when Facebook stopped working, and I was living in China when google.com stopped working, and when google.cn stopped working. And you are right, they were never officially banned, China would never admit to that, they just used the GFW to make them stop working and commenced a lot of work to make VPNs troublesome to use as well.

Yes, Microsoft operates Bing. But you can’t access gmail through it.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#478
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is apples and oranges. You listed hard good sales - imports (even if actually manufactured in China in the case of Apple). 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 anoth…

> IIRC, Foreign companies need to have majority-owner Chinese partner entities to "own" business operations in China. You recall incorrectly. You're describing the situation about 30 years ago, in the early stages of China's opening up. In the intervening time, restrictions have been dropped from most sectors (including the automotive sector - Tesla's Shanghai factory is a demonstration of this). The Chinese market i…

Tesla's factory was the very first foreign-owned car plant, without a domestic partner. This certainly has not been the norm in China in the past 30 years:

https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2154674/tesl...

China may be open to goods (ignoring the capricious enforcement of customs laws). But even politically benign services (banking, finance, insurance) cannot easily be "exported" to China. It's obviously protectionism.

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/797098404/u-s-financial-servi...

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#479
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they didn't, both Facebook and Google decided to quit themselves. Remember Dragonfly? Google just tried to get back into China THIS YEAR and was blocked by the US government. It's the US that's closing access to China not the other way around.

> Remember Dragonfly? Google just tried to get back into China THIS YEAR and was blocked by the US government. Could you substantiate this claim? Regarding China and Dragonfly, I only remember there being employee and governmental criticism, but no outright ban from doing business in China: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/27/google-...

Oh please like we need a formal ban to shut things down, it's like America not banning tiktok right?

There were hearings and calls by US politicians to stop Dragonfly, after which it was stopped.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#480
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I am from a mediocre country and had always admired how Americans defended freedom (specially freedom of speech and right to bear arms). But now they seem not to care anymore. Just throw all our freedoms out the window because China is spying on us. Even in this forum, the general sentiment is that it should just be banned.

[flagged]

[flagged]
Post reply on HN