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

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

#601

Post by glaive123 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

publicola1990 wrote: post #598

albacur wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-owned companies must follow U.S. laws, which are subject to due process. Additionally, they must not pose an imminent threat to national security. For better or worse, the government tends to be tight-lipped about matters of national security and isn't compelle…

That additional specious condition on threat to national security is what is problematic. 1. Expert opinion seems to be that the perceived threats indicated in the case of TikTok are vague and over hyped, and there is no concrete evidence produced. 2.Federal Government may not have sufficient authority to promulgate such a ban, even on grounds of national security. May be possible to squeeze out the cash flow of the…

Your point #1 is absolutely false. Please provide evidence of this. There is bountiful public evidence of national security risk. And there is likely MUCH more non-public evidence.

It's a good thing HN identified new accounts with green text, because it makes it a little more transparent when someone is creating an account just to spread misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread is full of 50-cent army commenters. I hope @dang is actively monitoring this.

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

#602

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #478

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 obviousl…

China has been sequentially reducing JV restrictions on different sectors. The last restrictions on car manufacturing have been phased out over the last three years. As I said, Tesla is an example of this.

It's silly to complain that the American market was open to Chinese investment, while the Chinese market used to have JV requirements. China had no capital to invest. Investment flowed entirely in one direction. It didn't matter to China that the US was theoretically open for direct investment. US companies made huge profits by investing in China, but not vice versa. Around 2014-15, Chinese investment abroad began to pick up, but the Trump administration has essentially closed the US market to Chinese investment, and Chinese FDI in the US has gone basically to zero.

Complaining about how the poor old US is getting exploited by China - with its former JV requirements - is completely out of touch with reality. American companies made enormous profits off of investment in China.

As China has developed, it has removed JV restrictions from most sectors of the economy. Whether some level of protectionism is good for developing economies is a debated topic, but the WTO allows greater leeway to developing countries. Developed countries would obviously benefit more if every developing country removed all conditions on foreign investment, but developing countries would probably suffer.

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

#603

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:23 AM UTC

glaive123 wrote: post #601

publicola1990 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That additional specious condition on threat to national security is what is problematic. 1. Expert opinion seems to be that the perceived threats indicated in the case of TikTok are vague and over hyped, and there is no concrete evidence produced. 2.Federal Government may not have sufficient authority to promulgate such a ban, even on grounds of national security. May be possible to squeeze out the cash flow of the…

Your point #1 is absolutely false. Please provide evidence of this. There is bountiful public evidence of national security risk. And there is likely MUCH more non-public evidence. It's a good thing HN identified new accounts with green text, because it makes it a little more transparent when someone is creating an account just to spread misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread is full of 50-cent army c…

[deleted]

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

#604

Post by publicola1990 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:24 AM UTC

glaive123 wrote: post #601

publicola1990 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That additional specious condition on threat to national security is what is problematic. 1. Expert opinion seems to be that the perceived threats indicated in the case of TikTok are vague and over hyped, and there is no concrete evidence produced. 2.Federal Government may not have sufficient authority to promulgate such a ban, even on grounds of national security. May be possible to squeeze out the cash flow of the…

Your point #1 is absolutely false. Please provide evidence of this. There is bountiful public evidence of national security risk. And there is likely MUCH more non-public evidence. It's a good thing HN identified new accounts with green text, because it makes it a little more transparent when someone is creating an account just to spread misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread is full of 50-cent army c…

The fact is that Apple/Google hasn't found them in serious infringement of anything.

The article from CNN seems to echo the view in point 1:

"Although leaders like Pompeo have described TikTok as a clear and present danger, many in the cybersecurity community say the reality is more complex. While TikTok could become a clear threat to US security under certain scenarios, they say, the danger is currently largely hypothetical.."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/tech/tiktok-security-threat/i...

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

#605

Post by benchen70 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:35 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #558

elSidCampeador wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can be tough on China without becoming China. Sovereign nations have always reserved the right to decide what is allowed on their shores. That they disallow an entity from operating on their shores does not mean that they have "become China".

You are conflating rule of law and sovereignty.

China can do whatever it wants, US can do whatever it wants. Whatever a country wants to do has nothing to do with how it governed, law or not. Law is a set of communally mutually agreed upon rules, so a society can function. However, the key is the word "communal", as in - which community is agreeing upon this law. China can complain that the new laws in the US is illegitimate, but the laws are made by Americans for Americans. Of course the law is not going to extend outside US, for example, they do not dictate what some Canadian company operating in Canada can do. But, in the US, these laws are there for Americans, for American soil, under the territory that the US government formally rules over. Of course, the US makes these rules, because it is its sovereign right to do so. China has no authority over how or why this law is made. Just like the US has no authority to say how Chinese government creates laws.

But then again, China likes to say “Do not interfere in our internal matters”; the US can say the same thing.

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

#606

Post by benchen70 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:38 AM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #304

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #277

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.

Really this move seems nothing related at all to US companies not having sufficient access to China. If then why this 10 year gap from action to reaction. Many here seems to take this particular view of this move being a retaliation of some sort, but I feel that is a naive view of what US is doing here and how it will be perceived around the world. Put in specific data protection/privacy laws and regulations applicab…

China can do whatever it wants, US can do whatever it wants. Whatever a country wants to do has nothing to do with how it governed, law or not. Law is a set of communally mutually agreed upon rules, so a society can function. However, the key is the word "communal", as in - which community is agreeing upon this law. China can complain that the new laws in the US is illegitimate, but the laws are made by Americans for Americans. Of course the law is not going to extend outside US, for example, they do not dictate what some Canadian company operating in Canada can do. But, in the US, these laws are there for Americans, for American soil, under the territory that the US government formally rules over. Of course, the US makes these rules, because it is its sovereign right to do so. China has no authority over how or why this law is made. Just like the US has no authority to say how Chinese government creates laws.

But then again, China likes to say “Do not interfere in our internal matters”; the US can say the same thing.

I am not American by the way, so have no beef in this.

So hey, I am all popcorns on this at the moment. The next few years are going to be interesting.

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

#607

Post by 0xy » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:46 AM UTC

horsemessiah wrote: post #413

nouveaux wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people need to wake up to the security threat. This is not about us vs them. No apps from Australia, Europe or Africa are on the list of banned apps. Its China where in order to do business there, you have to give the government access to your trade secrets and full server access without a warrant. While its possible for any company to succumb to government pressure for unreasonable access, it is a prerequisite to…

The solution would be to pass a law akin to the GDPR then. There is no need to go through executive action. The U.S. is not supposed to be authoritarian like China is.

GDPR wouldn't block Tik Tok's data extraction practices, nor is it effective legislation at all.

GDPR is simply EU tech protectionism, nothing more. All it gave consumers was infuriating cookie nag screens.

GDPR utterly failed to prevent data brokers from operating with impunity in Germany and other EU nations. Your cell phone location data is still openly sold when you live in the EU. It's useless.

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

#608

Post by c3534l » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:48 AM UTC

albacur wrote: post #388

billfruit wrote: post #195

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…

> 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. For decades, China has blocked U.S. companies from fair competition, reneged on trade deals when it suits them, backed out of industrial partnerships after extracting the IP it deems useful, and generally been a bad trade partn…

I'm sorry, but "we're merely acting as bad as the Chinese government here" does not seem like a very convincing argument.

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

#609

Post by 0xy » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 7:48 AM UTC

dasimon wrote: post #44

dannyr wrote: post #25

So how will this work? Will there be 2 apps? Tiktok US and Tiktok for the rest of the world?

The split would likely be Douyin (TikTok China) vs. TikTok for the rest of the world. The business is already structured that way- ByteDance operates Douyin directly but TikTok operates through a subsidiary.

The subsidiary is for legal purposes only, all of the tech is built and operated from China and is subject to Chinese laws.

In fact, even after divestiture this will be the case for some time. The Chinese entity holds the IP to the algorithms and other underlying technology that make Tik Tok as viral as it is.

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

#610

Post by Karishma1234 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 8:18 AM UTC

albacur wrote: post #388

billfruit wrote: post #195

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…

> 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. For decades, China has blocked U.S. companies from fair competition, reneged on trade deals when it suits them, backed out of industrial partnerships after extracting the IP it deems useful, and generally been a bad trade partn…

> For decades, China has blocked U.S. companies from fair competition, reneged on trade deals when it suits them, backed out of industrial partnerships after extracting the IP it deems useful, and generally been a bad trade partner.

I am not passing any value judgement here but USA has done exact same things to other countries from time to time when it suited them. I am not saying USA should not react to China's hostilities but USA must acknowledge that its traditional approach of arm twisting does not work anymore with China.

There are several trade-offs USA needs to consider while banning Tiktok. The major one being of precedent and slippery slope. USA needs to either demonstrate some evidence of harm from Tiktok and ban it on national security grounds or be explicit that this is purely to hurt China and Tiktok is being targeted because it is a successful Chinese company.