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

reuters.com

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

#611

Post by albacur »

jewelry wrote: post #580
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…

Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. If it's national security, let out the cat. Otherwise how could people believe if this won't happen to SAP, Volkswagon, Sony next time.

It's not clear that he actually has this power. He's known to misstate things.

Also, according to the Supreme Court, SAP, Volkswagen, and Sony are entitled to due process under our Constitution. Courts make a distinction between (1) public or privately-owned enterprises, (2) state-owned enterprises that function independently of the state, and (3) state-owned enterprises that function as the alter ego of the foreign state.

Companies in the first two categories are entitled to due process under the U.S. Constitution. When it comes to China, there is a blurry line between companies and the CCP, so it's not clear where they fall here.

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

#612

Post by albacur »

innagadadavida wrote: post #591
jewelry wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. If it's national security, let out the cat. Otherwise how could people believe if this won't happen to SAP, Volkswagon, Sony next time.

There really is no guarantee these things won’t happen to those companies - just like how there is no guarantee that CCP won’t have HKers or Uighurs or Tibet. You just have to be mindful of the authority of nations and hope you don’t get unlucky. This one of the better/saner things this administration has done, if anything, these should have been accelerated to avoid another USSR style Cold War with China.

There actually is a guarantee by the Supreme Court that SAP, Volkswagen, and Sony are entitled to due process, because they are independent entities that don't operate as extensions of a foreign government.

The same is might be true of ByteDance as well. It's not actually clear that Trump has the authority to ban TikTok. It could just be more bluster.

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

#613

Post by Thorrez »

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…

> but it's absurd to suggest that the U.S. should blindly accept hostile behavior for decades on end without reacting, or else itself be labeled "hostile."

That's not absurd at all. Just because your enemy behaves badly doesn't make it acceptable for you to behave badly.

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

#614

Post by tannedNerd »

publicola1990 wrote: post #604
glaive123 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hypo…

The lack of response on being called a troll is pretty deafening. I think it is easy to see this account is a byte-dance or ccp paid troll.

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

#615

Post by [deleted] »

vertis wrote: post #594
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…

The US is not really better for those of us that are not US citizens though. Yes, in theory, US stands for freedom and democracy, but any protections are protections for US citizens, not for Australian or EU citizens. So from a purely rights and spying perspective having the app be a US app vs a China app makes little difference to me (not that I'm young enough to be a TikTok user anyway). As soon as you add 'nationa…

[deleted]

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

#616

Post by albacur »

billfruit wrote: post #534
albacur wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Not just broader support among elected officials, but it needs to be in line with the constitution too. Even with full on bi-partisan majority and popular support, unconstitutional measures cannot be executed by the Federal Government.

The Constitution applies to independent foreign enterprises and state-owned enterprises that aren't under direct control of the state.

The Constitution does not apply if a foreign government "exerts sufficient control over [the enterprise] to make it an agent of the State." I don't know if it can be argued that ByteDance falls in this category, but there have been many allegations that the company works closely with the CCP to provide surveillance and disseminate propaganda on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

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

#617

Post by starfallg »

jariel wrote: post #165
aey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pivot to the pacific was an Obama initiative that was loooong in the making. It doesn’t matter who drives the train, the tracks are already laid.

It matters hugely. Obama's pivot was based on TTP, and generally avoiding direct confrontation with China. Trump's agenda is completely different - ignoring partnership/bilateral approach, and fairly assertively acting against China. But those were also strategies founded in different eras: the TTP was create back when China was still not quite powerful enough to be a dangerous world actor. Now it's more of a 'stando…

The TTP is in fact direct confrontation, just not overt.

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

#618

Post by tom-_- »

tannedNerd wrote: post #614
publicola1990 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hypo…

The lack of response on being called a troll is pretty deafening. I think it is easy to see this account is a byte-dance or ccp paid troll.

So by this reasoning, if commenter responded with a emphatic "Am not!", that would somehow validate he's not a CCP agent?

His response was a link to support a contentious claim which is that the security threat is overstated. That's a reasonable position.

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

#619

Post by albacur »

Thorrez wrote: post #613
albacur wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> but it's absurd to suggest that the U.S. should blindly accept hostile behavior for decades on end without reacting, or else itself be labeled "hostile." That's not absurd at all. Just because your enemy behaves badly doesn't make it acceptable for you to behave badly.

It makes it acceptable to defend yourself. If you want claim the president shouldn't have sole authority to ban foreign companies or products, that's fair. And I don't know that he actually has that power, it could all be bluster. I mean, he also said he would make Mexico pay for a border wall.

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

#620

Post by tom-_- »

schuke wrote: post #597
fermienrico wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm...there is nothing remarkable about this. CCP wants their citizens to use a vetted service, that’s in full control and has surveillance capabilities. They already ban YouTube, Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. amongst many other sites. Tiktok has a local version for Chinese users I believe and Tiktok wants to make sure Chinese users do not sign up for international version of Tiktok app. Tiktok is owned by ByteDa…

They used to do this within Chinese jurisdiction. Now they're doing it on United State soil.

FB, Google etc are also blocked when using a Chinese telecom's SIM card on "US soil" so what is the difference here?
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