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US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

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Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#501
post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is banned, you follow domestic censorship laws you get to play. Every domestic companies has to, it's onerous, and level playing fields. FB, Google still sell billions in ads to China, they were engineering compliant services to return. Legal reciprocity is China following US laws, which it does. Functional reciprocity is forcing Chinese companies to enter JV and tech transfer - while providing Chinese compan…

The question isn't if you can participate but if you should participate which is arguably directly or indirectly supporting and/or benefiting from an economy run by the CCP who also have been accused by the United Nations of genocide at their concentration camps for million+ Uighurs.

> accused by the United Nations of genocide at their concentration camps for million+ Uighurs.

UN did not claim this. Adrian Zenz who works for US interests claimed it meets UN definitions to justify XPCC sanctions despite knowing full well this was going on for past 5 years when policy started. Just like how this entire narrative was started by Zenz in a presentation at a US funded panel affiliated with UN, but not UN itself. The only real UN thermometer is US getting 23 countries to support XJ as a human rights issue, and China getting 56 countries to support it as re-education. UN will never rule this as cultural genocide (what it is) let alone genocide (what it isn't).

CCP also raised 1B out of poverty and is responsible for 30% of global growth, so really on balance a few million Uyghurs+Tibetians+HKers+ eventually Taiwan getting their human rights violated isn't convincing arithmetic for billions in the rest of the developing world who relies on Chinese growth, when magnitudes more are being screwed in Middle East for no tangible gain. CCP bad, but also good.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#502
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government frequently bans foreign products that have national security implications.

The ban of an app like TikTok is absolutely unprecedented and is very atypical. This isn't par-for-the-course behavior by the US government, and the outcome of this ban will set a precedent for other apps the US bans on "national security" grounds.

The most recent example was Grindr which was first sold to Chinese company and the government had to force them to sell it back because the app contained location info of potentially sensitive military personnel.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#503

I agree 100% with this. I mean, there are other developing economies with serious tech sectors like India which operate according to the rules based open market system we have in place. If the US doesn't take action against Chinese protectionism, why should other countries abide by the rules and give US access to their markets? The US provides China it's market even though China closes it down for everyone. I think U…

India has a lot of protectionism in place for their core industries as well.

Example is call centers. Foreign call centers, like in the Philippines, are not allowed to service any company that does has operations in India.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#504
post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those companies are free to operate in China if the comply with Chinese law. Which will never happen. The Chinese know that Western companies would never want to comply with the Chinese law because the law was purposefully designed in such a way as to benefit the totalitarian regime. So they were forced to quit China. This is nothing but an indirect ban. This is very common actually. For example: India imposed a 20…

Microsoft complies with those laws just fine. Bing, Windows, Office are all available there.

Are you sure about that? Microsoft is in big trouble in China too. This is the problem with a totalitarian state. Laws can be modified at will. You don't take the people into confidence. What is acceptable today may not be tomorrow. You are always on your toes. You may be favorable today dining with the highest authorities, tomorrow you will be on the streets. It is that merciless. US companies have literally been used and thrown out. That is a fact. But US realized the game too late. People started taking the Chinese threat seriously only when Trump raised the issue in his election campaigns. Microsoft, HP and Dell will probably be the final casualties in this ongoing battle between US and China.

An article from December 2019. When the pandemic was in its initial stages and China was keeping it all under wraps. China had already decided to dump US companies way back then. US is more reactionary just like India. China fooled the World.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/china-reportedly-orders-stat...

Quoting directly from the article:

China’s Communist Party has ordered all state offices to remove foreign hardware and software within three years, the Financial Times reported, in a move which could hit major U.S. firms including Microsoft, Dell and HP.

The policy has been dubbed “3-5-2” because the replacement of the technology will happen at a pace of 30% in 2020, 50% in 2021, and 20% in 2022, the newspaper said, citing a note from brokerage firm China Securities. Analysts there estimate that 20 million to 30 million pieces of foreign equipment need to be replaced in China.

...

“Discrimination against foreign technology has been a part of the policy framework in China for years now, but it’s something that USTR (United States Trade Representative) is already familiar with,” Marro told CNBC.

“This might nevertheless complicate the discussions around Huawei, ZTE and other companies in terms of their access to the U.S. market. Much of the popular narrative has centered around the U.S. unfairly banning these Chinese companies from its market; at least with this story, the administration can publicly play the blame game of, ‘well, China’s doing it too, and they’ve been doing it for a long time.’”

U.S. companies like Google and Facebook have been blocked from operating in China for several years.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#505
post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the ban will just be on the monetization. So they can keep TikTok and WeChat, but will not be able to profit from them.

Monetization is also the reason China banned every US Internet service.

Google is still selling ads in China, so monetization doesn't appear to be considered problematic.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#506

Some people here are wondering about the implications of this. What this means IMO is that all Chinese investments in SV need to be liquidated at fire sale prices in the next 45 days. Regardless of how people here feel about China this is a huge escalation. The US is inflicting huge losses on Chinese companies for no clear violation of US laws on their part. The pandoras box is now open. Do countries get to do this t…

Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ? China can force any company out of the country for any arbitrary reason whatsoever. As far as I know, they are still banning Houston Rockets games because Morey supported Hong Kong in a tweet.

> As far as I know, they are still banning Houston Rockets games because Morey supported Hong Kong in a tweet.

As far as I know, you trust media reports more than a random search on Chinese video sites.

https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4534875236007949

It's the Rockets vs Trail Blazers math on 4th Aug.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#507
post #231

Instagram Reels is launching at a "convenient" time.. . . ..

I do wonder if there's a deeper connection than Facebook simply having this feature ready to go and releasing it early. Was there cooperation of the sorts "you ban TikTok and we'll release Instagram Reels early to help distract upset users"?

Facebook has had a Tiktok competitor called Lasso for 2 years. It failed though. They are shutting that down and simply porting the features over to their existing Instagram app.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok-shut...

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#508
I realize that this is completely speculative correlation buuuut...

Part of me wonders if Trump was briefed on the Russian law going into effect last month :

Nov 2019 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50507849

> Russia has passed a law banning the sale of certain devices that are not pre-installed with Russian software.

>

> The law will come into force in July 2020 and cover smartphones, computers and smart televisions.

And is literally just aping Russian policy :

August 2020 - https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-...

> Clean Store: To remove untrusted applications from U.S. mobile app stores. PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate

> viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American’s most sensitive personal and business information must be

> protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP’s benefit.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#509

Some people here are wondering about the implications of this. What this means IMO is that all Chinese investments in SV need to be liquidated at fire sale prices in the next 45 days. Regardless of how people here feel about China this is a huge escalation. The US is inflicting huge losses on Chinese companies for no clear violation of US laws on their part. The pandoras box is now open. Do countries get to do this t…

> Do countries get to do this to each other whenever they feel like it now ? Can China force Tesla to sell its Chinese operations because Teslas data gathering poses a national security risk ? Yes? Are you unaware that China has been doing exactly this for many, many years? Just as two examples, AWS was forced by China to sell off its Chinese operations to a Chinese company because of arbitrary national security reas…

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Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#510
post #91

None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home, and until China agrees to compete on a fair playing field I'm perfectly fine with them all being banned outside of their firewall. Would China ever agree to let Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger etc. or any new startup operate freely and make money there? It shou…

> None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home

As others have mentioned, Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay grew the same time as mazon, Paypal and eBay was available in China. Also newegg had a much better headstart than jd.com but still failed.

At one time even Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger was a serious threat to Tencent QQ. Wordpress was much more popular than QZone.

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