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US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

asia.nikkei.com

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

#531

Post by donw »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #529
donw wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US lost that near-monopoly years ago. Broadly speaking, I think we're witnessing the birth of three distinct global powers. One is centered on the US, and consists (broadly) of Canada, Mexico, the rest of Latin America, the Commonwealth nations, Japan, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan. An American civil war would destabilize this to a large degree, so we'll have to see if that plays out. Edit, since people seem confused…

where's India in all that?

Part of the Commonwealth, no?

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

#532

Post by engineeringwoke »

Lambdanaut wrote: post #443
hintymad wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

"Just" reciprocity? "Just" an eye for an eye? And when the other guy takes out our spleen, we should take out his too? And his muscles? His brain? And heart? Until we are both nothing but dust. Yes, let's reciprocate. Let us take until we are shit in the wind.

How well did appeasement work in World War II?

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

#533

Post by engineeringwoke »

tobias3 wrote: post #433
ejanus wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if Chinese social media firms are freely operating in the USA why can't the likes of FB and Twitter be allowed same free access in their market. Let's not see this as harming anybody but this is one of the ways to force China to open up and allow foreign businesses(social media) to spread in their domain. Imagine being forced to open a WeChat account just to chat with someone in China. If this kind of business mo…

China does it, so it is okay for us to do it is just a very weak defense of this behaviour for us looking at this from outside of China and the US. The US stood for free markets, democracy and human rights and (at least) pretended to make international decisions based on those values. Now the fig leaf is gone and it is clear that those are mostly used to make transactions to US benefit even if it comes at the cost to…

This is how realpolitik works.

The U.S. was unique for a long time in that they did not ask for much in return for what they did, because they wanted the power (troop deployments in Europe, Hong Kong customs status, etc.).

Recently, Canada used tit-for-tat to deal with U.S. aluminum tariffs, but they're the "nice" country. This is how it all works.

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

#534

Post by ravenstine »

stale2002 wrote: post #437
learnstats2 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels unequal after this was called censorship and anti-democratic, being used as a basis for propaganda against China, for years?

Thats not unequal. They did it to us, so we are doing it to them. This is how trade relations have worked since forever. It is not complicated. If another country engages in negative trade actions to us, it seems reasonable to do similar trade sanctions against them, so that we are treating them similarly to how they are treating us. This is the basis of most international trade agreements and relations. If a country…

> This is uncontroversial to anyone who knows anything about international relations.

You'll find even most intellectual types don't have a first clue about how the global chess board works. Or, if they have some inkling, they're too busy entertaining some idealism to be in the stage of acceptance.

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

#535

Post by LoSboccacc »

donw wrote: post #531
LoSboccacc wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where's India in all that?

Part of the Commonwealth, no?

yeah but with its own problems and a location that would make it think more carefully about escalating antagonizing China to military intervention

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

#536

Post by orbifold »

ulfw wrote: post #491
orbifold wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German, French and Russian alliance is probably the winning move and was thwarted more than once by Anglo-Saxon intervention. Right now the US actively tries to sabotage the Nordstream 2 completion ( https://www.dw.com/de/ist-nord-stream-2-noch-zu-retten/a-538... ), which would make Germany energy independent from US controlled Gas.

Germany hasn‘t needed US gas in a long time. There‘s plenty of LNG from Qatar and other nations on the market plus the existing pipelines for Russian gas through Ukraine etc. Only the US wants Germany to buy American gas because $$$

Qatar is a US protectorate, just as it was a British before (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Udeid_Air_Base). The British still maintain planes there. They have no independent means of survival. Most of the oil and gas is either in the US / British sphere of influence. The few exceptions (Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Lybia, Syria, Venezuela), Transit countries like Georgia, Ukraine. All were messed with in subtle and not so subtle ways

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

#537

Post by JulianMorrison »

MattGaiser wrote: post #416
learnstats2 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels unequal after this was called censorship and anti-democratic, being used as a basis for propaganda against China, for years?

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.

It's pretty ridiculous to claim that "you can exist, but not do business" is anything other than a ban. What are they supposed to do, panhandle?

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

#538

Post by yorwba »

hintymad wrote: post #381
tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

It's only reciprocity if you divide the world into two tribes, the "China tribe" and the "US tribe". Someone from the "China tribe" did something bad to the "US tribe", so now we're going to grab a random member of the "China tribe" and punish them for it, even if they're not the one responsible. I used to think the Western world had abandoned that kind of collective punishment, but apparently not.

It ceases to be reciprocal if you distinguish groups at an only slightly higher resolution: Chinese businesses like TikTok and WeChat and American businesses like Google and Facebook in addition to the Chinese and American governments. The Chinese government demanded that all businesses censor content, but Google and Facebook had most of their users outside China, so they could choose not to comply and still survive. Whereas TikTok and WeChat didn't have that luxury and censor their Chinese users (TikTok by offering Douyin as a separate product and making TikTok unavailable in China, WeChat by censoring messages in conversations with at least one Chinese participant). So far, both Chinese and American businesses were bullied by the Chinese government. Now the US government decided to "reciprocate" and ... decides to bully businesses as well, but only Chinese ones. Great justice.

If TikTok or WeChat have done anything wrong they deserve to be punished for, then sue them, or, if it's not illegal, make a new law that requires them to stop doing whatever it is. That law should then also apply to Google and Facebook, just in case they might be tempted to try the same thing.

But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me. Maybe I'm just biased by living in a parliamentary democracy where the voting system aims for proportional representation.

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

#539

Post by _lsq »

learnstats2 wrote: post #399
hintymad wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just reciprocity? China banned a long list of media companies: FB, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and every traditional media. Now the US is banning two apps made in China.

It feels unequal after this was called censorship and anti-democratic, being used as a basis for propaganda against China, for years?

No it's not.

The Chinese government sets their (extremely authoritarian) rules on censorship for companies to legally operate in China but the rules apply to everyone equally.

Chinese companies of course have to comply, but foreign companies have the choice to comply or not. Google chose to comply initially but decided to pull out later on. Microsoft/Apple choose to comply and are still operating in significant ways in China.

In contrast, US is proposing to ban TikTok, Huawei, DJI without clear rules: the reason to ban these companies is that they are Chinese companies. In other words, Chinese companies are "born a crime" to the US in the current climate, without the need to show what rules are violated or evidence of wrongdoing.

China also doesn't have the monopolistic power in tech that the US does: forbidding Google to operate in China it's not the same as forcing app stores to de-list certain apps globally.

It's even more absurd to force ByteDance to sell their US business to a US company. If the US feels justified that this could be done on "national security" ground, why shouldn't EU do the same to US tech companies?

I do hope that US citizens see that for much of the world, US is no longer the champion of free market, promoter of free-speech or guardian of world-order. All that matters is if these values benefit US economically or politically.

The US lost it when Japan was economically sanctioned for its competitive auto/electronic sector in 1980s. China is taking the same heat today and India would be the next target if India were to want to play its role on the international stage. The best outcome for the world would be to have multiple strong economies globally that keep each other in check; rather than one country having monopolistic power over all globally significant online forums.

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

#540

Post by donw »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #480
donw wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US lost that near-monopoly years ago. Broadly speaking, I think we're witnessing the birth of three distinct global powers. One is centered on the US, and consists (broadly) of Canada, Mexico, the rest of Latin America, the Commonwealth nations, Japan, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan. An American civil war would destabilize this to a large degree, so we'll have to see if that plays out. Edit, since people seem confused…

You've completely forgotten India, which is really the one power that can credibly stand up to China on its own.

Part of the Commonwealth, no?
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