Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

asia.nikkei.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

771–780 of 1001 posts

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

#771

Post by arcturus17 »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #741
cwhiz wrote: post #682

The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them. Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations. Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existin…

Are folks unaware of the history of westerners and trade in China, and how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people not ignorant of their country's history? In the late 19th century Great Britain fought two Opium Wars to force China to open up its markets to British opium. The British were forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and then taking it to sell to China. They wanted access to Chinese silve…

Not sure what The Economist or Colonialist Britain has to do in all this, but how are we to interpret that neither Google nor Facebook - nor pretty much any enterprise issuing from a liberal democracy - can operate freely in China? What do the people educated in Chinese history make of that?

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

#772

Post by baron_harkonnen »

cwhiz wrote: post #682

The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them. Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations. Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existin…

> the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations

A world ruled by corporations headquartered in a single country, with other countries having their politics and economy determined by the interests a single nation has been the rest of the worlds situation for 50+ years. It's somewhat ironic to see Americans suddenly getting concerned about this.

> Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.

The argument that if the Chinese market was fully open then their local companies would have been more quickly devoured by single, US based corporations doesn't do much to convince me that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.

And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans, all of this is so strong arm Chinese companies into surrendering to corporations that happen to be based in the US on favorable terms. This is the US government working as the goons to enforce Facebook, Google and in this case specifically Microsofts global dominance.

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

#773

Post by DubiousPusher »

p49k wrote: post #759
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are folks unaware of the history of westerners and trade in China, and how this kind of attitude could be interpreted by Chinese people not ignorant of their country's history? In the late 19th century Great Britain fought two Opium Wars to force China to open up its markets to British opium. The British were forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and then taking it to sell to China. They wanted access to Chinese silve…

That’s an interesting piece of history, but how is that relevant in any way to this situation? Not just the fact that modern Western civilization doesn’t resemble 19th century England, but everything about the reasons/motivation behind/specifics of this trade conflict are different.

> Not just the fact that modern Western civilization doesn’t resemble 19th century England

A lot more than you think.

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

#774

Post by khuey »

kinnth wrote: post #549
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.

China didn't ban them, they just asked them to play by Chinese Rules. I think it should be the same. Instead of Banning the US should setup what US rules they expect international companies to play by, as should the EU etc.

If you read the executive orders it's clear that "don't be controlled by or an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party" is the rule they're going for.

And if that standard just happens to be impossible for any Chinese company to meet ...

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

#776

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

cwhiz wrote: post #682

The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them. Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations. Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existin…

Why "the entire western world"? As an European, why should we align with the US in this?

The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have received US tech giants with open arms. So our economies bleed money and lose jobs to the likes of Amazon, because hey, "the free market". What do we stand to gain by siding with US companies in this US companies vs. China companies wars?

Perhaps it would be better for us to just imitate China, start being protectionistic and banning foreign tech companies so we can grow our own and prosper. It works. In the US you're pretty much telling us that it works - so well that you are doing the same.

Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?

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

#777

Post by bordercases »

cd_2001 wrote: post #738
cwhiz wrote: post #682

The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them. Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations. Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existin…

Please excuse me for my semi-rant. I don't mean to be too critical, but I think framing every news about China in this "the West vs China" angle is really counterproductive. First of all, "the West" is a very vague concept, quite unlike talking about China. Does it include all of Europe? Does it include Moscow then? Does it include parts of Latinamerica? Maybe you mean NATO (but then you should include Turkey too). O…

The West isn't vague. It is only semi-vague because, due to globalization, most cultures around the world have adopted Western norms of consumption, including China.

Politically the West is Five Eyes with support of NATO. If push came to shove these would be the nations called upon to support a global conflict with China.

Furthermore the hegemonic rule of the United States is a direct substitute to that of China. For every nation that China wants to exclude, overwhelm or subvert in its economic plans, the US will have an enemy or potential enemy of an enemy to ally with. Conversely if the US is separating economic ties with certain countries but building ties with others, it's this coalition that will operate against China as we move to our multi-polar world.

There is a legacy of intellectual culture between Russia, the Mediterranean, and some of the Middle East with Western Europe – mainly due to Aristotle and his influence on the intellectual practice of all of the Abrahamic religions – but a lot of that complexity is screened off by the real military commitments extant between the nations in these geographic regions. Post WWII history is what scoped out the structure of the modern world, so post WWII history is what makes sense to use in our analysis of what the West will be in practice.

As a proxy, English and the Romantic Languages as primary languages within a nation could be a decent heuristic of the what the West is culturally.

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

#778

Post by cwhiz »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #772
cwhiz wrote: post #682

The entire western world should treat China exactly the same way China treats them. Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations. Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existin…

> the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations A world ruled by corporations headquartered in a single country, with other countries having their politics and economy determined by the interests a single nation has been the rest of the worlds situation for 50+ years. It's somewhat ironic to see Americans suddenly getting concerned about this. > Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese mar…

>The argument that if the Chinese market was fully open then their local companies would have been more quickly devoured by single, US based corporations doesn't do much to convince me that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.

If these companies were competing, and winning, on features and innovation, there would be no concern that the company originated from China. The point of that anecdote is that these companies have crap products that are only competitive because there is no competition.

>And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans

I hope this is the beginning of a broader policy on moving US business, interests, and manufacturing out of China. Play fair or don't play at all.

It is perfectly fine for China to protect their own market. But it is not fine for China to protect their own market and also expect open access to other markets.

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

#779

Post by Udik »

nickbauman wrote: post #727
pradn wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A related idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance 'The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."'

Yes, Popper was the original on this thinking. Not Taleb. This is where the phrase "freedom requires we be intolerant of the intolerant"

Unfortunately, everyone seems to be keen on justifying their own intolerance with the supposed intolerance of the other.

If all it takes people to be freely intolerant is to convince themselves that the object of their intolerance is intolerant too, intolerance spreads everywhere.

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

#780

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #599
api wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me. It is. There's a faction in the US that believes the US has to have a dictatorship to compete with China. We've been here before. The USSR looked like an unstoppable juggernaut until the late 1960s / early 1970s. Like China they started from a state of relative bac…

> Totalitarian systems excel at execution, but they are not creative. Having survived the Soviet Union, I say with full certainty that you could not be more wrong about the execution part.

unless, of course, by 'execution' were meant actual executions (of people) - that's what totalitarian systems excel at, indeed.
Post reply on HN