Conspiracy theory: this is being spun as an anti-US move despite being totally sensible with precedent.
We did literally the same thing with Grindr. Why would we not do the same on a platform full of CP?
US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#782Earlier quoted context omitted.
Freedom, rational thought, free speech, democracy, rule of law etc. aren't "Western" values, they're "Enlightenment" values. After the "West" adopted them, it (the countries, and the people) enjoyed unprecedented improvement in living standards, a scientific boom and so on. China is free to adopt those values anytime. In the meantime, I (and looks like many other Westerns) will be working towards ensuring that non-En…
The majority of Chinese people have seen an unprecedented improvement in living standards over the past 3 decades, with scientific and engineering breakthroughs to boot. Hard to see them adopt western values from their perspective, they're doing fine without it.
> The majority of Chinese people
It's the majority's treatment of the minority that concerns me.
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#783Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not "exactly this". 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 si…
In the AWS case, the law that AWS was breaking was that they were operating telecom equipment while not being a Chinese company. So I think there’s more symmetry there (though one could argue that there’s at least a uniformly enforceable rule on all foreign companies, unlike the ByteDance case).
FWIW AWS basically skirted this by having the chinese companies they contract with be the official "seller of record"/"operator"/"owner" but the regions are de-facto operated by western AWS engineering teams under a complicated contracting scheme.
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#784Earlier quoted context omitted.
Freedom, rational thought, free speech, democracy, rule of law etc. aren't "Western" values, they're "Enlightenment" values. After the "West" adopted them, it (the countries, and the people) enjoyed unprecedented improvement in living standards, a scientific boom and so on. China is free to adopt those values anytime. In the meantime, I (and looks like many other Westerns) will be working towards ensuring that non-En…
rational thought, free speech, democracy, rule of law . Trumps administration has pushed the US backwards on all these fronts and has nothting to do with those other countries
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Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#785Earlier quoted context omitted.
All this is leading me to have a stronger belief in Nassim Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins" theory[1]. Though, in this case there is no minority as such. China was intolerant to the US's ideology and exploited its openness for its own benefit. Now, unfortunately, it has come to a point where even US has to be intolerant like China to be able to get back at it. Thoughts? [1] https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intoleran…
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."'
>Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."'
Is it paradoxical? There's "no paradox of peace", the idea that "In order to maintain a peaceful society, the society must be violent against the non-peaceful"
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#786The 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…
All this is leading me to have a stronger belief in Nassim Taleb's "The Most Intolerant Wins" theory[1]. Though, in this case there is no minority as such. China was intolerant to the US's ideology and exploited its openness for its own benefit. Now, unfortunately, it has come to a point where even US has to be intolerant like China to be able to get back at it. Thoughts? [1] https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intoleran…
Ideas such as tolerance, non violence etc cannot be unconditional. Reciprocity is the key.
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#787Although the focus of the discussion seems about TikTok, what really should get more attentions WeChat and Tencent - this is basically the only way one can communicate in modern fashion with people in China.
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#788Earlier quoted context omitted.
US is merely reciprocating the policies of CCP: let them allow US companies to compete fairly in China as well.
Yes, by mirroring China’s authoritarianism and restricting the freedom of Americans. I’m living overseas and now my government is telling me I can’t use WeChat? Telling me who I can and cannot trade with, etc. Restrictions on trade with China are attacks on our freedom.
My understanding is almost all countries have laws that apply to their citizens abroad. If you don't like it, you're welcome to renounce your American citizenship (at a price)
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#789The 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…
Well, if there was truly a quid-pro-quo, then the United Kingdom should pay China reparations for its atrocious actions during the opium wars, similar to what Germany had to do to survivors of the holocaust.
If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, the West would be clamoring for statehood for Puerto Rico like they do for Taiwan.
If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, calls for the 'entire western world' to band against China would make as much sense as calls for 'the entire western world' to band against the United States, who did quite a bit to rig the global economy in its favor after WW2 and Bretton-Woods.
If China treated the Western world the way the Western world treated China, there would be hell to pay. And yet people like you just can't stand that they would act in their own self interest, and become a superpower without asking the permission of the West.
Countries will take whatever advantages are available to them to develop and benefit their people. China never tried to hide what they were doing. All of the world's economists were aware of their economic protectionist policies for the past 50 or so years. Let's call a spade a spade. This 'outrage' about China's policies in the year 2020 is nothing more than a frustration with the West's ruling classes for failing to respond to China's rise at all in the last 50 years. And there is clearly a sense of entitlement as well, as though those of use living in the West deserve to live in the hegemonic country despite not working as hard or valuing progress as much as those in other societies.
The Western world never cared about Chinese people or what was happening in China until it started to threaten their own global dominance. Now all of a sudden you have elite clamoring for civil rights and justice in China, while those same elites profited for decades off of cheap Chinese labor after the Great Leap Forward and Tiananmen Square.
Sure, you should advocate for your country to change its policies if its getting a bad deal from China. But turning this all into a "West v. China" thing is how we got here in the first place.
Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days
#790Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you claim to stand for free trade, you can't go along in these protectionism wars without losing a lot of credibility and, along with that, soft power.
And you can't operate free-trade style in a world where you have bad actors like China reaping all the benefits while being protectionist and therefore preventing their trade partners from seeing the same benefits. Saying the US should just press forward with free trade is like saying it is X company's fault for failing when the entire reason they fail is because Y company is behaving anti-competitively, and that beh…
I did not realize that free trade is such a failed system, that it completely breaks down when not enforced by gunboat diplomacy.
All this time, I was taught that it is a positive-sum, virtuous system that improves everything it touches - and that military interventions that enforced it were purely altruistic humanitarian acts, that were done for the targeted countries' own good.
Which is it? Is it a fragile house of cards that we have spread in self-serving ways? Or is it actually a robust positive-sum ideal that we should aspire to? (And therefore, we should ignore defectors, as they only hurt themselves.)