The TikTok War

Tiktok's parent company, bytedance is incorporated in Cayman islands. It has a Chinese subsidiary operating Douyin in China , and a US subsidiary operating Tiktok in the US. The Chinese national intelligence law is applied to the Chinese subsidiary but not the parent because the parent is not incorporated in China. Hence the US subsidiary is not subjected to Chinese law. If Chinese government demands US data and Bytedance's Chinese subsidiary refuses, the government can shut down the Chinese subsidiary, but the Cayman island parent will still operate. Hence Chinese government has no power over the US subsidiary. Author says that Chinese values and American values are absolutely opposing and because of that Tiktok's algorithms and product design could undermine American values either consciously or unconsciously. Right now Bytedance's US subsidiary is managed by Americans, hires US based engineers, and the content moderation team is staffed with Americans. The goal should be that Tiktok and Douyin will be separate, design, operated and moderated separately. This could be strengthened by having American management at Bytedance parent, and have Bytedance go public and have American board directors. I hope that whatever international fears about Tiktok, the regulatory body/government should make list of rules for Tiktok. Tiktok should be given a chance to defend its positions, and ability to comply with the rules. We should not just straight out ban tiktok, like "bam, after today, its removed from app stores everywhere". that is not in the spirit of rule of law.

It is up to the Chinese people to do this. If a foreign country overthrows the Chinese government this is nothing more than an international crime against their sovereignty.

It's not going to happen without violence, as the PRC is strictly a one-party state.

Tik Tok success as a technology is well argued by the author. That should be copied and cloned and compete as MANY not as one.

That is this onesness that I try to argue. This is this oneness that get China and the strategy missing this part of China the problem.

Obviously I would be baised in the sense that the author just gave up my whole place and my 2m+ liberty loving followers. U people, HK people, TW people ... is just part of China, we can just dump them (or you can just dump us) because we belong to a "ONE". The whole idea of human rights are about individual not about the rights of nation over you or us in Hong Kong. If you let the oneness grow and ignore that one is evil, you die with us because the evil will expand. HK is the front of the ideological fight. Not sure why the author not noted that the play against HK is a play against the promise and contract by the less powerful China to the future. Read Deng speech in UN, you can see there is a promising China. But look at today you know nothing in the one is preventing it. The West look otherwise by letting China grow so powerful it is near a stat that cannot fail. The west has to feed the hand that is going to kill them. Just cut the tie is not enough. A more aggressive way of engaging is needed. Otherwise the world is just another South China Seas.

China has been asserted itself in Internet (speech by Xin please read), UN, WTO, WHO, ... etc. They have number on their side in the past. Now they have money, they have the language (so many good English speakers in the elite and their children), ... There could be millions inside the west and trillion in the bank. It is like Soviet Union evolve and attack USA soil from underneath.

But the analysis is so well that seems ok? That we have to deal with China as one. It is partially yes and partially No. The key problem is what we call one-ness of Chinese thinking. You using that you lost already. What America is great and Europe in a sense has built-in immunity is that there are individual (or even the extreme right has the club concept). You do not analysis a world as a world. A world is nothing but its individual and its links among individual. Now the problem when you think the whole China is a whole you have to fight against then you got yourselves a long term problem.

I said long term is from time to time China would group itself together into one big nasty empire. The best is when it is weak (like in Sung Dynasty) when the culture of unity does not break human backs. But once they are big and as oneness is built into the pyshce they just go ahead to transform all barbarians and uncivilised into one of them. There is no stop. Nothing internal to the Chinese philosophy has many in mind. Everyone has to be saved is what they think, and it is what ultimately you got.

What you need to do is to ensure the individual spirit and liberty mind to survive inside. So the original promise that a great China contribute as part of many, not force its way as one into the world. Just cut into two would not help. HK, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the whole Asian countries are those many.

Not one less! Not just one!

:-) ok back to my debugging of the solitaire of C. gdb tracing of pointer structure is hard, isn't it. From 6502 (by guessing), 370 (XA to ESA extension and control block) to now; still you always deal with dump. Sigh. Back to my cave even though the world is collapsing, that you can hack as an individual and do what you enjoy is more important. And that is why this all about. We should have more or one TikTok.

But you weren’t criticizing actions in your posts...