TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#671

Post by ptx » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

apatters wrote: post #584

cma wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds exactly like how the US developed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater Otherwise we would be trading beaver pelts and providing cheap labor. Trump is banning TikTok because a bunch of teens pranked his rally using the platform.

It's exactly how South Korea and many other countries developed (and continue to develop) as well. The difference here is that China is positioning itself as a political rival to the United States. America is under no obligation to help its rivals develop. Prior to Xi Jinping's belligerent foreign poljcy America was considerably more welcoming to Chinese companies. You reap what you sow.

> America is under no obligation to help its rivals develop.

Right. As long as we acknowledge that this is what's going on, so the rest of the world can feel free to just laugh at the US the next time they claim some grandiose moral high ground in their petty squabble to keep their rival down.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#672

Post by jquery » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #654

jewelry wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. If it's national security, let out the cat. Otherwise how could people believe if this won't happen to SAP, Volkswagon, Sony next time.

> Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. I didn't think State Governor's could ban legitimate business activity until very recently either.

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. It’s absolutely a parallel to TikTok. I don’t know why TikTok is getting so much sympathy.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#673

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

albacur wrote: post #388

billfruit wrote: post #195

As someone from the third world this leaves a very bad feeling if it happens. I do expect it runs into legal hurdles before that. Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws. Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible. The President shouldn't have authorit…

> Chinese policy seems to have not significantly changed in the last 5 years towards the US, but on the other hand US seemed ever more keen and eger to pursue a hostile attitude towards China. For decades, China has blocked U.S. companies from fair competition, reneged on trade deals when it suits them, backed out of industrial partnerships after extracting the IP it deems useful, and generally been a bad trade partn…

For all of the issues with Trump, he was right to point out the plight of post-manufacturing working class Americans, the rise of North Korea as a nuclear power, and problems with the US-China relationship.

He just handled all these issues poorly. He really only helped the rust belt by getting a handful of token factories to not close. Nothing really came of his meeting with Kim, and tensions have even escalated slightly. On the China front, he started a trade war with China and worked on some technology bans (both questionably helpful), and at the same time withdrew from the TPP, started trade disputes with strong allies, and weakened NATO. Coordinated response and strong western alliances would have been far more effective, but he did neither.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#674

Post by xwolfi » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #673

albacur wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese policy seems to have not significantly changed in the last 5 years towards the US, but on the other hand US seemed ever more keen and eger to pursue a hostile attitude towards China. For decades, China has blocked U.S. companies from fair competition, reneged on trade deals when it suits them, backed out of industrial partnerships after extracting the IP it deems useful, and generally been a bad trade partn…

For all of the issues with Trump, he was right to point out the plight of post-manufacturing working class Americans, the rise of North Korea as a nuclear power, and problems with the US-China relationship. He just handled all these issues poorly. He really only helped the rust belt by getting a handful of token factories to not close. Nothing really came of his meeting with Kim, and tensions have even escalated slig…

While I agree with you a little, we have to admit the failure of american and "developed" nations industries isn't just due to generosity from their parts towards China.

China competed, made the sacrifices necessary to get it running at low cost and acceptable quality, and not us. Our factory workers can't compete at that price, can't bear the same struggle and can't do it on the scale of the chinese workers. We like to picture them as powerless ants in a crushing machine, but it's not so black and white for sure.

Get the factories back and you lose competitiveness and it's higher level Chinese service companies who will start designing products and replacing americans. It's a trap, and it's already showing signs it's working. I love my Huawei phone and it got me used not to have a google account. Something I could not imagine a year ago.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#675

Post by glaive123 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

ptx wrote: post #667

glaive123 wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you are not aware of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.” Unlike American companies who receive requests from the U.S. government, ByteDance simply has no recourse when faced with orders from China’s authoritarian government.

US companies similarly have to comply with secret orders[1] from the US government, so I agree with the parent that it looks pretty much the same from the perspective of us foreigners. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

What you have shown is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, close or equivalent. It is not even close, by a country mile.

Taken from the article you shared:

"By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails."

"Moreover, a recipient of the NSL may still challenge the nondisclosure provision in federal court."

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#676

Post by peacefulhat » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

generatorguy wrote: post #552

peacefulhat wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making the US less open will not make China more open.

What if the US and allies are Less open to China, and offer to me more open again if China also is more open?

Do you think this art of the deal stuff is really working out even between America and its allies? It's giving them second thoughts on depending on America for trade and even defense. It won't work with China either.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#677

Post by ptx » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

glaive123 wrote: post #675

ptx wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US companies similarly have to comply with secret orders[1] from the US government, so I agree with the parent that it looks pretty much the same from the perspective of us foreigners. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

What you have shown is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, close or equivalent. It is not even close, by a country mile. Taken from the article you shared: "By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails." "Moreover, a recipient of the NSL may still challenge the nondisclosure provision i…

That the company may eventually be allowed to tell us after they fact that they surrendered out data to the US government is not much of a comfort.

In any case, I'm not sure that any of the protections apply to foreigners (the criticism is all about how they might accidentally target Americans) so for those who are neither Chinese nor American citizens, it makes no difference. I would be happy to be completely wrong about this if you have information about how foreign citizens' rights are protected from US intelligence gathering.

The NSLs were merely meant as an example to show how US companies can also be compelled to assist in their government's intelligence gathering. You're right that they can (in theory?) challenge the secrecy part specifically.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#678

Post by glaive123 » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

ptx wrote: post #677

glaive123 wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have shown is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, close or equivalent. It is not even close, by a country mile. Taken from the article you shared: "By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails." "Moreover, a recipient of the NSL may still challenge the nondisclosure provision i…

That the company may eventually be allowed to tell us after they fact that they surrendered out data to the US government is not much of a comfort. In any case, I'm not sure that any of the protections apply to foreigners (the criticism is all about how they might accidentally target Americans) so for those who are neither Chinese nor American citizens, it makes no difference. I would be happy to be completely wrong…

> That the company may eventually be allowed to tell us after they fact that they surrendered out data to the US government is not much of a comfort.

Did you read my comment?

The request can be fought in court, and the request does not give them access to actual contents. For example, they can NOT get the contents of an email.

Are you not aware that Apple has beaten the FBI several times in court and did not have to unlock an iPhone?

> In any case, I'm not sure that any of the protections apply to foreigners

This has nothing to do with citizens or foreigners. This is about companies. US Companies do not need to comply with US Government requests for information, Chinese companies MUST comply with ALL government requests to ALL information.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#679

Post by Mekantis » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #195

As someone from the third world this leaves a very bad feeling if it happens. I do expect it runs into legal hurdles before that. Neither Apple nor Google have found TikTok problematic enough to delist them from their app stores. Neither is there charges that TikTok may have broken US laws. Banning something which hasn't broken US laws, on arbitrary grounds shouldn't be possible. The President shouldn't have authorit…

National security issues override your freedom to use a spying app by a country's primary geopolitical opponent. That's just how it is. You paint China as this innocent party and the US as the sole aggressor, which is utter hogwash. I'm not sure whether you're intentionally or just ignorantly ignoring all the things China has done and continues to do in the past 20 years such as stealing IP, price dumping, etc. They're not the good guy here and anybody outside China should be wary of them.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#680

Post by Mekantis » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

publicola1990 wrote: post #604

glaive123 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point #1 is absolutely false. Please provide evidence of this. There is bountiful public evidence of national security risk. And there is likely MUCH more non-public evidence. It's a good thing HN identified new accounts with green text, because it makes it a little more transparent when someone is creating an account just to spread misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread is full of 50-cent army c…

The fact is that Apple/Google hasn't found them in serious infringement of anything. The article from CNN seems to echo the view in point 1: "Although leaders like Pompeo have described TikTok as a clear and present danger, many in the cybersecurity community say the reality is more complex. While TikTok could become a clear threat to US security under certain scenarios, they say, the danger is currently largely hypo…

I'm not sure a bunch of techies who have no clue about geopolitics and have zero interest in the welfare of the US or even European or non-Chinese populations to be the arbiter of what's okay or not okay. Apple/Google are turning a blind eye because they're in this to make money. They don't give a shit about our rights or our security.