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

921–930 of 1001 posts

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

#921

Post by jjcc »

est wrote: post #510
paxys wrote: post #91

None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home, and until China agrees to compete on a fair playing field I'm perfectly fine with them all being banned outside of their firewall. Would China ever agree to let Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger etc. or any new startup operate freely and make money there? It shou…

> None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home As others have mentioned, Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay grew the same time as mazon, Paypal and eBay was available in China. Also newegg had a much better headstart than jd.com but still failed. At one time even Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger was a serious threat to Tencent QQ. Wordpress was m…

's great you mention that. But the biggest reason that why FB, Google were excluded after around 2010 is never mentioned here and even difficult to debate because of political correctness: Is the Chinese government policy from economic reason or something else that has been interpreted as protectionism?

The other theory is uncensored social media is perceived as a big threat to national security threat (I'm not saying CPP security threat). The ground situation in China is beyond the understanding of most population even a large portion of intellectuals inside China. That view was enhanced and many Chinese intellectuals changed their mind after color revolution in Ukraine, middle east chaos, etc.

Don't get me wrong, most educated people inside China are against censorship like westerners and the sentiment was very strong and still somehow strong today. "Animal Farm" and "1984"[1] are sold openly in China. But normal peaceful life without fear of danger and insecurity from conflicts is evaluated more important than economic development let alone freedom of speech inside China but it is not necessary applied to other part of the world especially liberal Western world. With polarization of recent events in US and consequential censorship on YouTube and Twitter that beyond topic of BLM/Identity politics/etc which result in many normal Chinese YouTube and twitter accounts mistakenly banned (This is not well-known in English audience), even more Chinese changed their view against Chinese government censorship.

The real reason is not economical but from a perception of national security. The perception is debatable but it should be at least included as an option of viewpoint as opposed to totally excluded.

[1]http://product.dangdang.com/25215594.html

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

#922

Post by mullingitover »

Ygg2 wrote: post #675
sukilot wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words have meanings. It's not a "dictatorship", because Congress (elected every 2 years, approximately) sets the laws that the President acts under, and the President himself (so far!) is elected every 4 years.

Even de facto, US is an oligarchy not a dictatorship.

“The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”

-Julius Nyerere

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

#923

Post by FpUser »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #573
mytailorisrich wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fallacious argument. For example when Google worked in China they were ripped apart for doing that, and so decided not to. Most of these companies could work in China if they followed Chinese rules. They decided not to, so they don't.

Not sure why people downvote the above. Do they dispute the truth of the parent's statement? Google and Facebook were in fact active in China, until the 2009 Urumqi terrorist attacks happened. The Chinese government then asked for Facebook to release personal details of suspects. Facebook refused. They only got banned after that. The Chinese government installed new monitoring and censorship laws. Google didn't want…

>"Not sure why people downvote the above"

Never let the facts get in a way of good story

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

#924

Post by baddox »

dominotw wrote: post #906
baddox wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow the logic of “China does something that we think is bad, therefore we must do the same thing that we think is bad.”

I don’t follow the logic of “China does something that we think is bad, therefore we must just ignore it"

Ignoring it and doing the same bad thing are not the only two options.

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

#925

Post by [deleted] »

knolax wrote: post #363
shripadk wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those companies are free to operate in China if the comply with Chinese law. Which will never happen. The Chinese know that Western companies would never want to comply with the Chinese law because the law was purposefully designed in such a way as to benefit the totalitarian regime. So they were forced to quit China. This is nothing but an indirect ban. This is very common actually. For example: India imposed a 20…

Microsoft complies with those laws just fine. Bing, Windows, Office are all available there.

[deleted]

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

#926

Post by jdietrich »

mindslight wrote: post #900
jdietrich wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US? The US gains very substantial economic benefits from being an attractive place for international companies to do business. Foreign investors know that when they invest in America, they're getting a stable regulatory environment and a reasonably trustworthy civil legal system. If America decides to undermine that trust for short-term gain, there will be…

This action is unfortunately part of the normal progression of disruptive innovation . Upstart China has adopted a disruptive strategy of engaging with world markets while using heavy-handed regulation to avoid being controlled by those markets. Incumbent USG is now copying China's strategy, claiming that doing so is necessary to keep the US competitive. However, the US is a world leader through free markets and open…

Bang on the money, except for one thing - the USG is copying China's tactics, with no real understanding of the strategy.

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

#927

Post by learc83 »

bluelu wrote: post #801
youeseh wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Does the US prevent European tech companies from doing business in America? - Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America?

China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law. European and foreign businesses get much higher fines compares to local businesses (e.g. Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Bayer (e.g. just after buying Massato), Toyota, etc...) On the other hand Europe allows american businesses to access the european market without following the local laws. No user data can be transfered to…

> China does not prevent american businesses to do business in China as long as they follow the law.

You fail to mention that the law requires 51% ownership by a Chinese company and forced IP transfer.

You also fail to mention that there are many industries in which foreign company are completely prohibited.

And the Chinese version of “following the law” includes whatever the party arbitrarily decides you should do. Including things like forcing companies to remove any mention of Taiwan from material completely outside of China.

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

#928

Post by jfim »

all_usernames wrote: post #909
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt China has more levers then the US when it comes to a trade war. China can't feed itself past subsistence level without imports. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-feeding-china/ China runs on oil just like every other modern economy, and they have pitiful amounts locally. They are the largest importer in the world and they absolutely need it to keep flowing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemen…

> The US can feed itself domestically ...for about 20 more years, if soil quality and climate predictions are accurate.

Out of curiosity, do you have links to more information about this?

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

#929

Post by slim »

demadog wrote: post #242
jianshen wrote: post #201

What is his motivation for this right now? Is it just the distraction of the week or was there a specific incident recently that triggered this?

There’s likely a lot that is not and will never be covered in the news that the NSA and CIA know. I’m sure they look at our commentary on here, with 1% of the geopolitical information, and chuckle.

they look at your commentary and chuckle. you guys believe in NSA-CIA like people believe in god

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

#930

Post by fragmede »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #891
cwhiz wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?? This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the grou…

> China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. This is simply false, yet it gets repeated on every discussion about China. Western companies are everywhere in China, and they make massive revenues there. The presence of Chinese companies in the West is tiny by comparison (if you want proof, just look at FDI figures in each direction). Anyone who's spent time in both places can see this. It's very d…

Two companies that are blocked in China, and are particularly relevant to this conversation, are Google and Facebook.
Post reply on HN