[mads]

I lived in China for many years and you are right. Most Chinese people reaction will be "Meh.." and they will move on with their life and just use a VPN if they really really need WhatsApp.

A lot of western people are now probably frantic to get the WeChat addresses of the Chinese people they only had on WhatsApp, so they can ensure their production line or development people are on track.

We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

[seanmcdirmid]

I lived in China for 9 years and could never find a working VPN that would last more than a month. So I just didn't bother using anything outside of work. It was ironic that I worked for Microsoft, would use Bing at home, and used Google at work because...I could.

> We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

Disagree. They still want our business, they will find ways to make it through the disruption. China is not ready to close itself from the rest of the world economically.

[usaar333]

Did you ever use Shadowsocks in lieu of a VPN? AFAIK, it suffers no traffic disruption (worked great for me when I connected to either my own US-based house or an AWS server in Japan)

[the_common_man]

> We need them more than they need us. That is the problem.

Actually the problem is that the west has no higher moral ground than the east. Not a single US person here uses a chinese app or plans to use one. There is a reason for this.

[seanmcdirmid]

There is no moral high ground period. People who talk about moral high ground are usually just insecure and/or looking to save face.

US people don't use Chinese apps because they are not competitive and solve problems that are China-specific. Heck, its just not US people, but Taiwan people, Hong Kong people, Singapore people, Japanese people, Korean people, Myanmar people, Cambodia people, etc...

There is a reason for this.