You think if Apple, IBM, Amazon, or another American giant got caught doing this kind of stuff they would get sanctioned nearly as hard by the Trump administration?
Perhaps you are right --- Amazon would not be punished in this way.
But likely you are right for different reasons than you think?
US government can put US executives in jail. I'm sure it would put them in jail. You have to remember what happened here: ZTE was caught, paid penalty and promised to be nice, then they reneged on their promise, lied about it, and got caught again.
Feds in fact just recently put VW executive in jail for even lesser offense. US government has no such jail-time leverage with Chinese companies, there is no extradition agreement, so the only leverage US has, it used.
US companies operate under US jurisdiction, which means US can charge and convict the specific people involved in the illegal activity in US courts (instead of shutting down the company). Since US courts don’t have Jurisdiction over China, one has to rely on harsher but indirect methods like these.
Do you have an example for that? I looked around a bit and only found China not buying from weapon manufacturers anymore who also supplied Taiwan. When it comes to pressure on topics like Tibet they seem to mostly pressure countries instead of companies.
Is China trying to enforce any kind of similar ban?
I got the impression that trying to enforce unilaterally imposed global sanctions is a US thing. The next best thing coming to mind are UN embargos
But likely you are right for different reasons than you think?
US government can put US executives in jail. I'm sure it would put them in jail. You have to remember what happened here: ZTE was caught, paid penalty and promised to be nice, then they reneged on their promise, lied about it, and got caught again.
Feds in fact just recently put VW executive in jail for even lesser offense. US government has no such jail-time leverage with Chinese companies, there is no extradition agreement, so the only leverage US has, it used.