[ThrowawayBandit]

> It's one thing to be all "we comply with local laws", and another to enforce one country's geopolitical aspirations across international borders.

Not 'whataboutism', but just to generalise on this: The US do this all the time. I believe that in US law the US criminal law has universal jurisdiction, and they also use the fact that they are such a large and important market that companies will have a presence and assets in the US so they that they'll have to comply (which interestingly is exactly what China is often accused of doing.) Not to mention that they are powerful enough to 'suggest' how to behave to other countries, and we're also seeing that all the time.

So fundamentally I think we're seeing China becoming powerful enough to behave internationally the way the US do, and that is something the US are not used to, being used to being the only superpower in town.

[biscottigelato]

I think whether said law came about from a system with separations of power and a democratic process makes a big difference in palatability.

[pphysch]

Opaque authoritarian oligarchy vs. Transparent authoritarian oligarchy, yadda yadda