[xster]

Unlike Zoom which is an American company (and everyone feels like they need to pull an Andrew Yang and try extra hard to prove their American-ness for some reason), unless I'm mistaken I don't think TikTok really made any effort to "appear" "American". ByteDance might have downplayed their Chinese-ness and worked more than typical Chinese companies to cater to American audiences (like hiring Disney CEO in the same way Huawei has an America CSO), but I don't think they're making the case that they're an "American" company.

[morley]

I'm not sure I understand your reference to Andrew Yang. Every presidential candidate I've seen in the late 20th and 21st century has gone overboard in showing their American-ness. What makes Andrew Yang stand out?

[xster]

In that he specifically called out Asians to out-american others to prove their Americanness. For illustration picture Obama calling on African Americans to do more to prove that they're Americans.

[levosmetalo]

Why would it matter if it's an American or Chinese company? It's a sad world where we need to decide about company, product, person, idea, book or whatever based on their perceived country, colour, race, ideology, ...

[Jonnax]

Well I guess at the minimum. China blocks American services in their country like Facebook and Twitter.

For a foreign company to operate in China it needs to be majority Chinese owned.

It can be argued that if foreign companies are not allowed to profit in China, then they shouldn't be able to do so abroad.

Of course being the manufacturing capital of the world, they have a lot of leverage.

[ForHackernews]

It matters whether the company executives live in a democracy with rule of law or an authoritarian one-party state.

I have no qualms doing business with American, Canadian, Indian, Japanese, or European (minus Hungary) companies...

I would be very cautious doing business with Chinese, Russian, or Saudi firms.