[dkobia]

The United States loses the moral high ground moving forward and Microsoft gets a blemished gem. The machinations of this deal are unsightly. Just because this is how the game is played in China doesn't mean we have to do it too.

[xvector]

“Nice rapidly-growing foreign service you have there. It would be a shame if we called it a ‘national security risk’ and made you sell it to us for pennies on the dime!”

[addicted]

The irony, of course, is that the US is pulling these heavy handed maneuvers at a time when the rest of the world would have gladly done it for the US for free.

Half the world is currently pissed with China. India already banned Tik Tok. The US could have used what is left of its diplomatic corps (devastated in the past few years) to encourage other countries such as the NATO nations, 5 eyes countries and other allies to threaten to ban Tik Tok and the likes of China didn’t resolve their security concerns. And the vast majority of them would have agreed, essentially forcing China to do this or something similar without the US losing its moral high ground, and gaining strength and respect amongst its allies instead of looking like a street level rent a mob type.

The same with the TPP. The US under this administration and tried hard to punish China, and basically, over the past few years has managed to slightly alter the fortunes of 2 individual companies, at a huge cost to its local farm sales, and hasn’t gained much in return at all, while hurting China only marginally.

If they had remained in the TPP, they would have had a much greater effect across Chinese companies (since it wouldn’t require cherry picking individual companies and acting specially for each of them) and the influence would have been levered since it would have come from pretty much every neighbor of China, and further, would have come at little cost to the US.

What’s most disturbing about these actions isn’t so much the actions themselves, but the fact that they have traded away so much of the US’s reputation built over generations, cost the US so much in rep and straight up cash, and has barely got it anything in return. And all this while much more effective alternatives which would have cost the US nothing but instead would have helped it strengthen its position in the world, existed by acting through its alliances.

[jadbox]

This is similar to what I was going to post too. Unless there's some kind of 4d chess power games happening behind the scenes, it looks a real gross amount of incompetence in lack of planning, diplomacy, and leadership at all levels of international relationships. More realistically- seems like a meltdown of alliances towards standalone empire-style thinking once again.

[treis]

China has blocked almost every major US internet company. Crying that Tik Tok is being forced into a sale is a bit rich. National Security concerns aside, there's a legitimate argument that the West should be banning every service that comes out of China until they open up their market.

[Drew_]

Or we could try to be the country with better morals than China instead of posturing as one.

[refurb]

Protecting your own national security is immoral?!

[xvector]

Again with the “national security” argument. Yes, it’s immoral, just like PRISM and COINTELPRO and mass domestic surveillance and GITMO and the Patriot Act and the racism at the TSA and secret police and censorship are all immoral despite protecting “national security.”

“National security” is not a valid blanket excuse to implement draconian policies.

[refurb]

Why are you bring up all these other topics?

I'm talking about Tiktok. There is nothing amoral about protecting your country from data collection by a hostile foreign power.

[sgift]

I'm very much reminded of the situation with the Anthrax medication in 2001 (Google "Anthrax Bayer" for relevant results). "Nice patents you have there. You know, we only think the rule of law is a good thing if it helps us, so ... make us a good deal for your medication or we may be forced to remove your patents."

[ffggvv]

how is it pennies on the dime? for one the price hasn’t been discussed. and all indications are it’s going to be at a fair valuation

for all you know they will end up overpaying

[tekkk]

This is nothing new in global politics. Just take a one look at Middle East to see how the world has been since the dawn of human civilization. Not saying it is right, a bit of throwback to the days of yonder perhaps, but I'm not surprised or shocked. Although I'm still doubtful it's going to happen.

[addicted]

Well, yeah, that’s why the US loses the moral high ground. The entire point of the US is that it’s different. And without getting into how true that exceptionalism was in other areas of the country, it was certainly true in terms of the light touch with which the government operated vis a vis business. Government would have broad regulations, but rarely pick winners and losers (outside of defense, which is very different for obvious reasons).

In this case, the government is playing the game on both the sell side and the buy side (and in another weird twist appears to be demanding a fee from the buyer?). There isn’t even plausible deniability into the government’s high handedness.

I suspect the evaporation of benefits the US has accrued over the past decades/centuries will be much greater than any short term gains it may see out of this and potentially any other similar future deals.