[eunos]

> propaganda

It's so amusing seeing the society that lionizes itself as the paragon of open society and can't stop boasting about the effectiveness of free-speech soft-power compared to sclerotic communist propaganda now having panics over short video apps.

Bush Sr. or Bill Clinton could never think that.

Well, maybe we will be on yeltsin-on-supermarket stage soon?

[rwarfield]

The propaganda on TikTok comes disguised as Americans sharing points of view that just happen to serve CCP interests. Often the creators are expressing a genuine (but rare) viewpoint that China just needs to amplify. This isn't about keeping Americans from reading Pravda.

It's not hard to imagine the messages China will be pushing to weaken support for assisting Taiwan in a conflict. "Don't waste money propping up the corrupt Taiwanese government, spend it on health care /tax cuts at home!"

Then China gains control over TSMC without a fight and much of the American economy is at their mercy.

[pphysch]

Much of the American economy is already at China's mercy, due to the $500,000,000,000+ in goods we rely on from them annually. Hospitals running out of medical supplies will hit WAY sooner than your existing 4090 needs to be replaced by a new Taiwanese product.

This whole "Taiwan is super important to USA" narrative is itself pure government propaganda, related to military power projection over China's coastline. Surely you can at least admit this. It's just a battle of propaganda, except China unfortunately has common sense on its side in many of these arenas:

USA should not be spending hundreds of billions maintaining a WW2 power projection strategy, 80 years later.

[rwarfield]

I disagree (I don't know what "military power projection over China's coastline" even means - do you think the U.S. has military bases in Taiwan?), but the point is that these issues need to be debated by Americans without the other side surreptitiously trying to sway public opinion.

[pphysch]

> I don't know what "military power projection over China's coastline" even means

That's the problem. There's massive lack of historical education on this topic. The Taiwan issue greatly predates TSMC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis

[cced]

> these issues need to be debated by Americans

Yo can we drop the whole “our government executes on the will of the people charade”. If you think your average American has any say in their governments foreign policy I have a bridge to sell you.

[tivert]

>> Then China gains control over TSMC without a fight and much of the American economy is at their mercy.

> Much of the American economy is already at China's mercy, due to the $500,000,000,000+ in goods we rely on from them annually.

Yes, but let's not use that as a justification for letting it get worse.

> This whole "Taiwan is super important to USA" narrative is itself pure government propaganda, related to military power projection over China's coastline.

The whole f*ing modern economy runs on semiconductors, and the most advanced ones are fabbed in Taiwan. You might have a point if Intel wasn't falling on its face, but it is, so you don't

[pphysch]

The way we stop making this worse, i.e. reducing our trade deficit with China and in general, is by doing virtually the opposite of what Washington is currently doing.

Rebuild the republic instead of wasting everything on hopeless adventurism and imperial expansion.

[tivert]

> Rebuild the republic instead of wasting everything on hopeless adventurism and imperial expansion.

Reducing risk from Chinese influence is "rebuild[ing] the republic" and is not " hopeless adventurism and imperial expansion."

Also, letting China encroach and control more vital supplies is a good way to make "rebuild[ing] the republic" a lot harder.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I can't admit this and have no idea what you're talking about. You're right that Taiwan isn't more important to the US than China or any other major trading partner; the key difference is that China is not threatening to invade and conquer any of the other trading partners. Demanding that belligerent countries should not invade their neighbors is not a "WW2 power projection strategy", as China understood perfectly well when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

[tevon]

We haven't allowed a foreign adversary to own a media company since 1934.

This is just updating the standard. TikTok is clearly a massive threat, how is that not obvious?

https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli....

[p_j_w]

>We haven't allowed a foreign adversary to own a media company since 1934.

False. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_America

[tevon]

The link you cited literally explains how they tried to get around this restriction by setting it up as an autonomous non-profit (that was US-based).

Additionally, it was required to register as a foreign agent before shutting down...

This rather proves my point

[SpicyLemonZest]

What? Bush Sr. or Bill Clinton would never have allowed a hostile foreign government to own a major communications platform.

[eunos]

Bush and Bill would still laugh about nailing jelly to the wall