[IncreasePosts]

Except this isn't a law against any foreign owner, just specifically a foreign owner that is essentially the #1 geopolitical adversary of the US.

A large part of the US-China relationship is zero-sum. If America loses, china wins, and vice versa. That relationship is not the same for, say, the US-France relationship.

[ppqqrr]

That’s what the China hawks want you to believe, it’s not just a lie but a shameful, war mongering lie. And they will increasingly use that lie to shut people up, shut apps down, until we have no choice but to believe that the Chinese want us dead and we them. It’s textbook propaganda and you’re spreading it.

China and the US have been in a massively successful, mutually beneficial global economic partnership for decades. Zero sum my ass. Take a peace pipe, make friends not war.

[glenstein]

I want to believe you, but arguments like this are so simplistic that it's profoundly disappointing. It is simultaneously the case that they are extensive trade partners and that there's ongoing harassment in the South China Sea, the horrifying takeover of Hong Kong and the increasingly chilling situation in Taiwan, or the harassment of expat dissidents who have fled to the West.

To say nothing of extremely adversarial cases of increasingly aggressive hacking, corporate espionage, "wolf warrior" diplomacy, development of military capabilities that seem specifically designed with countering the U.S. in mind, as well as the more ordinary diplomatic and economic pushback on everything from diplomatic influence, pushing an alternative reserve currency, and an internal political doctrine that emphasizes doubling down on all these fronts.

I don't even feel like I've ventured an opinion yet, I've simply surveyed facts and I am yet to meet a variation of the Officer Barbrady "nothing to see here" argument that has proved to be fully up to speed on the adversarial picture in front of us.

I think what I want, to feel reassured, is to be pleasantly surprised by someone who is command of these facts, capable of showing that I'm wrong about any of the above, and/or that I'm overlooking important swaths of the factual landscape in such a way that points to a safe equilibrium rather than an adversarial position.

But instead it's light-on-facts tirades that attempt to paint these concerns as neocon warmongering, attempting to indulge in a combination of colorful imagery and ridicule, which for me is kind of a non-starter.

Edit in response to reply below: I'm just going to underscore that none of the facts here are in dispute. The whataboutism, insinuations of racism, and "were you there!?" style challenges (reminiscent of creation science apologetics) are just not things I'm interested in engaging with.

[keybored]

That covers the China side of things. Presumably America is doing nothing against China. In that case things would be very lopsided and you (in general) would have a reason to be concerned. On the other hand if America was doing “adversarial” things in the direction of China as well, and both sides at sufficiently low intensity, it could still be argued that the two countries are not playing a zero-sum game overall because trade etc. happens in spite of all that.

[DiogenesKynikos]

You complain about "whataboutism," but your comment is just a long list of, "But what about this bad thing China did?"

Yet when other people point out much more horrible things the US has done in the same timeframe (like backing Israel to the hilt as it kills tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and destroys the entire Gaza strip), you respond with, "That's Whataboutism."

[glenstein]

The list of offenses from China are foundational to the case for banning Tiktok. They belong to an argument that bootstraps itself. Those points aren't merely offered in a reactionary manner as a way to attempt to refute or deflect other criticisms.

What makes any specific point into whataboutism is its intended use as a counterpoint in a context where it doesn't change the outcome of the argument its responding to.

[DiogenesKynikos]

What does the South China Sea have to do with TikTok?

The "list of offenses" is just meant to say, "China bad, so TikTok bad."

[corimaith]

The fact that they're using whataboutism should point to you that these posters very much are the adversaries of America that the poster is talking about. They are certainly not acting in your interests here.

[8note]

if you reread your post, looking for whatabboutism, each critique you provide could be described as such in response to "we're great trading partners and will continue to be"

why are these whatabboutisms interesting but others are not? what makes you comfortable with working with americans, when its clear how they treat expat political dissidents like Assange and Snowden? why are you ok working with the US who's military is tuned for seizing iranian oil shipments? why are you favourable to a US reserve currency when the US has been abusing its power by putting all kinds of unilateral sanctions, and confiscating reserves without any due process? its not just china thats trying to make a new reserve currency, the EU does too, so they can buy iranian oil.

minus all the whatabboutisms, america and china exchanged ~$750B worth of goods and services in 2022, with neither's trangressions being a blocker. Americans by and large care much more about the cost and variety of goods than they do about fishing rights in the south china sea. americans dont care that much about US foreign policy goals, compared to shopping and culture.

[glenstein]

>why are these whatabboutisms interesting but others are not?

I don't agree that they are whataboutisms for starters. I don't present them in response to criticisms of the U.S. to deflect away those criticisms, which is an essential, definitional characteristic of a whataboutism. Everything ususal to the critique of whataboutisms is sufficient I think to address the new examples you present in your comment, which I would say just fall in the same old category.

The critiques of China in this context are "interesting" because they relate to democratic norms, human rights, freedom of expression and the security environment that safeguards them.

And perhaps most importantly, I don't regard democratic values and economic transactions to be in a relationship where the loss of one is compensated by the presence of the other. This is a point which I believe is a relatively well understood cornerstone of western liberal democracies.

[keybored]

> And perhaps most importantly, I don't regard democratic values and economic transactions to be in a relationship where the loss of one is compensated by the presence of the other. This is a point which I believe is a relatively well understood cornerstone of western liberal democracies.

Western liberal democracies (so-called) don’t care about democratic values.

[DiogenesKynikos]

The commenter above you said that the US-China relationship is not zero-sum, and has brought enormous economic benefits to both sides.

Your response was essentially, "But what about Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Taiwan and political dissidents?" That's a complete non sequitur.

You moved the conversation from one about mutually beneficial economic relations to one about how awful China is because of XYZ. The natural response to that is that the US is awful because of a different litany of XYZ. Yet you've decided that we're now talking about how terrible China is (which is irrelevant to the original topic of mutually beneficial relations), and anything else is whataboutism.

[ppqqrr]

Have you been to China? Know anyone from there? Or is your opinion on what they deserve based entirely on TV headlines? Do you relate to them as humans? That’s what I need to see before I take anyone’s condemnation of any group of people seriously.

I’m disputing none of the facts you raise, I just don’t think it’s reason enough to label the entire country as an enemy state and shut the door like a petulant child. Especially in light of the horrifying atrocities that we ourselves are funding.

[marnett]

The pentagon, not US citizenry, decide the adversaries of the state.

GP is just stating that fact. The citizens’ opinion on the matter are irrelevant - the pentagon is not a democratic institution.

[alexjplant]

> China and the US have been in a massively successful, mutually beneficial global economic partnership for decades

Past performance is not indicative of future results. China is now grappling with sluggish GDP growth, declining fertility, youth unemployment, re-shoring/friend-shoring, a property crisis, popular discontent with authoritarian overreach (e.g. zero COVID and HK), and increasingly concentrated power under chairman-for-life Xi. Their military spending has hockey-sticked in the past two decades and they're churning out ships and weapons like nobody's business. He realizes that the demographic and economic windows of opportunity are finite for military action against Taiwan (and by extension its allies like the US and Japan). The Chinese military's shenanigans in the South China Sea with artificial islands, EEZ violations, and so forth in combination with Xi's rhetorical sabre-rattling in domestic speeches don't paint a pretty picture.

Before somebody like this poster calls me a "war-mongering [liar]" or something similar let me point out that this is the opinion of academics [1], not US DoD officials or politicians. I have nothing but reverence for China's people and culture. I'd love to visit but unfortunately it's my understanding that I'd have to install tracking software on my phone and check in with police every step of the way. This type of asymmetry between our governments is why this ban has legs.

With the gift of hindsight I think it's safe to say that neoliberal policy (in the literal sense of the term, not the hacky partisan one) is a double-edged sword that got us to where we are today. To say that the US-China relationship is sunshine and puppies is ignorant of the facts.

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/04/china-war-military-taiw...

[dmoy]

> I'd love to visit but unfortunately it's my understanding that I'd have to install tracking software on my phone and check in with police every step of the way.

Uh, what? I've never encountered this in my trips to China.

You do have an ID scanned (like literally, on a photocopier) when you check into a hotel.

[seanmcdirmid]

Ya, that’s whack. Even the police/hotel thing isn’t really that strict, it depends on the locality…

People think China is authoritarian with effective central control. The first part is right but the second part is far from the truth. China is a bit more lawless than the average western country.

[dmoy]

One time the ID check I got was a super old photo copier and the resulting (paper lol) image was basically unrecognizable. Hotel receptionist was like "not my fucking problem, oh well, welcome to the hotel"

[sabarn01]

That was the us policy for 20 years under the assumption that political liberalism with follow economic liberalism. It has not. This is also no one sided. China is preparing for conflict with the US so we must also. Yes hawks can push a country into war but so can doves.

[krunck]

Or the US is preparing for conflict with China, so China must also. But actually it's probably a two way feedback loop between the two of them that the ignoramuses that run each country love because it makes their jobs exciting and, probably, profitable.

[sabarn01]

All powers are mutually antagonistic and it prudent to prepare to confront each other. As long as thoes efforts are equally matched and neither side is prepared thinks it can gain an advantage the peace is held as it held during the cold war.

[whatshisface]

How does banning TikTok defend Taiwan?

[sabarn01]

Information warfare is a domain of war in the 21st century.

[glenstein]

The Scotus case linked to here by others has noted the possibility of tying networks of contacts to Tiktok user profiles, and network mapping political groups in Taiwan can be leveraged to support any number ventures to disempower the island's democracy-favoring majority.

[8note]

does the US ban apply to taiwanese people in taiwan?

[glenstein]

Only insofar as their support networks extend into the United States. But you're right to suggest that Taiwan should consider a ban also, over similar security concerns.

[stcroixx]

Do you dispute the persecution of Uyghurs in China? The UN, US Dept. of State, House of Commons in the UK and Canada, Dutch Parliament, French National Assembly, New Zealand, Belgium, and the Czech Republic?

This is not a government to be friends with. It's time we go our separate ways from the CCP.

[ppqqrr]

I do not dispute it (in fact if you have good sources on the latest goings-on about this issue I’d appreciate it). But to say that it’s cause enough to excommunicate the CCP and go to war… is hypocrisy of the highest order, when we ourselves clearly fund and condone massive atrocities as long as it’s someone else’s hands. Road to peace is not paved with blood, do not be confused. Peace comes from boring communication work: talking, arguing, hashing the problems out, day in and day out. Shutting the door is the first step to a tragedy, always.

[stcroixx]

I don't advocate war, but I'd prefer a relationship similar to Russia or North Korea. No trade whatsoever. No trade with nations that trade with China.

[ppqqrr]

Well, to a large extent, the reason Russia and North Korea are hopeless backwaters ruled by petty dictators and filled with suffering… is precisely because nobody would trade with or invest in them. And when they predictably fall into dysfunction and despair, they end up threatening everyone’s peace. You reap what you sow. We need to do better.

[azan_]

That's completely wrong. All of Europe heavily traded with Russia, and Germany even wanted to base their green transformation plan primarily on trade with Russia.

[synecdoche]

This argument is in my opinion backwards and therefore does not make sense. First willingness to do well by themselves must be demonstrated sufficiently to gain interest and trust, then healthy and mutually beneficial friendship may begin. On state as on individual level.

[seanmcdirmid]

> No trade with nations that trade with China.

You do realize that many countries are going to do the math and pick China right? You would basically be cutting us off from at least half of the world, and underground trade would flourish to china’s benefit. Russia and North Korea don’t really make anything we need (well, Russian titanium is nice), but more important, they don’t provide much value to other countries (Russian oil and gas, and that’s it). But China? Ya, good luck with that.

[stcroixx]

Maybe, but I don't think that would be the outcome. It's a risk I'd be willing to take. Personally I'd never side with communists for any reason at all, even if it meant my life became a little more difficult.

[8note]

in october, the US did >$300M of trade with russia. looks like trade with NK is quite small, but non-zero as well ( https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5790.html )

i imagine its much larger for both if you include bitcoin transactions

[russli1993]

Yes, I dispute, because all of that are lies and brainwashing done by USA government. Please show prove of 1 million Uyghur locked up in China, genocide. Or you should apologize for your lies to the world. You say there is genocide in 2018, now is 2024, where is the bodies, people desperate to escape? Ur ambassador to China spent his time riding on Chinese bullet trains funded by Chinese government and vacation in the country, instead of going to Xinjiang and rescue all the 1M Uyghur people locked up camps?? What is your military doing? Should you save these poor people? Xinjiang is free for anyone to travel. People are allowed to freely leave and enter with all its neighboring countries. And USA say they love the Uyghur people, and the way they show their support is ban all the products, every single one, made by Uyghur people? Lol, you are not fooling anyone here. It is a fact Uyghur people can freely leave China if they want. And it is a fact, Uyghur population increasing faster than the broader population. And u can travel in Xinjiang today, there is Uyghur language everywhere, on shops, street signs. Uyghur language is taught in every government funded schools. Did the American boarding schools for native Americans teach their own language? Today, Uyghur kids are running in the streets, freely, speaking in Uyghur. Why don't you get all the countries you listed to form coalition army to save the poor Uyghur souls? Your government officials should not shake Chinese government official hands and travel on Chinese government trains to vacation in the country. No more talking, only action.

[stcroixx]

Everyone outside China saw tankman and the other protesters get killed by the CCP in 1989. I think another group of brave Chinese like them will one day succeed in defeating the CCP and China will be welcomed into the international community.

[krapp]

My person in deity do I need to go down the list of genocides and atrocities the US has either participated in or funded in its long and bloodsoaked history? It's a long list but it ends with the billions of dollars in weapons, aid and personnel we sent to help Israel try to wipe out the Palestinians.

This isn't an attempt at whataboutism here, no one is denying that what China is doing to the Uyghurs is terrible, but the US and its allies have no moral high ground to stand on at all in this regard.

[stcroixx]

I do everything in my power to stop the US from funding Israel and any foreign war I think is immoral.

[corimaith]

Have you gone to Zhihu or Weibo and read what the Chinese are saying there about you guys? Here's a top thread on there with 12,000 likes - https://www.zhihu.com/question/460310859/answer/2046776391

>I might as well make this clear.

>Now, regarding the international situation, The biggest wish of most of us Chinese is that the United States disappears completely and permanently from this beautiful earth.

>Because the United States uses its financial, military and other hegemony to exploit the world, destroy the peace and tranquility of the earth, and bring countless troubles to the people of other countries, we sincerely hope that the United States will disappear.

>We usually laugh at the large number of infections caused by the new coronavirus pandemic in the United States, not because we have no sympathy, but because we really hope that the United States will disappear.

>We usually laugh at the daily gun wars in the United States, not because we don’t sympathize with the families that have been broken up by shootings, but because we really hope that the United States will disappear.

>We usually laugh at Americans for legalizing drugs, not because we support drugs, but because we really hope that the United States will disappear.When we scold American Olympic athletes, it's not because we lack sportsmanship, but because we really hope that America will disappear.

>We make fun of Trump and Sleepy Joe, not because we look down on these two old men, but because we really hope that the United States will disappear.

>We Chinese are hardworking, kind, reasonable, peace-loving and not extreme. But we really don't like America. Really, if the Americans had not fought with us in Korea in the early days of our country, prevented us from liberating Taiwan, provoked a trade war, challenged our sovereignty in the South China Sea, and bullied our Huawei, would we Chinese hate them?

And that's what Chinese netziens agree without controversy on one of their biggest social media sites. What about the CCP here? Well if we look at Wang Huning, Chief Ideologue of the CCP, he is explicitly an postliberal who draws from the Schmittian rejection of liberal heterogenity, which he sees as inherently unstable, in favour of a strong, homogenous and centralized state based on traditional values in order to guarantee stability. And if it that's just internally, how do you think a fundamental rejection of heterogenity translates to foreign policy? So yes, whether you think China is a problem, China certainly thinks you are a problem.

[popinman322]

It's always very interesting to see people pull out threads with low like counts (like 12k) and claim that central idea of the post is widely held.

We're talking about platforms with tens of millions of users; wide appeal is at least a quarter million likes, with mass appeal being at least a million. A local-scale influencer can gather 10-30k likes very easily on such a massive platform.

[corimaith]

Do you disagree then that's not a sentiment widely reflected within Chinese social media? I simply gave an example for brevity, other answers are similar, I would encourage people to actually go in and read themselves here.

[gunian]

Why argue we are on HN scrape US and China social networks. Have at least a 100 million posts from each. Do sentiment and topic extraction.

If it is based on one post I'm sure i can find a Reddit post talking about how non white people should be slaves it's the internet lol

[glenstein]

>It's always very interesting to see people pull out threads with low like counts (like 12k) and claim that central idea of the post is widely held.

In what context is 12k likes a low amount? To me this is reminiscent of arguments I heard from neocons that global anti-Iraq war protests, the largest coordinated global protests in history at the time, counted as "small" if you considered them in absolute terms as percentages of the global population.

I think it's the opposite, that such activities are tips of the proverbial iceberg of more broadly shared sentiment.

It would be one thing if there were all kinds of sentiments in all directions with roughly evenly distributed #'s of likes. I'm open to the idea that some aspect of context could be argued to diminish the significance, but it wouldn't be that 12k likes, in context, is a negligible amount. It would be something else like its relative popularity compared to alternative views, or some compelling argument that this is a one-off happenstance and not a broadly shared sentiment.

[ppqqrr]

bro literally citing chinese facebook comments ;) if you started taking pissed off internet comments seriously we'd have to go to war with every country in the world

look man, i'm not saying china is some heavenly force of justice. but the thing about peace is that it's bigger than both sides, and it's maintained by the grace of those who understand that often the real threat isn't the enemy, it's your fear of the enemy.

[corimaith]

>it's maintained by the grace of those who understand that often the real threat isn't the enemy, it's your fear of the enemy.

But how do you know that? Do you any such examples of how the CCP or China is dicussing politics amongst themselves to support that claim, their ideological leanings and papers or their own national strategies?

[gunian]

Sadly that's above the pay grade of everyone here only the rich folk that run the world get to see that on all sides :)

One idea would be to completely ignore news outlets and look at raw data imports, exports, official visits to try to identify geopolitical patterns algorithmically has anyone on HN attempted such a thing?

[senordevnyc]

That might be true, and yet it's also true that enemies are not just a fictional concept, and letting them have undue influence that weakens your society probably isn't a good idea.

[patmcc]

Ok, replace my sentence with "The New York Times must shut down unless all Chinese foreign owners divest"; does that change the analysis?

[zamadatix]

The ban is not rooted in the concept ByteDance has a minority of investors who are Chinese citizens so any comparisons framed around that concept will not change the analysis. The reason for the ban, agree with it or not, is the perceived control and data sharing with the Chinese government made possible by many things (mainly that they are HQ'd in that government's jurisdiction and then have all of these other potentially concerning details, not that they just have one of these other details).

If the NYT were seen as being under significant control of and risking sharing too much user data with the Chinese government then it would indeed make sense to apply the same ban.

Personally, I'm still on the fence about the ban. On one hand having asymmetry in one side banning such things and the other not is going to be problematic. On the other the inherent problems of banning companies by law. Such things work out in other areas... but will it work out in this specific type of example? Dunno, not 100% convinced either way.

[patmcc]

>>>mainly that they are HQ'd in that government's jurisdiction

ByteDance is; TikTok is not. TikTok is headquartered in USA and Taiwan. Why is that not part of the analysis? The CCP can control/influence ByteDance, the US can't do anything about that. But it could do a number of things to prevent ByteDance control/influence on TikTok, and it jumped directly to "must divest".

Congress could have passed a law banning TikTok from transmitting any user data back to ByteDance/China, for example. Why not do that, if that was the actual concern?

[glenstein]

Well, reporting as recent as April of 2024 suggested that Bytedance is able to access tiktok user data despite Operation Texas. And generally speaking, we have seen enough in the way of (1) security breaches and (2) leaky promises not to disclose data either to govts or 3rd party data brokers, only for those reassurances to fall flat. I would even go so far as to say that professions to uphold trade agreements or international agreements are uniquely "soft" in their seriousness from China in recent history.

Guarantees of insulation from bad actors from major tech companies unfortunately are not generally credible, and what is credible, at least relatively speaking, are guarantees imposed by technology itself such as E2E encryption and zero knowledge architecture, as well as contextual considerations like the long term track record of specific companies, details of their ownership and their physical locations.

[patmcc]

The reporting I found (from the Verge) was that an employee of TikTok (in America) would email spreadsheets to executives in China, and other similar cases of US employees having the actual access to data and passing it along to other folks in China.

This all suggests to me that the 'Operation Texas' technical controls were actually in place and pretty good (or dude in China would have just run some SQL himself), and what isn't in place is hard process control to prevent US workers from emailing stuff to China. Which, you know, is exactly what Congress could pass a law to deal with.

[glenstein]

I took the article to be absolutely damning in its reckoning on the utility of Operation Texas, precisely because it proved that no amount of technical control would be a match for the human infrastructure that tied Tiktok to China.

Which I suppose is a different way of making the same point as you.

[glenstein]

>Personally, I'm still on the fence about the ban. On one hand having asymmetry in one side banning such things and the other not is going to be problematic.

I wouldn't worry about that, as FB, twitter, reddit etc are banned in China. To the extent that we want equilibrium here, banning Tiktok would reprsent a step toward parity.

[zamadatix]

That's precisely what I'm saying in the quoted line. The thing is that's not the singular pro/con to consider here.

[IncreasePosts]

Yes, because the NYT is a publicly traded company. And it is majority-controlled by a single American family - the Sulzbergers. I'm not sure you could argue that a Chinese national owning a single share of NYT stock could have any kind of sway on the operation of the company. Could the same be said for the relationship China has with TikTok?

[thehappypm]

This is the reason right here. If TikTok was owned by North Korea, this wouldn't be controversial.

[russli1993]

Why not just nuke China then, without these pesky 1.4B people, the world will be a much better place! Otherwise, you are stuck with us, we 1.4B people will never leave this planet. So it's up to you if you want to convert 1.4B of us to your enemy or your friends. But so far, with all the attacks, bullying, theft you are doing to Chinese people, you are not wining any hearts and minds here. Believe it or not, a lot of Chinese people like the USA before 2016. Then with every attack, insult, theft, oppression you are pulling, you are converting your fans to people who despise you. Huawei's executives used to be biggest cheerleaders of USA. Bytedance founder and nearly all Chinese entrepreneurs loved the USA. Now with you stealing their asset, blackmailing, terrorizing them in broad daylight, people are shocked this is the true DNA, color and culture of USA. Protection of private assets? Nope. Freedom of speech? Nope? Humanity, reason, logic, love, trust? Nope? Pursuit of happiness? Nope. Human progress? Nope. Making all people on Earth's lives proper, no poverty, no starvation? Nope. It turns out USA is the biggest pirate, oppressor, dictator, bully in the world. USA say u care about human rights and freedom, what would democratic international relationships? What about the rights and freedom of 1.4B Chinese people to survive, live in dignity, peace, relative prosperity? And spare me Chinese people getting richer is bad thing for the USA. USA companies made trillions of Chinese market and 1.4B Chinese consumers. You only have this market if Chinese people have money. Your companies are stupidly rich and powerful. If you don't think Chinese people benefit your companies, please ban all of your companies from selling to Chinese market. Please no more all talk, no action, ban them now.

[ppqqrr]

draft published by mistake

[IncreasePosts]

Well, yes. Just like you're allowed to say who your biggest enemy or your best friend is, even if your biggest enemy or best friend don't feel the same way about you.

Anyways, who do you think China would say their #1 geopolitical adversary is?

[ppqqrr]

As far as i can tell, the Chinese care mostly about building and investing. They're aware that the US sees them as their "number one enemy" (what a childish, irresponsible way to refer to a nation of a billion, mostly innocent, people), and that the US has maintained its global domination since WWII by political assassinations, bombings, proxy wars, and half-assed failed invasions.

My advice? Stop using words like "geopolitical adversary" to mask what you really want to say. This is life, not a chessboard.

[IncreasePosts]

Please tell me what I really want to say, since you apparently know me better than I do.