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TikTok has only recently had any competitors from the west, and WeChat is still far and beyond any chat platform the west has offered. I have extreme doubt the western companies would at all be able to compete in China. They don't get the culture, they have inferior features and inferior user experience.

In fact, if the west weren't so racist I suspect WeChat would dominate just like TikTok is dominating in the west.




That's the thing is that WeChat can exist in the US. In fact it does. It just doesn't get any traction except with Chinese Nationals communicating with their families.

It's kind of absurd to think that platforms that literally dominate every single country in the world like Google and Facebook wouldn't similarly dominate in China if they were just allowed. TikTok is the first Chinese social app that's had any success in the West. That's why we're talking about this now and never needed to discuss it with WeChat.

It's absolutely crazy that Chinese companies can compete fairly in Western markets yet the Chinese government can close their markets to Western companies. IMO, a trade war with China is long overdue. China hasn't played fairly in any sense . Trade wars suck for all involved but if you're not willing to do them, why would China not play by a double standard?


> It's absolutely crazy that Chinese companies can compete fairly in Western markets yet the Chinese government can close their markets to Western companies.

The actual state of affairs is that Western companies do much more business in China than vice versa. It's been that way ever since China began opening up in the 1980s.

There are more theoretical barriers to trade in China than in most developed countries, but that doesn't change the fact that there's more actual Western investment in China than vice versa. Whether China's protectionist measures (which have lessened over time) are acceptable depends on your ideas about economic development. There's a very respectable economic tradition (stretching back to Alexander Hamilton) that says that developing countries should enact certain protectionist measures. Most developed countries got where they are today using some level of protectionist policies (the US, Japan and South Korea are a few prominent examples).


I agree with much of your argument in general but you seem to skew the reality of the situation in a very big way. China is the second largest economy in the world. By GDP measures, they have a long way to go but all of that wealth and control is in the hands of a very small group of people. As a nation-state, China is extremely powerful and should be held to exactly the same standards as other powerful nation-states. From the perspective of foreign policy, the state of development is derived from the ability of a country to project power. China can absolutely do this.

Given China's autocratic government, the conflation of economic and government interests is impossible to separate. This makes protectionist policies of China a dire risk to the West. The ability of social media in particular to undermine democratic elections should now be clear. The simple unregulated profit motive of Facebook has proved harmful enough. A Chinese controlled Facebook equivalent in the United States would be disastrous.


China is still a developing country, even though it has a very large economy (due to its large population). Expecting or demanding that it remove all protectionist measures is wrong, in my opinion.

On the other hand, in these discussions, most people massively play up Chinese protectionism, and seem to have a wildly skewed picture of what the economic relationship between China and developed countries is. Claims that China excludes most Western companies are so massively at variance with reality that it's impossible to have a conversation after that.

> This makes protectionist policies of China a dire risk to the West.

The West has benefitted enormously from trade with China and investment in the country. The problem, from the perspective of the US, isn't Chinese protectionism, but rather the end of American hegemony. How far the US will go in order to maintain its position is something we should all be very worried about.

> The ability of social media in particular to undermine democratic elections should now be clear.

I don't think social media is undermining democracy. The hoopla about Russia after the last election really descended into hysteria, and there was never anything really significant uncovered. The Internet Research Agency had essentially zero impact on the election. The "worst" thing the Russians supposedly did (and I'm not sure if they actually did it) was handing DNC emails over to WikiLeaks. But it was good that those emails were published. They showed the DNC conniving against Bernie, which is something the public had a right to know about.


Again, you're misunderstanding the difference between GDP and foreign policy. China has a low GDP, which I mentioned but a giant economy. Think of it like Apple has a $1.9T market cap and 130,000 employees and Amazon has a $1.6T market cap with 800,000 employees. From a foreign policy perspective, the number of employees doesn't matter. It's only the ability to project power into other countries. China is not a developing country. It only feigns to be.

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" — Sun Tzu

The problem with China, again to repeat myself, is that there is significant overlap between the economic and foreign policy interests of China. Whereas American companies only care about making more money, Chinese companies want to both make money and extend Chinese influence.

This is terrible for democracies so easily swayed by unregulated emergent technologies like social media. If all you think Russia did was leak documents, I think you far underestimate their impact. An underdog candidate without majority popular support became president by the smallest margins. Democracy only works if its influenced by people who actually care if it succeeds. Foreign influence of any kind rots it at its core. This is the goal of China and Russia (although they may approve of different candidates).

This isn't a problem of America losing its hegemony in the world. It's a problem where foreign influences help elect a leader that has led to the unnecessary deaths of more than 100K Americans. The USA is no saint but China and Russia literally seek to elevate themselves at any cost. Allowing any Chinese companies influence over American citizens is an absolute disaster. They won't simply seek to make money in the USA, they will try to extend Chinese national interests at the cost of American lives.

I'm not sure if you're the type of person simply trying to seem intelligent by arguing against the popular stance or if you truly believe what you say. In either case, I don't see why a smart person such as yourself would defend the reputation of such a country. The future will judge us based on our inaction towards the suffering of the Uighurs and Tibetans.


> The problem with China, again to repeat myself, is that there is significant overlap between the economic and foreign policy interests of China.

As is the case for every country. Do you seriously believe that US foreign policy is agnostic about US companies' economic interests?

> foreign influences help elect a leader

Blaming your problems on malign foreign powers is something Trump would do. The US elected Trump. Blaming his election on Russia is ridiculous.

This really sounds like a new Red Scare. The Democrats tried it with Russia after the 2016 election, and the Republicans are trying it with China now. The US has plenty of its own problems. Blaming foreign influence is ridiculous.

> The future will judge us based on our inaction towards the suffering of the Uighurs and Tibetans.

Or on the destructive actions we were manipulated into supporting through atrocity propaganda. Every few years, the US public is told about some new ultimate evil it must face. How many times will this pattern be repeated before people learn? Iraqi society destroyed. Libyan society destroyed. Syrian society destroyed.


Everything is a spectrum. The USA is by no means perfect nor exempt from many criticisms. But if you are truly unwilling to acknowledge the differences along that spectrum then any discussion between us is pointless. I hope both the USA and China find ways to lessen the ceaseless suffering in the world. I have some hope for the US. I have little hope for any autocracy.




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