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Comment by logicchains | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if Baidu, Tencent, et al. have donated anything to these anti-monopoly efforts? Seems like a great way for China to convertly influence America to advance China's own interests, and those companies are in bed with the government so they'd have the resources to do so.

*Edit: to whoever flagged this, I'm curious why you think it's so unlikely. Given China's history of state-sponsored espionage and technology transfer to assist its own companies, why wouldn't it be eager to support something that would benefit its own companies even more by breaking up their biggest competitors?

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I really doubt the US government would let a Chinese monopoly take the place of Amazon. Tensions are only rising with China right now.

Even if it banned the company from America, it couldn't stop it spreading overseas. Like TikTok, which is already eating Facebook and Instagram's lunch.

What you’re arguing is “monopolies are OK because China does it”.

If we’re arguing about power grabs then what happens if China gets more powerful because they have an authoritarian government?

Does that mean the US needs needs to be authoritarian now too? No thanks.

> Does that mean the US needs needs to be authoritarian now too? No thanks.

I think that the concern you touched upon is essentially the lose-lose quagmire that we as a country arrived at during the onset of the cold war, a war that I believe never truly ended. To answer your question: the problem with mutually assured destruction doctrine is that it necessarily results in an arms race that no superpower can pull out of. Sadly, I question whether a country can be a superpower without also trending more in the authoritarian direction.

It's not about okay or not okay, it's just pointing out that breaking up Amazon could actually result in worse outcomes for America.

We’ll be deeper into a Cold War at that point where our allies will need to make decisions about who they’re siding with.

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