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Comment by coliveira | Hacker News Reader

The US is acting like a desperate country that has no idea what it is doing. It is evident to the whole world that the US doesn't want to compete at the level of high technology, which is what the Chinese have achieved in the last couple of years. Whenever a country tries to create a fence around it, then it is just displaying weakness. It would be much more constructive for the US to recognize that they're getting behind in the technology game and compete as adults.

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> The US is acting like a desperate country that has no idea what it is doing

The US Administration is acting like a desperate regime that knows exactly what it is doing trying to generate a foreign crisis to distract from domestic political problems to generate a rally-around-the-flag effect.

I agree with that. In fact it seems like Trump is trying very hard to start a new war before the election.

Remember Iran earlier this year, a very similar situation.

It is evident to the whole world that the US doesn't want to compete at the level of high technology, which is what the Chinese have achieved in the last couple of years

Not sure where this is coming from. TikTok is being banned out of national security interests, not because it is an advanced level of technology that the US thinks it can't compete with.

> TikTok is being banned out of national security interests

I think you meant to say “a thinly-veiled guise of national security interests.”

TikTok is being banned because it’s election season and Trump doesn’t want a repeat of Tulsa.

And yet, the US is not the first country to ban TikTok for national security reasons, if I'm remembering India's recent actions correctly.

I don't think this is about competition. It's about a belligerent foreign government posing a threat to national security.

Now you could argue that's a classic Dubya style ad hoc excuse designed to mask the government's true intentions with this, but I really don't think so. China's behavior is a legitimate threat for which shrugging and saying "let the free market handle it" seems an incredibly dangerous stance to take in my opinion.

China can harm the US with trade regulations much, much more than the US can harm China.

Trump is playing with fire here and it’s honestly not very smart. Not when the US has outsourced its industry to China.

The US also has guns.

So does China.

The US cannot win a war against China. China can ramp up production of military equipment faster than the US can sign a war declaration.

No, it can't. China is an export economy that depends on foreign countries (primarily the US) buying its goods. Trade regulations hurt China more than they hurt the US by simple math. This fact is upheld by a review of China's pre-COVID GDP data.

This makes no sense. China constructed the largest fence in the world to achieve what you say they achieve, then you say constructing a fence is showing weakness. This is utter nonsense.

"The US needs to recognize they're behind the game and behave like adults" okay so who is the adults? China? Then this IS behaving like adults as I outlined.

China has more fences then America.. great firewall, banned social media apps...

There is desperation here. But I think it is mostly Trump's: The election is less than 3 months away and absolutely everything is going pear-shape. He's diverting and deflecting. Chine is one issue is can appear strong. Banning tiktok is fluff that serves no other purpose than helping him for November.

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