Trump's WeChat ban threatens Apple's smartphone sales in China
asia.nikkei.com
asia.nikkei.com
Unless there are ways (via VPN etc) to temporarily switch a phone to the Chinese appstore and install wechat for a US phone this way.
It makes them feel powerful. So there's at least one reason.
Well there's 45 days to lobby. Apple will be inconvenienced even by Americans with Chinese background and iphones. A large chunk of them switching to rooted Android versions will not be good news to Apple (or Google, for that matter.) And I think they will, seeing how dependent many are on weChat.
Besides, Apple is isn’t in the same boat as Google or Facebook where Trump is targeting because Apple is “unfair to conservatives” nor does he have the personal animosity he has toward Amazon because Bezos owns the Washington Post.
[1] Apple is only doing final assembly of MacPros designated for the US in the US. They are doing the same thing in other countries so they can say they are manufacturing Mac Pros in their country.
The problem with Constitutional "authority" is that it relies on good faith, as the government is really just policing itself. If a President asks 'who is going to stop me?', they will quickly find out the answer is 'nobody.'
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA)
the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)
section 301 of title 3, United States Code
Who is going to reign him? The Senate? Federal judges who he appointed?
That's not how it works. It has to be obeyed until invalidated by a court.
You can't just tell a law enforcement agency, "I know the president said x, but that's unconstitutional."
Law enforcement is not lawyers, or constitutional scholars. That's for the judiciary to sort out.
Plus, most of Trump's policies of late with China has to do with the new Silk Road. The new Silk Road is seeing China expand(land grabs) into other countries, and take over strategic points. Since, a lot of China's economy is from foreign trade, the more US makes trade difficult the harder it is for China to expand. Time, will tell if this strategy works or not, when China becomes the #1 superpower/economy in the world(speculation, but is looking more likely).
At the moment, China is a huge market for technology and entertainment, and companies who refuse to do business with them, accept investments from them, etc. on moral grounds clearly cannot compete with companies who are willing to bend over backwards for the chance to dip their hands in the infinite money bucket.
We cannot let an authoritarian government exert so much control over our technology, movies, television, games, and social media. If we do, democracy is already lost.
For me, the big test will be the NBA.
It has stated that it will allow players to display social justice messages on their jerseys. It has also punished people for supporting Hong Kong.
If I had a million dollars, I'd pay some big name basketball star to put "Free Hong Kong" on his jersey, just to watch the fireworks.
If people actually believe enforcing a ban like this will in any way hurt Tencent or CCP then that is just ridiculous. This will only accelerate the already growing Anti-American sentiment in China. And the new Wechat app with a different name will be out maybe in a week or something.
Wechat is a very different case as compared to TikTok with vastly different use cases and user groups. The reasons behind why people use the two apps are fundamentally different.
IIRC the executive order doesn't address WeChat/TikTok directly, but instead forbids interactions with their parent companies. I think this means that the ban can't be worked around by just reskinning the app. Not sure how it would work with shell companies, though.
WeChat and TikTok are being banned simply because they are Chinese.
If you're Chinese, you'll appreciate the casual contempt openly expressed in the frequently referenced epithet "laiwai" 老外. And ask any foreign businessman in China if they're discriminated against.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...
That is against the law in the U.S.
Do you really think that is a strong argument? We're cutting some Chinese companies out for some reasons, some of which are privacy, some of which are ideological (protectionist/privacy), some of which are petty. They cut some western companies out for some reasons, some of which are content based, some of which are ideological (content/privacy), some of which are petty.
If we begin from an understanding of the actual situation - that Western companies have a massive presence in China, far beyond the presence that Chinese companies have in the West - then we can have a conversation. But these conversations almost always begin from the exact opposite premise.
The only sanctions levied because "they are owned by Communists who have over a million people in forced re-education camps" have been on 11 Chinese suppliers that have been barred from obtaining some US licenses.
So you have to accept that pretty absolutely nothing is happening because of that, and thats what you are going to have to tell your children when they are old enough to ask.
Except at Wal-Mart. Where non-Chinese goods are so rare they get special labels and promotion.
The problem is that it hurts America and Americans.
It hurts Americans that want to use these apps, and it hurts Americans that work at these companies (TikTok has a lot of American employees). It also has broader ramifications (damages the rule of law, dis-incentivizes foreign investment in the U.S., and so on).