Why does the rest of the world tolerate American bullying is beyond me. At least in Europe, we should ban every Facebook app immediately. This would have the added benefit of letting regional apps emerge.
Most US "bullying" that we experience in the EU is just Silicon Valley absorbing our top IT talent (after _our_ tax payers have bankrolled everyone's university education in full). There's no need for actual bullying because we don't even have any killer apps, much less our own hardware or operating systems that the US could possibly ban.
The world is so reliant on SWIFT currently that America can grind your commerce to a halt if you don't refuse to do business with entities it doesn't want you to.
(I realize this current TikTok action is domestic-only and unrelated to SWIFT, but I'm speaking more broadly).
This isn't a technical problem (one can transfer money other ways as well, for example). If an entity does business with Iran it risks being put on the US Entity List (think Huawei) or other sanctions. US influence currently is still far reaching and many businesses don't want to risk (future) complications for little gain (Iran isn't that large of an economy). The calculus changes if it is a market as large as China, though.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Germany-O...
The media is trying its darnedest to paint China as the biggest bully, except it doesn't even compare to US in real world.
It's way worse than any worst business deal.
South China sea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Phillipines, Tibet, India, Japan.
China literally builds a fake island to claim the territory.
China doesn't aim to trade with us. They just want to take the land.
When US wants to install an army in these countries, they at least make a business deal that has expiry date.
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Europe and US are in a very strong relationship. They can work out whatever dispute they have. Europe and US generally want a win-win situation with each other.
Can we say the same about China? Nope.