> Why the Western world accepts as legitimate the products of a closed society that relies on ubiquitous censorship and withholds free access to the outside world through a national firewall is hard for me to fathom. I have lived in China, South Korea, and Taiwan off and on for decades and believe the people of PRC deserve better.

I agree, people of many countries deserve much better. However restricting trade, sanctions, undermining diplomatic relationships etc rarely do anything other than harm the citizens of the country. It's difficult but not impossible to tell someone off while doing the same thing yourself.

As far as national security goes, the US has a checkered history of interfering with other countries.

As far as the rights of citizens within a country again a checkered modern history.

As far as political manipulation .... etc etc, I think you get the picture.

I am not saying the US is as bad as China, but some of their actions would surely deserve reprimand as well. But I doubt the US is sitting there and doing this for the "concerns" of the residents of these countries.

Now in the case of TikTok, I think this is a great case for protection of data in ALL countries. GDPR is a good example of this.