Thank you for bringing the Great Firewall into the discussion, because it is pretty important that we have that context. I think this is actually a lot more relevant to the conversation than any notion of seeking to negate a competitive advantage.

Recently, it occurred to me that the Great Firewall could be more of a tool for foreign policy, not domestic policy. If China for instance wanted to attack US's critical infrastructure, they could do so without damaging their own. Russia has recently employed such a system for their country's internet services, if I recall correctly.

It may very well be that this is what is motivating the TikTok madness here in the US. Left to their own devices, perhaps the fear is that China will weaponize TikTok against its US users, with no way to "great firewall" ourselves from those outcomes. Since we cannot use this strategy without angering the rest of the world on the "open internet" we have to resort to different measures.