Like, no company is allowed in US/Europe if it does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state? Isn't it how conforming to local rules and regulations should work?
UPD: clarification due to people mentioning Mercedes, etc: my comment was mostly directed at internet companies.
But not even US or most Europe formally recognizes Taiwan as a country. In Europe only Holy See in Vatican recognizes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
What if... just what if a few decades ago WTO didn't take Chinese word for it?
Similarly, Google did not want to enforce Chinese censorship in their search engine, so their services were slowly banned, too.
Both companies do follow censorship laws in other countries, like Germany, albeit much more reasonable ones. These are laws that chinese companies must follow, too, but western companies couldn't justify it to their employees, investors and governments, so they pulled out. TikTok would probably be fine with handing over protester data to the FBI if asked.
A larger point to press the Chinese on when it comes to economic access are forced joint ventures, which have for example been largely abolished for the EU and are generally receding in importance.
Another issue is IP theft, and a court system that (according to some) favors Chinese companies over foreign ones. However, instead of trying to change how China treats our companies, the new way seems to be to just trying to reduce access of chinese companies. The bans of Huawei for example are actually discriminatory, and the idea that TikTok must be sold to be allowed to continue to operate was pretty outrageous. Biden seems to continue with Trumps policies in that regard, but with a much softer touch.
It’s a totally fair point, but who knows how it would have all ended. We’ll see what happens next year when Xi is up for lifetime appointment. I feel like that’s the world’s one chance to change China.