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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

The Chinese government carefully controls foreign access to its market already (unlike the US), and already bans quite a few foreign companies from operating on the Chinese Internet (again, unlike the US).

I imagine Apple already complies with whatever they need to comply with in order to make the Chinese government happy.

> 'cos we're all equal, no?

No, we absolutely aren't. The Chinese government has ensured for decades now that foreign businesses have only tightly controlled access to the Chinese people while Chinese-owned (i.e., easily controllable by the Chinese government) businesses have advantages not given to outsiders. (And those outsiders need to open up a Chinese subsidiary that is majority-owned by Chinese investors/companies.)

On the other hand, most Western countries have given Chinese companies near-unfettered access to their markets.

If anything, this TikTok ban is actually making things more equal, if only by a tiny bit.

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> If anything, this TikTok ban is actually making things more equal, if only by a tiny bit.

I do t use tiktok and have no skin in the game as an EU resident, but setting a precedent for this kind of behaviour to permit clthe government to simply block anything it wants is basically following in CCPs footsteps, that's certainly not a good thing in my eyes.

This is not a new precedent. The US government has placed foreign-ownership restrictions on media companies since before the public internet was a thing. The only difference here is that it's targeted at a specific company, but I'm not really up in arms about that, even though I think they definitely could have written the law without naming ByteDance or TikTok specifically.

Not just media companies, the government block a Japanese company from buying US Steel. Not out of antitrust concerns but due to the foreign ownership aspect.

Yup, and that was done against one of our most loyal allies.

Yep, but people don't pay attention to history anymore and their ignorance keeps us repeating it.

Did they ever?

I think more people in government did because they actually were educated and not just all grifters.

Numerous examples of China-says-jump-everyone-says-how-high.

NBA, any company that makes anything within China using slavery, the guy/actor/wrestler (the name escapes me right now) who had to learn Chinese to apologize. Take your pick of "precedent".

1bn customers = a lot of money. A company that will kiss the ring will do the right thing by its shareholders and a nasty thing against humanity. I am 200% sure that Apple has given the keys for all users/phones/servers in China to the gov/CCP and nobody complained.

If North Korea had 1bn potential customers, we would be seeing Kim very differently.

We are cattle. It's all a 1984-ish sham.

Historically China has been so large and 'diverse' (not to be confused with DEI) (like India and Russia). It's not "one chinese person is just like anyone else". There are multiple Republics/States/etc. It takes an emperor to keep together an empire. And that usually requires (plenty of) violence.

Communism is built to make people suffer, remove individuality and requires total obedience and personal reformation to be the 'good citizen'. You and me both are EU citizens. We are all different and we respect/accept each other. In China if you disagree, you disappear. They would very much like to do the same to the rest of the world. And one day they will, just not yet. I hope they implode before they do (like all empires).

(apologies for the grim tone)(I suggest "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8)

> NBA, any company that makes anything within China using slavery, the guy/actor/wrestler (the name escapes me right now) who had to learn Chinese to apologize. Take your pick of "precedent".

Houston Rockets GM and James Harden:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harden#Politics

* https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/nbas-apo...

* https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27787634/james-harden-ap...

John Cena was probably the wrestler HenryBemis was referring to. Although he started learning Chinese a long time ago, not for the purpose of apologizing. A couple years ago he called Taiwan a country, then issued an apology.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/john-cena-very...

As an EU resident your govt likely exerts far more control over media (both domestic and foreign owned) than the US

> As an EU resident your govt likely exerts far more control over media (both domestic and foreign owned) than the US

Wild statement, so lets look at some data.

https://fr.statista.com/statistiques/1337388/classement-pays...

These are a list of the freedom of press in the EU with their corresponding indexes.

Lets compare that to the US : https://rsf.org/en/country/united-states

Index 2024 Score : 66.59

Not looking good for your opinion but lets look at some more that are consumer privacy focused, which was my main point.

https://iapp.org/resources/article/countries-at-a-glance-pri...

IAPP isn't a bad source IMO but hard to evaluate their methods, but lets see.

> Level of understanding about data collection and use

Netherlands : Weak - 14% USA : Weak - 24%

Not great, I could spend time finding more, but the summary is that the EU has regulations that require companies to limit the useage of consumers information and privacy. The EU is consumer privacy focused, wheras the US seems to be Enterprise & Organisation focused, also it's state level enforcements fracture enforcement even further.

Lets look at the US CCPA vs GDPR :

A crucial difference is that GDPR requires individuals to opt-in before businesses can collect data while there is no opt-in condition in CCPA.

That should say it all.

Edit : I forgot to add, outside of Sanctions the EU has no control to simply decide to ban a company when it feels like it.

You start off sounding like you're arguing against the idea that the EU exerts more control over media than the US, but then most of what you said seems to support the fact that they do so.

Am I misreading what your intent?

I am saying the EU does not exert 'control' they protect citizens interests via regulations. Its a different model.

Regulations are for the companies.. But they're not banned. It's a different model to the US.

To clarify. Companies are not banned.. they're fined (often not enough) until they align..

Protecting people is always the justification. “We aren’t restricting your freedom, we are protecting you.” That governments seek to “protect” people from words on a page is wild to me.

> regulations are for the companies. But they’re not banned.

So if they don’t follow the regulations they simply keep paying fines indefinitely? Until they run out of money? Until the company goes out of business? We aren’t banning those companies, instead we’ll attempt to bankrupt them if they stay in our markets; unless they do what we say. In other words, extortion?

I see your point, but those regulations are also given with full justifications, backed up by research etc.

This tiktok issue was brought under 'national security' with what feels like a "Trust me bro".

After the invasion of Ukraine, the EU blocked a number of outlets for spreading pro-Russian disinformation (RT, Sputnik for example) so this would be nothing new.

Ah, but you see, pigs are in fact more equal than other animals

I feel like takes like these are coming from a place of extreme naivete, or worse, nihilism. Either people don't understand why it's problematic that our most influential social media platform among basically everyone age 0-30 is fully controlled by the CCP, or people really think the CCP wouldn't use its ability to control any Chinese company to aggressively mold US public opinion in concert with their inevitable invasion of the democratic country Taiwan,

or... the nihilistic option:

People know China would engage in information warfare using TikTok in a situation like that, but they foolishly think the CCP is on even moral ground with free democracies so none of this matters, and we've gotta keep the funny musical memes flowing.

For all one's misgivings about the US -- and there are many valid ones! -- before deciding these governments are equal, talk to a Chinese political dissident, if you can find one, since they sometimes disappear.

Actually what’s scary for Apple, and really for all companies with assets or factories still in China is that recently China prevented Apple from shipping its own equipments out of China to India. China is so fearful of even more unemployments that it is now willing to upset one of its largest employer.

Foxconn stops sending Chinese workers to India iPhone factories In addition, equipment shipments are delayed, potentially disrupting next-generation iPhone production in India.

https://restofworld.org/2025/china-foxconn-factoriesfoxconn-...

You really have to be braindead as a COO if you do not have contingency plan to move stuff out of China this year.

> unlike the US

The US is not a master piece of freedom. Want to market or own foreign shares? Want to travel to Cuba? Have you gone through the crazy US border control process as a foreigner?

Yes, China is absolutely worse. But the US is not a good example.

I never claimed the US was perfect, just better. I think using it as an example is fine. No country is perfect by any metric; everything is a matter of comparison over who is better or worse on a particular thing.

> Want to market or own foreign shares?

ADRs work for that, no?

> Want to travel to Cuba? Have you gone through the crazy US border control process as a foreigner?

I agree those things are bad, but they have nothing to do with market access, which is the topic at hand.

I have a London stock exchange trading account with Schwab. I think I opened it online. The only catch is that I can only deposit or withdraw funds via my US Schwab account.

Well if we aren't going to get the actual fruits of capitalism I'm for damn sure going to fight it tooth and nail at home. Shit sucks and I can't think of anyone I trust less than an American capitalist.

> The Chinese government carefully controls foreign access to its market already (unlike the US)

Is there any reason you’re skipping the past 40+ years of turmoil in the Middle East purely from the US trying to control oil fields? Because Iran would like a word with, and there’s a hell lot of other countries behind them waiting their turn

Perhaps I misunderstand your point, but the US obviously doesn't have any issue meddling in other country's economies or political systems. The US also obviously allows foreigners to business in the US without many restrictions. Is this the "free market" I keep hearing about? I don't know.

The OP was contrasting this with China, that does not allow foreigners access to their markets. As a regular American, quite honestly, I would like a bit of protectionism from the US, as I recently bought a house and had to compete with cash offers from Chinese banks. It's insane to me that we allow foreigners to buy property here, while our own citizens are being increasingly priced out of our own country.

Isn’t that how laissez faire capitalism works - the person with the higher bid gets the sale, not based on central planned rules of which country the current administration is beefing with that day?

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