U.S. President Donald Trump has issued executive orders to ban any U.S. transactions with WeChat, the messaging app owned by Tencent Holdings, and ByteDance, owner of TikTok, within 45 days, describing the Chinese-owned companies as threats to national security.
“The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China . . . continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” said Trump in the two executive orders signed on Thursday.
I definitely think the world should impose severe sanctions on China and western companies working with them for the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs and other minority groups, as well as the forced labour used to make Apple computers and Nike shoes. There’s also something intuitively wrong with China blocking and censoring western applications, platforms, and media – something many western companies comply with all too eagerly – all the while expecting Chinese state-owned or state-controlled companies to have complete freedom to collect and possibly spy everywhere else.
That being said, the Trump regime is not exactly known for coherent, consistent, and well thought-out policies, and these executive orders probably have more to do with diverting attention away from the complete and utter failure of the regime’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis and the upcoming election than anything else. These orders will probably be watered down over the coming weeks, so their value in putting pressure on China will be minimal.
Two things always happen when you point out atrocities committed by China. First, people point to problems in the US in a massive case of whataboutism, as if the problems in the US excuse a genocide in China. On top of that, if you think the admittedly big problems in the US means the US is a genocidal totalitarian fascist dictatorship, your false equivalency is so false it can shatter glass for kilometres around.
Second, apologists will say something along the lines of “okay, so you have nothing made in China?” This is a silly point to make. As individual consumers, it is literally impossible to avoid products made in China or other murderous regimes – just think of where your oil comes from. No, it’s governments and large corporations that have the power to put pressure on China, and so far, they have failed hard. They’ve been letting a genocide happen under their very noses, and once again, they choose to look away, because they value money more than human lives.
It’s always a struggle to go into politics on a tech website and it almost certainly makes me impopular, but since virtually all our technology is almost entirely or partly made in China, it’s impossible to ignore it and look away. Awareness is the first step, and covering your ears and eyes won’t make the problems go away. By letting our governments and the corporations we buy from get away with choosing money over human lives – money that we ordinary people do not benefit from anyway, since most of it ends up in the pockets of the ultra-wealthy anyway – none of this will ever change.
Trump and his administration couldn’t give two shits about what’s happening in China internally. This is nothing more than a temper tantrum by an insecure & immature little imbecile president who is enraged by the fact that vast numbers of largely young people are using TikTok to shit all over and make a fool of him. TikTok/China only became a `national security threat` after TikTok users tricked him into thinking his “big comeback rally” was expecting over a million attendee’s. He ran around bragging about that million+ number leading up to the rally, where a massively embarrassing 6,200 people showed up. With everyone laughing at him and his utterly disastrous campaign launch, now sudden China and TikTok are a matter of national security. TikTok users haven’t let up so what does president snowflake do? Try to force TikTok’s owners to sell to an American company, and try to extort a big chunk of the money. I wonder why he doesn’t try that with all the other companies engaged in data mining… sorry, I mean “spying”. I guess as long as you’re not pointing a spotlight on how big on an idiot Trump is, you stay off his radar and can data mine your ass off.
>now sudden China
People have rightly recognized China as a growing threat for decades. They have territorial disputes with almost every neighboring power which have already resulted in conflicts and now they’ve also taken to claiming territory thousands of km away from the Chinese mainland, claiming waters literally right off the coast of The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, … with their utterly ridiculous nine dash line
People are weary because they fear provoking war but by ignoring it they’re ensuring it. Appeasement doesn’t work with these kinds of expansionist regimes. They’ll push and push — it’s worked out so far — until they force someone into a corner with no choice but to fight back and then all bets are off.
So basically China is now what the US was 100 years ago.
Could be. Not sure specifically what territory disputes in 1920-ish you’re referencing but could be. Times were different then and that sort of thing was the norm.
The difference is that since then (its called ‘the post war settlement’, post second war that is) most major countries have agreed to at least theoretically respect sovereign borders. In the old days countries were always trying to pinch a bit of land here, a bit there. Now that is regarded as giving you a great deal of moo for very little milk, so you are supposed to come up with a better excuse for argie-bargies, obnoxious gunboat diplomacy and war (and boy are there lots of better excuses to choose from).
But as the post you responded to was pointed out, China has been explicit: It doesn’t respect *any* other country’s borders if that interferes with its mandate from heaven.
That is different because it is rejecting a settled international convention, not going with it (as might have been the case if this were happening 100 years ago). Unless of course I am betraying my ignorance of early 20th century American history.
You don’t even have to go back one century. The 2 decades of this one serve as perfect example: the US has been engaged in a war lasting almost 20 years where you invaded at least 2 countries.
That’s right and China could be called out on any number of things but that’s not what Trump and his administration are doing. Trump couldn’t care less what happens elsewhere in the world. As far as he’s concerned, if the problem isn’t on `our` doorstep, it’s not `our` problem. And, his recent actions against TikTok are clear retaliation for the constant embarrassment users of the platform dish up for him. Our president seemingly hates everything America stands for, especially the First Amendment. There’s nothing he would like more than to be able to jail anyone and everyone who says anything bad about him. The last thing `Dear Leader` Trump is going to let slide is being shit on and made a fool of by a ton of internet kids.
I wonder where the USA is going to get their Internet censoring software from?
“diverting attention away from the complete and utter failure of the regime’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis”
Care to enlighten us on how exactly this was an “utter failure”, and how you would have done so much better, Thom, given the same limited knowledge at the same time? Banned travel from China to the US sooner? Trump was lightning fast on that front. Allow the states to decide for themselves? Oh yeah, he did that. I love all of the hindsight geniuses, but I really never hear much in the way of how they would have done things better.
I’d prefer to get my tech news here, minus the political vomit. So yes let’s talk about the pros and cons of banning TikTok, and whether it’s dangerous, but let’s also stop the political vomit.
I also prefer to read tech news that is focused on tech.
Agreed. Regardless of political affiliation, I come here for tech and news about operating systems not political editorial.
“Care to enlighten us on how exactly this was an “utter failure”,”
In what way is it not an utter failure? Compared to almost every other 1st-world country, the US is utterly failing at this. Likewise, you can take a look at almost any other 1st world country to see how things could have been managed better.
I don’t know if you are an American or not. However from conversations with US colleagues who seem to think this, it seems largely to be because they aren’t really interested in finding out how other countries are doing. America has made all its own interesting mistakes but its death-rate is lower than many European countries. Why must everything always be so melodramatic with the US? We’re the best! We’re the worsest of the worst! And we have no actual interest in quantifying or checking!
(I’m actually responding more to my American colleagues than you, jaylaa, now I come to think about it. One of them told a group of Britons like me on a group call, “I bet you’re glad you’re not over here, its a disaster!” Mate, we have twice the deaths-per-capita. That’s not a secret. You really don’t check foreign news do you?)
Yeah, I agree, the US seems to have a deep-rooted attitude that other countries’ solutions wont work for the US, and they always have to do things their own way.
Sadly, it’s because I had the UK in mind that I wrote “most 1st-world countries” instead of “all 1st-world countries”. I’m really surprised at the situation there. I tried reading about what the problem is, but didn’t really see anything concrete as to why the UK is doing worse than Europe.
Its a bit of a mystery. Best anyone can say is related to the timing of lockdown and travel bans, especially because the scientific opinion given to HM government thought it would take twice as long to spread as it actually did. But UK’s response in both lockdown and travel bans is not remarkably lax compared with Europe.
The only thing to go on is, basically, Heathrow. The world’s busiest international hub ‘in’ (next to) the middle of the biggest city in Europe. The damage was possibly already done by February.
Pretty simple: it’s all about rapid response.
Not that the response itself is much different. It’s also about social distancing, masks and good tracing/quarantine.
The country which acted fasted is probably Vietnam, which until a month or so ago had 0 deaths. They closed their borders very quickly keeping it out of the country.
“Care to enlighten us on how exactly this was an “utter failure””
Read a newspaper?
160K deaths in 3 months, highest number of cases, US nationals are basically sealed from entering the rest of the industrialized world, etc, etc, etc.
Oh, and there’s that little “detail” about dismantling the pandemic teams that were in place… smart move!
Somehow I think politics influences tech a lot. I always see it when technology stacks are chosen (mainly CV-driven development).
In this particular case there is one question that comes to mind: if Trump thinks social media is being used to spy on people, what can we expect from the American alternatives?
Anyway, although I can imagine you don’t want to be bothered with getting angry because there are different political viewpoints, I rather think the opinions expressed on osnews are rather honest and I like it when I see rational people expressing their opinion without just following the latest trend (both in tech as in politics).
Being warned of the impending pandemic and then pretending there’s nothing to worry about for the next 6 months was a pretty big failure. Completely dismantling the pandemic response team was a pretty big failure. Not taking measures to ramp up production/securing of PPE and essential items until the wheels were already falling off was a pretty big failure. Completely disregarding what the top scientists had to say in favor of lies & bullshit that had better optics was a pretty big failure. Not coming up with and still absent a national response was a pretty big failure. I could spend all day writing down everything the Trump administration has failed it. I’d love to see a list of what they’ve actually done right.
Btw, no, Trump wasn’t “lightening fast” banning travel from China. And, there wouldn’t be any credit for it if he was because all that did was cause people coming here to route their travel through other countries to get here. Over a million Chinese travelers entered the US after the travel ban from China was enacted. I’m not going to pat you on the back and tell you what a great job you did locking the front door when you leave the back door open and people are pouring in through there instead.
The enemy of my enemy is …. oh shit.
The US government knows that the motto “design in the US or EU, manufacture it in China, keep control of the software” doesn’t hold true anymore. Huawei and TikTok are the most visible refutations of that motto. Operating Systems are the last frontier for China really. So of course the US tries to fight back, because nobody really likes China.
What remains to be seen is whether this new stance will be US policy or Trump personal choice (Democrats are huge TPP lovers and proponents of changing nothing with regards to US relationship with China)
Most of the world doesn’t like the US either the way things are going.
The super capitalists love “competition” until their competitors caches up.
This is the US basically dropping any pretense now that China is basically reaching par status.
“ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs”
LOL, This is just a generic phrases from US state-affiliated rags.
Did you know, Thom, that your beloved US regime is the one who killing Uyghurs?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-targets-chinese-uighur-militants-well-taliban-fighters-afghanistan-n845876
Unlike China, that is trying to deradicalize islamists, US is just killing them =)
“There’s also something intuitively wrong with China blocking and censoring western applications, platforms, and media ”
Western media platforms were mainly used for propaganda and protest coordination. So it is their response, like it or not.
” forced labour used to make Apple computers”
Lies. “forced labour?”. No more forced than Amazon workers in US.
Foxconn assembles devices for Sony, Microsoft and others. Apple is just one of clients.
Western readers were duped by “suicide stories”.
When you have a million employees, some of them are killing themselves. This is life.
But nobody compared “foxconn” suicide rate to china average.
” it is literally impossible to avoid products made in China or other murderous regimes ”
I know only one, my dear sinophobe Thom, world’s most murderous terrorist regime that occupied, destroyed a lot of countries, stole their resources and killed millions of people – USA. Regime, that meddling in all elections in the world (including their own) and orchestrate terrorist/faschist coups in their area of interest.
This is whataboutism at it’s finest.
Both the US and China have horrible track records.
>sinophobe
Lol. Funny how you never see these ‘sinophobes’ shitting on Taiwan, Hong Kong, or even Singapore. Oh right, it’s because it’s just a lame accusation people toss about when you dare criticize the glorious CCP
Just because two different sorts of bad things are done to Uyghurs by two different states doesn’t make bombing Taliban-allied East Turkestan Islamic Movement fighters the same as hearding a million people into camps. China is also killing Uyghur terrorists, no-one is complaining about that in the West.
Viton, are they paying you just 50 cents for forum comments or has the going rate for that gone up in China? (Others, look up “50 cent party” on Wikipedia.).
“that your beloved US regime”
I think we can say a lot of things about Thom, but I don’t think that’s one of them.
As someone who is in Europe, I see no difference between spying software/hardware that comes from China (“bad”) and the similar ones that are USA-based (“good”). I have also seen almost the same non-respect of human rights from both of these countries. They are the same…
Thom, just ask the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) about the Uyghurs.
Also, you can visit China’s Xenjiang to verify it yourself if there was oppression there after terror attacks.
This is why Tech + Politics = Western Ignorance.
it’s a shame. I wouldn’t want to ban Tik Tok. There’s some cool videos.