I've tried to follow this, but I still don't understand what legal standing gives the US government the authority to force a divestment? Does anyone know the statutes?
US courts generally won't reign in the executive as long as the executive says "national security". They often won't even hear the case (for instance there has been no ruling on the legality of most NSA activities). This is how the internment of Japanese Americans in ww2 worked: an executive order is law until a court will overturn it and they generally won't interfere in anything to do with foreign policy, national security, espionage etc...
Also, the NSA thing isn’t helped by courts generally not allowing illegally obtained evidence. And considering practically all NSA cases are based on leaks such as Snowden’s, the evidence is “illegally obtained” and can be thrown out.
Come on, man. Don’t give credence to the US internment camps. There is a legitimate argument to be made that TikTok is funneling private US data to China, weakening natural security. There is no evidence to suggest that interning US Japanese in any way contributed to national security.
Grindr got sold off by the same reasoning and no one complained because it’s a legitimate concern.
How is the comment you are referring to giving "credence to the US internment camps"? It's using it as an example of how you can get away with whatever you want, including really terrible things like our internment camps or family separation for that matter, if you do it by EO and whisper "national security".
Because the TikTok national security concerns are plausible and the internment camp security concerns weren’t at all. One is plausible, if debatable. The other is a bald-faced conscious lie.
So your issue is with comparing the two of them? You believe that they are apples and oranges, one clearly bad and the other up for debate?
I will not pretend that we will look back on the TikTok debate and be appalled by it in the same degree but let's not forget that we considered internment camps to be "debatable" and Americans overwhelmingly supported them [0]. What we call "plausible, if debatable" now is not what future-us will necessarily call it. I think the original commenter was simply pointing out the extremes of the "power" behind using "national security" as justification.
The US Treasury Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) can review any foreign purchase of a US business under the guise of National Security.
The power was vested first by executive order, then codified by legislation in the 80s, and was updated in 2006 and 2018.
I may be a javascript programmer, but I am also an expert on virus airborne transmission, political polling, and now, US governance of corporations. Let me dig into my Wikipedia files and get back to you.
Maybe you should answer, then? Are you trying to imply that on this entire website--which includes uses who are straight up lawyers, in addition to people who at least moonlight as politicians--that no one could possibly know more than you?
This executive order was stopped by a preliminary injunction issued by Judge Nichols, who based his decision on an explicit exception in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act:
"
(b)Exceptions to grant of authority
The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly—
(1) any postal, telegraphic, telephonic, or other personal communication, which does not involve a transfer of anything of value;
…
(3) the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds. The exports exempted from regulation or prohibition by this paragraph do not include those which are otherwise controlled for export under section 4604 of this title, or under section 4605 of this title to the extent that such controls promote the nonproliferation or antiterrorism policies of the United States, or with respect to which acts are prohibited by chapter 37 of title 18; ...
"
2.
An executive order by Trump based on CIFUS, which is forcing a divestment of TikTok's acquisition of Musical.ly (whose founders are Chinese but operated the company in the US). If not, the order would bar TikTok from operating in the US.
The part of the order that would bar TikTok from operating in the US was halted by an injuction by Judge Wendy Beetlestone. Although she did not opine on the divestiture.
It'll be interesting to see if the Biden admin has the same security concerns as the Trump admin r.e. TikTok. It's still not totally clear to me whether there was ever a real security concerns or if it was just a fig leaf for a political play. Of course, if Biden stops this process, that would not prove that the motivation was political. It could as easily be the case that declining to force the sale is a political move. Unfortunately, with the lack of transparency in the original decision making, it will be hard to ever know which is which.
I think most of the hawkish policies against TikTok etc was being driven by people like Peter Navarro and Pompeo who are going to be out of the picture now. Navarro has especially come under flak for being the US government's "China" expert with insufficient knowledge and experience on the subject.
The rule of law in our own country is extremely important -- more important than any particular protectionist policy goal. The law does not give the president the power to unilaterally force the sale of assets for the purpose of protectionism. This is leaving aside whether protectionism is good or bad in any particular case. This is why I'm mainly interested in the real reasons why we took this action.
>The rule of law in our own country is extremely important -- more important than any particular protectionist policy goal. The law does not give the president the power to unilaterally force the sale of assets for the purpose of protectionism.
The president might not have the authority to force a sale, but he does have the authority to impose tariffs and maybe even ban it outright (embargos/quotas). At the end of the day the results are the same: you can either sell your US operations to a US company, or we can destroy your US market share by imposing tariffs and/or banning your product.
If the president wants to invoke that authority (assuming you are correct about its extent), then that's his right. What is not his right is to expropriate assets under false pretenses.
>Tit-for-tat protectionism is also known as a trade war, which is also generally considered to be negative for both parties.
It is, but if you fail to retaliate you're basically advertising to other countries that they can impose protectionist measures, which benefit them and harm you. Did EU/Canada get flak for imposing retaliatory tariffs in response to trump's tarrifs?
> There's a pretty overwhelming consensus among economists that protectionism is indeed a bad thing.
So we just let China copy our tech and sell it to us cheaper?
What happens to our workforce and salaries? The same thing that happened to factory workers?
I'm even more worried about their lack of free speech, rigid punishment/enforcement, and Orwellian tracking/social credit. We don't want those things here. But showing that they win makes it more likely to become pervasive.
Ideally, people could work less and have the same standard of living, which is easier if things are cheaper.
If I was an evil wealthy person interested in perpetuating my position through controlling people, but slavery was outlawed, I'd design a system where work is overvalued so people will be too tired to participate in civic life.
I think the "copy our tech" angle is interesting from a legal standpoint. Patents and copyrights are a legal framework to prevent importation of infringed materials. I'm not sure the answer, but interesting problem none the less.
Unfortunately it’s up to both parties to avoid Tit-for-tat protectionism, a one sided trade war is over time the worst of all three options as there is no reason for the other party to stop. It’s the same reason WWII was less economicly expensive than the Cold War.
China restricted access to its markets from the onset. They forced foreign companies to operate JVs to access their market or labour and forced a lot of technology transfers. Their whole HSR industry was built on this model.
Protectionism works depending where your POV is from.
He doesn't seem to provide anything in the way of justification or evidence, other than same hand-wavy statement about them having to spend US dollars.
its a short clip to introduce the idea. He has plenty of writings on the subject. The reality is that they do have to spend US dollars. That's not in irrelevant detail.
What do you consider to be a real security concern? Isn't it enough that they already have a long history of abusing the rule of law and coercing all businesses into following the party's wishes?
I would argue that, given their history, removing the opportunity of the CCP to make a political play is a valid security concern.
I found the lack of discussion of TikTok compared to the amount of heat Twitter and Facebook have been getting before and after the election surprising.
Do people disregard it because they think it’s just dance and funny videos on there? There is a lot of political content if you go down that rabbit hole, and it’s ready to be seen by a much more young and impressionable user base compared to FB and Twitter’s.
Russian run '5 minute crafts' clickbait farm tipped their toes into political manipulation on both FB and YT, and it seems nobody picked up this story?!?!?
To be clear, I'm interested in the real reason they're doing it, not their ability to backfill a rationalization.
If that's the real reason, well enough. But I am somewhat skeptical that it is. I'm also not sure that the President's power ought to extend to hypothetical, remote concerns like this -- we'll have to see what the courts say.
I don't think it's possible for such a drastic action to be taken just based on a political rationalization or a security rationalization alone. It could only be a combination of factors which allows an action like this.
The security rationalization had existed for a long time already, but only when the political rationalization came into the picture as well was it possible to actually make a move. Does that mean the move was wrong or unjustified?
> I'm also not sure that the President's power ought to extend to hypothetical, remote concerns like this -- we'll have to see what the courts say.
I'm not sure it does. Like you say this is currently being challenged in the courts and TikTok is online right now in the US. The legal process is working, although it was initiated in a messy way in this case.
> The security rationalization had existed for a long time already, but only when the political rationalization came into the picture as well was it possible to actually make a move. Does that mean the move was wrong or unjustified?
It depends on the strength of the various components in the making of the decision, I guess. Again, if the main reason was political or economic, and the presence of the security reason is a fig leaf, then that's not so good.
> I'm interested in the real reason they're doing it
It is as simple as Trump, personally, saw a TV pundit at 6am that said TikTok was bad and the president should do something about it.
Did someone at Facebook PR plant that story in the pundit's program, which is for sale? Sure. I don't know, who do you think gives a single fuck about giant companies fucking each other? Not a single normal person.
What will courts say? The matters could all be resolved in 10 minutes. They're just going to say that if there's a problem, it's with the way the order is written - Trump could issue another order. They articulate no legal problem with the order, because there is no legal problem with the order.
Truthfully, the court's resolution of the matter is the least interesting part here.
The president's power is being used to affect a corporate acquisition. You can go have a debate about mercantilism, it's settled. Nothing of substance to normal people will change because 100% of the spending inside social media apps is surplus, they could disappear tomorrow and absolutely nothing of value would be lost. People would just buy ad inventory elsewhere, as they always had for all of history.
While I agree dependence on Chinese semiconductors/electronics is probably a bigger security risk overall, what other choice do we have in that industry?
Banning TikTok was only a "heavily political play" because there are strong political forces in place preventing any action from being taken against China. Anything which is able to overcome those forces is bound to be "heavily political". That doesn't necessarily mean the action was the wrong thing to do.
Real in the sense that there is some sort of evidence of actions that have crossed the thresholds of legality as per American laws. The data security/privacy community, I think generally don't see TikTok for example as any much more egregious an offender than Instagram for example.
Not sure if the security concerns of a presidential campaign would necessarily extend to banning the app for all contexts in the country, even those where security impinges less.
Biden would be a fool to give the CCP even an inch. For too long they’ve taken advantage of western society without any repercussions.
The equivalent is when the world pushed for peace with hitler before ww2. Even after his many aggressions. Many historians ponder the what if scenario if the world pushed back on day 1, would we of still had ww2
I think there's room for very real discussion about the merits of China's positioning in the global space right now without doing the blanket demonization that we see so often.
Do you mean we should be 'more critical' of the reports that China is operating genocidal concentration camps aimed at exterminating the Uyghur culture?
That is a bald faced lie. The information comes from Uyghurs who managed to escape. The true scale of the genocide will likely not be known until/unless the CCP is dismantled and its members put on trial.
We should probably be more critical of attempts to use the Chinese atrocities against the Uyghur as a method to deflect attention from other actors' bad deeds.
> It's shocking to try to put any positive spin on this.
I'm not.
I'm saying "What the Chinese have done to the Uyghur is bad" is a perfectly fine statement. I object to stuff like "stop whining about conditions in ICE detention when there's stuff like the Uyghur genocide happening". It's generally done in bad faith.
I wasn't doing that, and I explicitly called that point out. I don't think the OP was trying to shift blame either.
I also think the incoming administration will do a lot to fix it. I don't see any change in China's Uyghur strategy without strong international posturing.
Yes, China is doing a bad thing (understatement of the century). When the world moved against apartheid in South Africa, trade with them stopped altogether. Apple phones, and a million other consumer products, are still coming over from China. Stopping that would be a good start.
But then we've got TikTok, which some American lefties are using to exercise their free speech. The ticket-buying campaign around Trump's rally in Tulsa really seemed to ignite Trump's ire. Is this about the atrocities, is it about national security, or is it about Trump's ego? I can get behind the first, I'm weary about the second, and cannot tolerate the third.
> Biden would be a fool to give the CCP even an inch
Biden should, as any sensible leader (and we are severely lacking those), ponder pros and cons, and move his pieces accordingly. This immovable attitude you suggest is nothing but extremism, and it doesn't end well.
Nevermind the genocide, 1984 surveillance, censorship, technology stealing, punishment of the relatives of expatriated citizens, etc. China will leapfrog the West and devour our knowledge industries.
If you like the salary you make today, then think about what happens when China's enormous supply of engineers working "996" gets access to the Western market. When their tech companies supplant our own.
We need to put in place immediate plans to shift manufacturing to Vietnam, India, Mexico, and Africa. We should duplicate the Belt initiative, but make partner nations our allies. Have them buy into our sphere of influence rather than be indebted to China forever.
We need to strengthen our allies and make this move to wean ourselves off of China together.
We have so many levers at our advantage. China has to import food and energy. Trade is still denominated in USD. And they've been horrible to other nations. It won't be hard to stop their rise and replace it with our own growth if we work together with our allies.
Edit: I realize there's a huge international audience here, but imagine saying these things in Shanghai. Or compare saying bad things about Xi and Trump. The West has to win. If China were free and democratic, I'd change my attitude in a second and maybe even consider moving there.
I also realize the West has a whole host of problems of its own: racial inequality, widening economic prosperity gap, etc. But I do believe our democratic model is vastly superior to one that criminalizes thought.
Edit: I'm sitting at -2 now, but upvotes keep pushing me back up. I expect once this falls off the front page that I'll wind up with a positive score. This always happens with my negative comments on China. No detractions or conversation, only downvotes. I think this is due to the diverse international audience. I really wish someone with the opposite perspective would chime in.
One issue is that your comment sounds a bit hyperbolic. For example, China criminalizes thought? It certainly does not criminalize thought as such.
About 'working together with our allies'... Some will argue the 'West' has developed a somewhat abusive relationship with a lot of the world over the last two hundred years. It's not surprising some would look favourably to a competitor, if only to take advantage of that competition to make a better deal for themselves.
Finally, if other parts of the world develop a more advanced IT industry instead of China, how does that preserve Western developers salaries? Are the Chinese uniquely inclined to work long hours for low salaries? Or are you implying that the 'West' would need to prevent nations under 'our sphere of influence' to develop an IT industry so developers in the 'West' can continue to receive their current salaries?
Every country with the clout to do that does it, and the other countries know it. You speak of the CCP like they're evil bastards waiting to leap at your throat, but in reality USA and China have a lot in common, at least in world politics.
Some Latin American countries tried to avoid giving even an inch to USA, and it didn't end well. China has done the same in Asia. USA-China rivalry is not about good and bad, it's more akin to thugs invading each other's turfs.
That wouldn’t be true either. I’m no historian but things like the SALT treaties would surely be examples of working with the USSR (and giving them “an inch” in the process).
I'm guessing the parent was referring to America and the USSR during the cold war and saying America needs to take the same stance against China as they did against the USSR.
