Commentary: What TikTok and Tesla tell us about pragmatism in the US and China

LONDON: When Washington appears to be like to be at China, it tends to behold an ideological, interventionist, authoritarian superpower that favours its have firms while subverting foreign rivals. When it appears to be like to be within the replicate, Washington sees the US as a pragmatic, capitalistic, democratic superpower that champions free speech and sturdy opponents.

In terms of the narrow medication of TikTok within the US and Tesla in China, then as soon as more, these stereotypes appear to have blurred. It is the US that is popping into extra dogmatic while China is popping into extra pragmatic.

Final week, President Joe Biden signed a law that will ban TikTok from US platforms except its Chinese language guardian firm ByteDance sells the commerce to an authorised purchaser. In a rare veil of bipartisan unity, Congress argued that ownership of the video-sharing platform by a Chinese language-connected firm endangered nationwide security.

Who knew that Zach King’s flying wizard options or Bella Poarch’s lip-syncing movies had been so worrisome?

TikTok offers a slick short-obtain video carrier frail by 170 million Americans and 7 million agencies, unparalleled to the annoyance of US rivals equivalent to Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.

It has furthermore gone to immense lengths to evaluate out to persuade US lawmakers that users’ files is safe and free from foreign manipulation. Over in relation to three years, it has spent US$1.5 billion on constructing a ringfenced files infrastructure within the US in partnership with Oracle.