Comment by sva_
4 years ago
I just don't understand how we can allow a Chinese social media app in the west, while any non-chinese social media apps aren't allowed there?
Same with housing, why can Chinese nationals buy housing here, while I can't do so there?
People are going to reply to you with the usual "we are better than them", "we are a democracy" etc., but reciprocity clauses are very common in areas like international trade, travel, disarmament treaties, emissions control and lots more. In fact China would never have been allowed into the WTO (which happened in 2001) had they not made sweeping changes to their economy and assured the world that they would compete on a fair playing field, rules that they still (mostly) have to follow today. Requiring that American software companies have the same opportunities in China as Chinese ones enjoy in the USA is a perfectly sane position to take. In fact it is the fair and democratic one.
Of course politicians don't really understand tech enough to realize how quickly (and how unfairly) China is growing to dominate the space.
> Same with housing, why can Chinese nationals buy housing here, while I can't do so there?
Housing is a completely different conversation, and the answer there is that existing homeowners would never allow the influx of foreign cash into their local markets to stop, and they are the ones with all the influence in this country, not the renters or aspiring buyers.
"had they not made sweeping changes to their economy and assured the world that they would compete on a fair playing field, rules that they still (mostly) have to follow today. "
This is really quite false.
Rules are broken all the time, they are difficult to arbitrate, and often they are not.
The CCP requires foreign entities to surrender critical IP, then hand it off to a state-backed competitors, they don't allow full ownership of local companies, there's direct political interference including the requirement for all companies to directly hire CCP members as oversight, and if it's important enough, to have the CCP right on the board.
All of this in addition to the death by a thousand cuts the system can make for foreign competitors via local bureaucratic requirements at every level.
This applies not only to commerce but critical institutions such as WHO which are directly compromised by China (i.e. not allowing any material investigation into 'lab leak origins' etc. etc..)
The OP presented the situation very clearly: there is no way in any scenario that China would allow an American company to have a TikTok like app used by large swaths of the Chinese population, controlled by the US.
Neither would Russia.
On some level, that kind of thing is a bit understandable, I don't quite mind if China would not allow 'Facebook' to be the #1 communications tool in China, that said, it should be reciprocal.
And for other things, like high-speed rail etc. China has been grabbing IP using leverage that never should have been allowed.
>Neither would Russia.
Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram worked pretty well here, to the point where almost every teenager has an Instagram account, so I think this is proven to be false. The only reason Instagram is banned now is because of the ability to use it to spread pro-Western propaganda instead of pro-Russian one.
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>they don't allow full ownership of local companies
That isn't completely true anymore.
"Foreign investors are now allowed to establish wholly foreign-owned enterprises for whole vehicle manufacturing, including special purpose vehicles, new energy vehicles, commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles."
https://www.iflr.com/article/2a647jipe3beiloc6xeyo/primer-ch...
The wisdom of reciprocity also is older than all governments today.
See Golden rule and Silver rule.
There were governments when those rules were formulated. Unless you mean, "Older than all governments in existence today," which might be true.
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Look, I'm no fan of the Chinese social construct, but in terms of investment and development in an area I've tried to work in for the past 20 years, namely high-tech renewable energy development, the USA has dropped the ball while China has run with it. The US response has been tariffs on Chinese monocrystalline silicon PV panels, in a rather pathetic attempt to prevent them from gaining market share, while promoting nonsense like CdTe panels and so on. GW Bush and Barak Obama blocked DOE money going to renewable R&D just like Reagan, Bush and Clinton did, because the USA is mostly a petro-state economy (just look at CVX and XOM profits recently FFS)..
So China ran away with renewable tech developement because greedy Wall Street executives didn't want competition to their lucrative fossil fuel investments. Fucking retards.
I thought Obama was blamed for giving too many loans to renewables? https://www.energy.gov/articles/president-obama-announces-mo...
This is why we have fallen a decade behind on semiconductor dominance. the next wars will be won not by who owns the oil, but who owns the semis to drive the robots..
Why is it unfair?
Because non-Chinese companies cannot compete in the Chinese market place without strict handicaps. Some cannot participate at all.
However the true question here is more likely to be "what does unfair mean".
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I make widgets, you also make widgets. I can sell my widgets in your location, minimal to no restrictions.
You can't sell your widgets in my location. Would you as a seller of widgets think that is fair?
I know the reality is more nuanced than that but people are talking about reciprocal agreements to at least ensure some sense of fairness.
Taking a random stab: one argument could be that competition drives down profit margins. By reducing competition, China makes their tech artificially profitable locally, allowing them to compete in international markets on an uneven playing field.
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US companies like Meta, Google, are banned in China. Chinese companies are not banned in the US. US investors are barred from making controlling acquisitions of Chinese companies. Chinese investors are free to gain ownership in any US company they like.
The rest of the world is generally playing on a level globalist playing field of free trade and open competition. The theory for decades has been that if the world treats China like every other country and then over time they will become more open. But this theory has been disastrously wrong. China’s communist party is a mercantilist country where the government and private industry act together as one.
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> reciprocity clauses are very common in areas like [...]
Distributing software for you to run on your own hardware is speech, though, and it's protected by the first amendment. You can license the distribution of your own software if you want, but you can't tell me I can't give you software if you want it.
Basically: how do you think this would work, in a way that wouldn't also make Linux or gcc or whatever available only at the whim of the government?
We aren't talking about TikTok as an open source software repository. Their registered business, operations, leases/property purchases, payroll, advertising, data mining, international currency transfer and lots more are all not covered by the first amendment and can absolutely be regulated under a million clauses.
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The first amendment applies to US law and the rights of US residents, not to foreign multinationals. The USA can and does restrict the speech of non-Americans in America, such as with respect to political campaign funding.
Plus, criminal speech can be restricted in any case. If it's determined that the TikTok app is violating the law or facilitating the commission of criminal activity, the distribution of that app could itself be deemed a crime, or even worse for app stores, subject them to civil liability.
> Distributing software for you to run on your own hardware is speech, though, and it's protected by the first amendment.
This definitely needs a reference.
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This is a strawman argument. No one is telling to stop them from distributing software. Just remove the TikTok servers from operating.
Honestly, this type of discussion is seriously irritating, because it implies that TikTok is doing something unique that other apps aren't doing. Just as the article demonstrates, many western countries do the exact same thing that TikTok does, except TikTok seemingly takes it one step further (probably because of shoddy programming). Applying geographic-based arguments to technology is just a bandaid. The problem needs to be solved in all situations, not just in situations where people aren't politically happy.
Any company injecting keyloggers or monitoring systems into web content should be subject to the same equally damning judgement. Just because it's China doesn't make keylogging bad. Keylogging is bad because keylogging is bad. Companies like Fullstory [0] and Hotjar [1] are used all over the western internet and effectively act as full session recorders. Sure, used well they can be used for analytics, but you could just as easily inject Fullstory or Hotjar into an in-app browser and suddenly record all data a user does. Should this be possible? No. Does it help to just ban China? I mean sure, but why should you be okay with a western company doing it?
TikTok is a short video app used mostly by younger generations. It produces highly accurate recommendations for videos to watch. We're not talking about something like a banking app, a healthcare app, or even a messaging app. It's a video-based social network. There are bigger fish to fry than TikTok in almost every single possible category of app. Yet, TikTok is always brought up because it's from China.
[0]: https://www.fullstory.com/
[1]: https://www.hotjar.com/
TikTok is brought up because it has an insane amount of influence on the culture and identity of a huge swath of people. Do you seriously believe that China, or any country, would not want to leverage such influence to persuade or alter the culture or a potential advisory?
We all shit our pants because Russia used Meta, and American company, to influence the 2020 election. Imagine the same amount of data, a more accurate algorithm, and entirely within the control of foreign actors.
It doesn't matter if it is China or Colombia or Japan, a foreign company have that much influence over the opinions citizens of a country is dangerous.
Who are you, Xi Jinping? You basically word for word translated their foreign social media policy. Luckily we live in a capitalist free market, free competition ideology and not a heavy protectionist centrally influenced market economy here in the US.
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> TikTok is a short video app used mostly by younger generations. It produces highly accurate recommendations for videos to watch. We're not talking about something like a banking app, a healthcare app, or even a messaging app. It's a video-based social network. There are bigger fish to fry than TikTok in almost every single possible category of app. Yet, TikTok is always brought up because it's from China.
If the leaders in the West weren't concerned about the "average Joe" and their (mis)understandings of politics and situations with complex nuances, then the West would likely be a true Democracy (like ancient Athens, where the People vote on issues such as War and Taxes) instead of a Republic or Democratic Republic (where the People elect a small group to vote on their behalf).
Regardless, I think our Western leaders SHOULD be concerned with the "average Joe" mentality. That includes, by a wide margin, propaganda efforts by other nations.
https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2021/07/14/testing-tiktok-d...
There are _far less_ antisocial practices featured on Chinese TikTok than on Western (specifically American) TikTok. However, the comparison to Instagram and Facebook doesn't differ all that much, so maybe they're simply giving us the content we want.
Money.
And I don't just mean the politicians. I mean downright to the pension funds, hedge funds, and retail investor.
They are all long China and especially Chinese tech. If you start declaring war on Chinese tech you are going to obliterate a huge amount of money all to protect the privacy that US voters don't care about privacy in the least. So why would they do such a silly thing?
National security? Please, the son of a sitting President is a crack user with huge ties to China. Nothing some Tiktor user could divulge through the in app browser could ever compare.
If you want to protect the privacy of users then protect the privacy of users. Protecting the privacy only when China is the one invading privacy is not protecting the privacy of users.
> how we can allow a Chinese social media app in the west, while any non-chinese social media apps aren't allowed there?
Because we are the West, and China is China. We have different laws and customs.
Why does that mean that a Chinese social media app can capture data unlawfully under GDPR, CCPA or or other regulations?
Any app built and run by any country can capture data unlawfully. The keyword is unlawfully.
It doesn't.
If that is happening then cases under those legislation would succeed. But those legislation don't somehow magically forbid practices that people on HN don't like.
It doesn’t mean that, and the comment I was responding to wasn’t talking about that, but merely the fact that the app is Chinese.
Exactly.
Given they are operating in countries like the EU, US, etc and they are doing the same privacy violations and actions like what Facebook did years ago but worse, and even after regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, etc and Facebook was fined in the billions by the FTC, TikTok should be no exception and must be fined in the billions for this invasive and repeated privacy violations.
Nothing has changed, even after the invasive tracking done by Facebook, and Instagram.
You will find that HN is full of American business owners that are happy to unlawfully capture data protected by GDPR.
So, I see this bandied about a lot, but I don't see the big deal in being spied on by a government that has 0 say in my entire hemisphere? Like, I have much bigger concerns about spying done on behalf of the five eyes alliance than China (obviously this would be the opposite if I was living in China). What are they going to do with my silly viewing habits, sell my data to advertisers? Well, same deal with youtube, google, fb, insta, whatsapp, etc. I'm not saying you are coming at this from a nationalistic point of view but I get that vibe from the ease of which tiktok is disdained on HN.
And on the merits, it is unhealthy like all social media, but it still feels so much more fun and worthwhile than facebook or insta where everything feels like a competition to have the best life. So much of Tiktok still feels like vine 2.0
> So, I see this bandied about a lot, but I don't see the big deal in being spied on by a government that has 0 say in my entire hemisphere?
You idiot.
All china has to do to have a serious negative impact on our society is give a slight boost to moronic, antisocial content (tide pod challenge or mass robbery anyone?), and a slight penalty to constructive, educational content. It would be basically impossible to detect this.
Remember that this is a country that regularly threatens a war that would likely involve the US.
After having spent some time with senior citizens, it's really hard to imagine that Tiktok could ever come close to having as much as a "serious negative impact" on US society as Fox News.
Besides what's been said already, did you consider that "the west" is a collection of countries from at least 3 continents, wgile China is a single country?
Also the fact that the entire world relies on China is a pretty good place to start.
So, what would be the difference between us and them? There is a reason why our governance is better than them.
Also, if you don't know facebook, instagram also have same issue as tiktok. Maybe government should enforce privacy requirement for all apps including facebook and instagram instead of blanket banning Chinese apps.
Because China is ruled by technocrats who are probably book-smarter than Western politicians.
In the west you typically have to be rich to be a politician, in China you have to be smart, then you get rich(and ban the NYT when your corruption is uncovered).
Lololol techno what which one?
Does it bother the west's rich and/or powerful? If not, it doesn't matter in the West apparently.
China and the West are both controlled by factors not really in line with helping the stereotypical Common Person.
We’re not a dictatorship?
This nutjob honeypot tastes delicious.
Yet
Just two more years and we have another chance to reverse course.
I would zoom out a bit.
For example, when the media in The West "front pages" the smog in Beijing keep in mind The West owns a good part of that. It's not like what's manufactured in China stays in China. I would presume their water ways are nasty as well.
Just one example mind you. The point is, there are other imbalances. That's not to say TikTok should get a free pass, only that it's complicated than an app for app comparison.
Amusingly, TikTok isn't available in China - only DouYin, which is similar but separate.
I'm not 100% sure on this at this point, but I think if Facebook/Google/etc were willing to do the same they would be allowed in China too, but as it stands they can't/won't comply with Chinese law (I may be mistaken on this, haven't read up on the topic in quite some time)
Yeah, and both TikTok and DouYin are owned by ByteDance. In fact didn't Google on occasion create a crippled/censored version of its search for some time in mainland China or Hong Kong or something?
I think they did, but then found it too much effort to maintain (I think there was also some hacking scandal? I forget)
For what it's worth HK internet presently uncensored, though ironically TikTok pulled out of the HK market as they felt it was too expensive to comply with Hong Kong laws given the size of the available market here.
DouYin is still available in HK though -- not sure if DouYin is available in US/Euro market or not??
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Who cares? This is about privacy and security. Not a “why can’t we do it in your country back to you” argument
Sounds like the opposite of housing from a national security POV. If a Chinese national buys a house in the US, then the US has 'control' over their property. The US would want Chinese nationals to buy houses in the US.
In some countries housing supply is limited and the housing market can be messed with by influx of foreign ownership. Possibly less of an issue with US due to size of the country. Still, I think if someone can buy land here, we should be able to buy land there (within reason)?
If the news is to be believed, housing supply is limited in the US.
US Housing is generally a safe investment for foreign investors. Since US vestigial racist policies make it difficult to create dense, affordable housing, single family homes are in high demand and relatively limited supply.
Just tax the hell out of that property and use that money to build more housing. Much like many countries charge foreign students more and use that money to educate their own citizens.
There is an interesting meta discussion here but the parent is over-simplifying things.
> How we can allow a Chinese social media app in the west, while any non-Chinese social media apps aren't allowed there?
Easy. The laws are different.
"Non-Chinese social media app"s are not banned in China, just that if you run one it need to be licensed (https://beian.miit.gov.cn/) first before you can start servicing. Licensing is difficult since there's requirements about keeping data domestic, having physical presence should legal enforcement be necessary (i.e. there are people to arrest if something goes wrong), and complying with takedown requests (both copyright and political). Western big tech companies (rightfully) do not want to comply, so they do not get licenses, and thus have no presence. Attempting to "just provide service" without a license will result in blacklisting via the GFW as enforcement.
"Allow a Chinese social media app in the west" -- this is also more complex. If TikTok or friends violate laws in the west they are also liable for any punishment. For example, TikTok and WeChat comply with the GDPR in Europe and keep EU data local to the EU. If they didn't they'd be looking at a potentially huge fine and possibly getting banned. Similarly they also comply with copyright stuff like DMCAs. If they didn't, the FBI can seize their domain and compel ISPs to not resolve it just like the GFW (this has precedent and has been done before).
So the meta question becomes: Are the current protections in the west sufficient? To which the answer is probably no.
But in any case, in the free world, whether a Chinese social media app's presence is allowed to be maintained should not be dictated by ideology, but rather through real demonstrated evidence of misbehavior and/or harm (which is why research like this is important).
I appreciate your thoughtful response. I think that Chinese apps should at least be held to the same standards, as they are there, and I think it's reasonable to assume that they currently aren't.
The thing is, and I don't believe this to be controversial, that China has built a digital database of all (or most) of its citizens based on the data they collected. Now the question is, do they stop there, or do they have a file on all of us? The technology is cheap, and I think based on video data etc that they collect through apps like this, they might well build a social graph of the rest of the world (i.e. who does exist, what are their interests/beliefs/political affiliations, and what are the relations between those entities.)
The repercussions of using such apps might be, that they have info on citizens in the rest of the world, which might allow them to nudge people into giving into their political goals (this has already been happening after people posted stuff critical of China on sites like Twitter) - and I think that we have to ask ourselves how that could threaten our democracy.
> I think it's reasonable to assume that they currently aren't.
I don't see any reason they wouldn't be? If anything they probably face more scrutiny than US domestic companies exactly because they are foreign. The problem (at least in the US) is just that behavior like in this post should be illegal but it isn't (yet). They _feel_ ethically wrong but there's no punishment for doing it.
> (...) that China has built a digital database of all (or most) of its citizens based on the data they collected (...)
But so do companies like Google, or Meta, or Clearview etc... This is a real problem but Chinese companies are hardly alone here and they aren't even the first to start mass data collection. As for the domestic data collection and association, that's largely a domestic issue that their citizens need to figure out for themselves. For what it's worth, most countries do at least a little bit of domestic surveillance (as seen from the Snowden leaks), China just has a much more robust system with fewer safeguards.
> I think that we have to ask ourselves how that could threaten our democracy.
That is a good question and I think it should be asked of all tech companies.
Facebook had the whole election meddling thing which started the gears turning in legislative branches of how we might reign in companies as instruments that threaten democracy, and by now we all more or less assume countries like Russia and China will try to exert influence in other countries. However, getting the regulations right is hard even though it is also important. We'll need both experts in the technology (re: this whole thread about discreet behavior tracking that a layperson would never identify) and in the legal space to figure out how to protect individuals. This is not the cold war era. It should not be a battle of ideology. We should instead figure out how to protect people from institutions of power, be it hostile foreign powers, domestic tyranny, or just corporate greed.
The US already has said files, no? That's what the Snowden whistleblowing was about.
Only data specifically about Americans(and Americans alone, contact with a foreigner is open to data collection) that hasn't traveled in and out of the country is protected from the spies, if the spies are to be trusted. They're already known to be lying to Congress, so chances are the American government has a file with all of your social media activity, except maybe your tic tock usage.
I see no reason to consider the Chinese apps special in this regard. American domestic apps have already shown themselves to be dangerous to american democracy, and the American government can do much worse things to Americans than the Chinese government can. The data collection itself is bad, but no government will cut off its own spies
> do they have a file on all of us
I would be astonished if they did not. The data is freely available and inexpensive, I imagine they are hoovering it all up constantly.
What I don't understand is why Google has let YouTube become one big advertisement for TikTok. Every video I watch on YouTube is preceded by a TikTok ad.
> why can [XXX] nationals buy housing here, while I can't do so there?
Simply because when XXX nationals come with all cash offers and willing to pay above market & waive all contingencies, sellers are willing to sell.
It just so happens that certain nationals are more prone to having that sort of money than others.
No, it isn't about people being more prone to buy property in one place, rather than another. Let x be a any number in [0, infty), I literally can not buy property in China for any x.
> The answer is yes, foreigners are allowed to purchase property in China! The essential requirement is that you have studied or worked in China for at least one year on a residence permit. Foreigners are allowed to only own one residential property for dwelling purposes. You may not rent out the property or act as a landlord. Requirements and restrictions may differ in different provinces and cities. For example, Shanghai requires that non-Shanghai hukou families, including foreigners, have to provide proof of income tax or social insurance to the local government.
http://anychinavisa.com/news/can-foreigners-buy-a-house-in-c...
So to be more precise what you actually can't do is speculate in Chinese real estate.
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I think you missed my point.
The US is a capitalist society; if you have sufficient money US National or not, you have nearly carte blanche to do what you want.
Regardless of China et al laws for foreign home ownership, the US is very permissible simply because money.
All of this. And, to be clear, much of that home purchasing is for investment purposes (vs simply Chinese nationals with residences here).
And, don't forget farmland.
Seems we'll look back on all of this at some point and decide maybe it wasn't the best idea.
> Seems we'll look back on all of this at some point and decide maybe it wasn't the best idea.
If that happens, I imagine our Congress will brew up some justification for seizing all that Chinese owned property.
Because of unfortunate politics - young people are thriving on TikTok so all discussions on limiting the platform under Trump were reasonably responded to with outcries about censorship. I think it's possible some change could happen under the current administration's watch (since it wouldn't be viewed as a free-speech crackdown) but there doesn't seem to be much interest now that it's just about security and not also about punishing your political opponents.
Because west operate under different systems. West has for while being about free trade free market global capitalism. Where as China is using much more controlled approach.
Fundamentally west can't get too faraway from these ideals or it will end up destroying its hegemony. Huawei has already been banned, but what comes after social media? And if some action is taken, will other countries start banning western imports specially cultural and services?
The corporations that control our government depend on China’s cheap labor. It’s as simple as that.
I can’t understand how we allowed every industry to wholesale migrate to China and write off every manufacturing method and trade secret.
The answer both of our questions is of course money. Our version of capitalism is dominated by cult-like disciples of financial management principles.
If the US fucks with TikTok, well maybe they’ll mess with Office 365.
If non-Chinese companies are willing to abide by Chinese laws (including those about censorship, etc.), they'll be able to operate in China. Chinese social media apps abide by US regulations around social media and private surveillance, which are almost nonexistent, so they can operate in the US.
The only way to prevent this is to create laws specifically targeting the Chinese for being Chinese, because 1) the chance for domestic regulation on social media and surveillance is very low, and 2) any regulation we're likely to pass would be about "spreading misinformation" and "foreign interference," so would probably end up closely resembling Chinese regulations.
Well, it's gonna cost me many downvotes, but this needs to be said. CCP has a tight grip on many US officials. The two publicly known cases are Pelosi's son and Biden's son, who are prominent investors, board members even, in chinese companies. That's public knowledge, but I bet it's the tip of the iceberg.
Trump tried to ban TikTok (and quite a lot more), but he’s orange and bad, so Biden repealed it. And tariffs are racist, so there’s that. America is not functioning well at this point and nothing indicates it will improve.
What happened to free speech being the bastion of America and the only thing that can counter misinformation and propaganda?
Suddenly doesn't seem to work so well when a Chinese app is granted that privilege.
Stealing information without user permission is not free speech.
Tell that to Facebook and LinkedIn. I don't get the double standard. These practices should be illegal, full stop. Why is it ok for US companies to do the same kinds of things?
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Freedom of speech has two associated actions - speaking and listening - each with the same aspects of freedom - whether, when and to whom to speak/listen.
For example, we normally think about the opposite of free speech as speech being suppressed, but being made to speak, to people you don't wish to speak to, at a time that is not of your choosing, none of that is freedom of speech even though you expressed your thoughts.
Hence, there is no freedom of speech without privacy. That's why it often gets wrapped up in the, in my view far better, phrase freedom of expression.
How is stealing users credit card information and all keystrokes free speech again ?
Reading is tough, but the parent comment is about allowing TikTok to exist in the west.
Also, as mentioned in the first sentence of the article, this is exactly what Meta does in the Facebook and Instagram apps.
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Because only US can buy cheap goods and services from the world with printed paper called dollars.
It's amazing. Tiktok has been HN's darling for the longest.
We must be on different HNs because every time I see Tiktok brought up a bunch of people complain about privacy and the culture on the platform.
No way, it used to be almost universally praised here 2-3 years ago. Not so much recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28133017
Because the opposite would be considered racism and xenophobia.
Because it’s a sovereign country that makes its own rules? So, basically the same reason that you can’t just move to Italy because you feel like it.
As a matter of fact, I can, as a European citizen (basically)[0].
[0] https://www.unipi.it/index.php/welcome-and-support/item/7413...
And what is wrong with sovereign countries adopting reciprocal policies, as OP proposed?
So uh - how is that Great Firewall thing in China legal then?
Trade limitations have always and will always exist. Heck there are hundreds of limitations in trade between the US and Canada - including the complete illegality of Kinder Eggs in the US, which I still find hilarious.