We Don't Have to Trade With China

Did anyone forget the tyranny, organ trafficking, election fixing and international three-dimensional chess?:

MPs at the House of Commons privacy committee grilled executives from social media video platform TikTok over the company’s links to the Chinese government Wednesday.

“We’ve been quite clear that we would not disclose user data to the Chinese government if they made a request. They have not made such a request, and the Chinese government has not asserted the rights over any TikTok user data,” said David Lieber, TikTok’s head of privacy public policy for the Americas.

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He said if the Chinese government made any such request, the company would “certainly” disclose it in its transparency report.

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Of course the Belt and Road Initiative is an alternative to anything American. It is proffered by a backward Third-World dictatorship with a history of poor infrastructure and sending tanks after students:

Xi Jinping portrayed his signature Belt and Road Initiative as a sweeping alternative to the U.S.-led world order, a vision for global economic co-operation endorsed in person by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a speech in Beijing on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of China’s global infrastructure push, Xi criticized unilateral sanctions, geopolitical rivalry and bloc politics. While he didn’t identify any country, the remarks were clear references to U.S. policy toward China in recent years, which Washington has characterized as derisking but Beijing sees as an effort to thwart its rising power.

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“As the saying goes, when you give roses to others, fragrance lingers on your hand,” Xi said. “In other words, helping others is also helping oneself. Viewing others’ development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make one’s own life better or speed up one’s development.”

Speaking directly after Xi, Putin praised the initiative as in sync with Russia’s goal of a world with interconnected infrastructure in which freedom of trade, investment and labour can be fully ensured.

“Russia and China, like most countries of the world, share the aspiration for equal and mutually beneficial co-operation in order to achieve universal sustainable and long-term economic progress and social well-being while respecting the diversity of civilization and the right of each state to its own development model,” the Russian president said.

“The Chinese idea of Belt and Road logically fits into multilateral efforts to strengthen creative and constructive interaction,” he added.

Rather, you need all the friends you can get.