> Forbes story is just suggesting that maybe they lied
Yes, lying under oath is called perjury.
> your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm
Say a foreign country were considering banning Lockheed Martin. And the U.S. ambassador picked up the phone--not to fellow diplomats, but individual legislators--to argue against it. Do you not see how the fact that this rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play?
> US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off
It's been happening in Russia for the past two years. The cases where it rises to diplomatic incident are not strongly correlated with value as much as strategic worth.
> Do you not see how the fact that this rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play?
Ambassadors and diplomatic missions routinely intervene (including contacting legislators) to protect the perceived economic interests of their country’s large corporations and strategic industries.
I’m absolutely certain that if an important market for an important firm (eg: Lockheed) were to threaten to stop buying, top State Department staff would absolutely “pick up the phone” to legislators at a bare minimum.
> rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play
You mean the exact thing that happened with Facebook during the transatlantic data sharing agreement dispute because of the CLOUD act? Do you assume it's because the US is secretly manipulating EU citizens with pro-America propaganda? Even worse it was because Facebook said it was technically impossible for them to not store some data on EU citizens in the US.
> It's been happening in Russia for the past two years
Yes, because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia. It's not at all the same thing when we chose to force our own businesses to pull out or sell. Do we not remember the time when Github (along with every other company) couldn't do business in Iran?
> Do you assume it's because the US is secretly manipulating EU citizens with pro-America propaganda?
No, but there absolutely were IC concerns, as well as trade-integration ones between allies. Non-economic, politically-relevant factors. In that case, not necessarily all adversarial.
> because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia
We sanctioned certain Russian entities. Russia responded by seizing American and European assets. There were no U.S. sanctions on e.g. Danish beer made in Russia [1].
Yes, lying under oath is called perjury.
> your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm
Say a foreign country were considering banning Lockheed Martin. And the U.S. ambassador picked up the phone--not to fellow diplomats, but individual legislators--to argue against it. Do you not see how the fact that this rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play?
> US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off
It's been happening in Russia for the past two years. The cases where it rises to diplomatic incident are not strongly correlated with value as much as strategic worth.