Conquer Club

Following on from his relentless efforts to undermine Huawei's operations all over the globe, Trump has now turned his attention to both TikTok and WeChat:

President Donald Trump has told US firms they have 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok and WeChat, claiming the Chinese apps are a threat to national security.

The announcement comes as Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok ahead of a 15 September deadline set by Mr Trump.

The point about this executive order coming as Microsoft is in talks to try and buy TikTok is interesting. Rather than classic old school protectionism, flailing at other countries' superior tech giants in an attempt to put some road blocks in their way, is this latest bluster from Trump an attempt to facilitate American companies' tech piracy by pushing Chinese-owned tech giants to start selling their US offices to American firms?

After all, government-backed technology piracy is a noble American tradition spanning back centuries:

https://www.history.com/news/industrial ... ies-europe
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/ ... as-history
https://apnews.com/b40414d22f2248428ce11ff36b88dc53

WeChat ban confirmed as nothing more than pirate tech grab by backward and incompetent US Government:

In an executive order, President Trump labelled WeChat a threat to US national security and accused it of gathering "vast swaths" of user data, threatening Americans' personal and proprietary information.

WeChat's owner, TenCent, has been ordered to sell the app by mid-September or face a ban on US operations.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53686507

Appeasing?

Microsoft tech:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355 ... ding-dates

Good news! The US Government's recent act of naked corporate piracy has woken the Chinese Government up to the threat of American IPR theft, with Beijing announcing new export restrictions that will stop advanced Chinese AI being included in the sale of TikTok to an American buyer:

BBC wrote:Two weeks ago, China announced new government restrictions on tech exports. The restrictions mean some technologies such as AI, will need government approval before they can be exported.

TikTok has become so popular because it has highly-advanced algorithms that predict what users want to watch.

These highly-valued algorithms will not be sold or transferred according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

Sorry, America, you're just going to have to develop your own AI technologies (if you can)!