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Behind the TikTok controversy is an important struggle between two dueling visions of the internet. The first is an older vision: the idea that the internet should, in a neutral fashion, connect everyone, and that blocking and censorship of sites by nation-states should be rare and justified by more than the will of the ruler. The second and newer vision, of which China has been the leading exponent, is net nationalism, which views the countrys internet primarily as a tool of state power. Economic growth, surveillance and thought control, from this perspective, are the internets most important functions.

China, in furtherance of this vision, bans not only most foreign competitors to its tech businesses but also foreign sources of news, religious instruction and other information, while using the internet to promote state propaganda and engage in foreign electoral interference. Though China is the pioneer of net nationalism, it is on the rise elsewhere, particularly in nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran and, more recently, Turkey and India.

For many years, laboring under the vain expectation that China, succumbing to inexorable world-historical forces, would become more like us, Western democracies have allowed China to exploit this situation. We have accepted, with only muted complaints, Chinese censorship and blocking of content from abroad while allowing Chinese companies to explore and exploit whatever markets it likes. Few foreign companies are allowed to reach Chinese citizens with ideas or services, but the world is fully open to Chinas online companies.

From Chinas perspective, the asymmetry has been a bonanza that has served economic as well as political goals. While China does have great engineers, European nations overrun by American tech companies must be jealous of the thriving tech industry that China has built in the absence of serious foreign competition (aided by the theft of trade secrets). At the same time, China has managed, to an extent many believed impossible, to use the internet to suppress any nascent political opposition and ceaselessly promote its ruling party. The idealists who thought the internet would automatically create democracy in China were wrong.

Some think that it is a tragic mistake for the United States to violate the principles of internet openness that were pioneered in this country. But there is also such a thing as being a sucker. If China refuses to follow the rules of the open internet, why continue to give it access to internet markets around the world?

Read more:
A TikTok Ban Is Overdue - The New York Times