The forced sale of the app is the wrong approach to Chinese tech
强制出售抖音，是对待中国科技的错误办法。
In december 2017 a Chinese technology firm called ByteDance bought Musical.ly, an app which let its young users dance and lip-sync to music videos. This did not, at the time, look like a recipe for geopolitical strife. ByteDance merged Musical.ly with a similar app called TikTok, which started growing at a blistering pace. Today TikTok has 100m users in America, and competes with Facebook and Snap. With growing popularity has come growing scrutiny, as Sino-American tensions spread from trade to tech, and a barrage of invective from President Donald Trump.This looks set to culminate in a forced sale of TikTok’s American business to a domestic buyer. Touted as vital to protect Americans’ data, the crackdown is in fact a depressing example of jingoistic opportunism, more likely to chill investment in America and stoke Chinese nationalism
在2017年的12月，一家叫做字节跳动的中国公司收购了 Musical.ly 。这是一个可以让年轻用户随着视频、音乐跳舞和对口型的APP。在那时，这看起来并没有什么地缘冲突。字节跳动把这个软件合并到了一个叫做抖音的软件中，这个软件爆发式的增长。今天，抖音已经在美国有超1亿用户，可以与 facebook 和 snap 相提并论。随着其越来越受欢迎，以及中美摩擦逐渐从贸易转向科技，以及特朗普一连串谩骂，它受到的审查越来越严格。随着强制要求出售抖音美国业务给本土企业，看起来把事情推到了高潮。吹嘘是为了保护美国人的隐私，实际上这个措施是令人失望的沙文主义例子，可能会引起美国投资市场冷却，以及中国人民的民族情怀。
The legal basis for TikTok’s divestment comes from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (cfius), which this week ruled that the Musical.ly deal was against America’s national-security interests. Having flirted with banning TikTok altogether, Mr Trump now seems willing to accept a fire-sale. Microsoft, an American software giant, is in talks to buy TikTok’s American operations, as well as those in New Zealand, Australia and Canada (see Business section).
抖音撤资的法律依据是来自于美国海外投资委员会，该协会本周裁定，抖音对 Musical.ly 的收购危害了美国的国家安全利益。在突然完全禁止抖音之前，特朗普似乎更想接受趁火打劫。美国软件巨头，微软正在和抖音洽谈收购其美国、新西兰、加拿大的业务。
ByteDance is the latest in a series of Chinese firms, among them Huawei, a telecoms-equipment provider, to be targeted by the Trump administration amid fears of cyber-spying and propaganda-peddling. It claims—without providing evidence—that the firms are, or could be, used to pass Americans’ personal data to the Chinese government. ByteDance will not be the last in the crosshairs. Lenovo, a partly state-owned Chinese firm, sells lots of computers in America. Tencent, a social-media giant, owns large stakes in video-game studios with millions of American users. On August 2nd Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, suggested that America may take action against not only TikTok but also Tencent’s WeChat app and “countless more” Chinese firms “feeding data directly to…their national security apparatus”.
字节跳动是一系列被针对的中国公司中最新的一家，其中还有中过的通讯设备供应商华为。他们被特朗普政府盯上，趁着国内民众还沉浸在网络间谍和隐私泄露的担忧中。他们声称，这个公司正在或者可能会把美国民众的个人信息传递给中国，但却拿不出任何证据。字节跳动将不会是最后一个目标。联想，一家合资公司，在美国销售大量电脑。腾讯，一个社交媒体巨头，拥有美国视频、游戏公司的很大股份，且有数百位的美国用户。8月2 号，美国国务卿彭培奥表示，除了抖音之外，还会对腾讯的微信、以及不计其数的中国公司动手。
The data threat from China is real. But nationalist whack-amole, backed up with knee-jerk threats of expropriation, is no way to respond. The apparent detachment from any rules or procedure undermines investor confidence in America and heaps political pressure on technocratic bodies like cfius, which ought to consider cases based on their merits.
来自中国的数据威胁是确实可能的，但是民族主义的疯狂行为，再加上毫无下限的敛财威胁，是得不到任何响应的。对规则和程序的明显背离，是的投资者失去了在美国的信心，并且给投资委员会增加了很大的政治压力，案件本该就事论事。
America would do better to strengthen the process of vetting foreign tech investments, and to get its own data privacy in order. cfius probes need to conclude more promptly; taking two years to start investigating the Musical.ly deal practically guaranteed a chaotic unwinding. And the committee’s political independence also needs bolstering. Mr Trump is watching over TikTok’s talks with Microsoft as if he were a feudal lord. He has even suggested that the Treasury should get a cut for making the deal possible, a demand with no precedent
美国应当加强对海外技术投资的审查程序，并且确保自身的隐私安全。投资委员会的调查需要更迅速的结束；花2年时间去调查这个收购案，实际上是确保了交易进行。委员会的政治独立性也需要加强。特朗普密切关注着 抖音和微软的谈判，仿佛他是封建社会的国王。他甚至建议，财政部应当得到一部分佣金，这是没有先例的。
The Trump administration should tighten privacy law. America has until recently been relaxed about protecting its citizens’ data, and hostile to cyber-security concepts like encryption. A new federal data-privacy and cyber-security law would create transparent standards for handling Americans’ data and stymie foreign hackers. The government must also find a way to assure the quality of digital products containing opaque algorithms, which should apply to all firms, wherever they are based. Bills that do so have long been languishing in Congress. The Trump White House has made little effort to revive them.
特朗普政府应当加强隐私权。美国政府直到最近对公民隐私数据保护还很放松，甚至对网络安全概念比如加密等持敌对态度。新的联邦数据隐私和网络安全法律将会为传输美国数据以及防止黑客攻击建立透明标准。政府还必须找到一种方式来确保包含不透明算法的数字产品的质量，需要适合所有公司，无论他们处在哪里。这样做的方案长期以来被国会嗤之以鼻。特朗普政府也没有任何意愿推动。
But rushed asset sales at the barrel of a gun are not the answer. America needs a response that is less arbitrary and counter-productive.
但是，在枪口下迫使匆忙出售并不是最终答案，美国需要一种不那么武断和避免引起反作用的方式。
本文译自经济学人，仅供学习交流，不代表本人观点，如有侵权请联系删除。
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