“China’s technology boom was forged to a remarkable extent by American investors.” Those are the words of Sebastian Mallaby, from his excellent 2022 history of venture capital investing, The Power Law.
Mallaby’s reporting is a corrective to the question asked by Douglas H. Ginsburg, a judge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia. Part of a three-person panel overseeing TikTok’s appeal of its legislative ban, Ginsburg expressed skepticism about Singapore-based TikTok’s desire to avoid divestiture from what is frequently referred to as “Chinese ownership.” Ginsburg asked TikTok’s lawyers “Why is this any different from a constitutional point of view than the statute precluding foreign ownership of a broadcasting license?” If we ignore that TikTok isn’t a broadcaster as much as it’s a brilliant reflection of what its users want and might like to see, the problem can be found in Ginsburg’s question.
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