Given that we’re in the midst of a digital cold war with China, these sanctions are totally valid.

An AI coalition effort is definitely what should happen. But it wont happen because AI supremacy is winner take all, tilting the incentive structure in favor of first movers.

For right now, with China infiltrating our badly secured networks, using international students as propagandists and spies, stealing all of the IP they can get their hands on, and silencing public discourse about their practices, it seems that we cannot be friends.

Looking at things in a concrete way, the US is far and away the global hegemony. Geopolitically, we conflict with other countries at their borders, not ours.

But a digital perspective shows a strategic, walled off China intent on infiltrating the naive west with propagandists, spies, products, and software that promote their interests, while allowing nothing of the sort within their own borders. If they get to ban Facebook, google, instagram, and Twitter, than we get to ban TikTok, WeChat, and the sale massive quantities of our land to foreign nationals acting in bad faith.

Cheers