Forcing non-Chinese ownership on TikTok is reasonable, with banning threat as the "stick"

It fits in the same national security category as blacklisting Huawei

As I have argued here before, in our connected world there are all sorts of ways for controlling actors to capture and manipulate the allegiances of individuals. In the West, we have major players active in each of these identified realms.

Yes, there is collusion to be found here, and every entity has ambitions to conquer the whole, but it remains a still competitive landscape — for now.