The fact that Tiktok voluntarily shut down its US service a few hours before an enacted law says a lot, under the circumstances (1) it doesn't have to do so proactively; (2) its CEO is one of the five tech boys invited in Trump's inauguration; (3) Tiktok popup specifically calls out its pending plot with incoming Trump administration. I bet there was already a deal between the "concerned parties" that Tiktok will be back to the US under the Trump administration, and by so doing, Tiktok will be regarded as a pro-GOP social media along with twitter, all the while Chinese government is silent in the background. Chinese government is also uncharacteristically sophisticated in handling the XiaoHongShu situation.
In the coming days and weeks, my guess is that:
(1) Tiktok will resume its service in the US, while "concerned parties" start negotiating a long term solution under the bargaining table.
(2) Tiktok gen Zs will start tilting toward Trump admin which is good for its mid-term election in the near term.
(3) DNC will lose more young voters in the next four years.
(4) Trump 2.0 will relatively be more "friendly" toward China given the sign that Hang Zheng is attending the inauguration and Trump called Xi the day before.
(5) Trump 2.0 will likely be a de facto G2 show on the international stage.
Hard to believe that Trump is going to abandon the existing deep state plans to provoke a hot war and maintain cold war against China suddenly due to TikTok.
For once, the election has already passed, and even if there were such deals before it would be stupid to think Trump would follow them now.
Trump now can simply ban TikTok without any consequences as US big tech and media would also probably come running toward him.
Meanwhile, technically he can't go after 3rd term, and if he did, he would become a full-on autocrat, and again, at this point, there would be no elections at this point. You know what's even better for that plan? Provoke a war against China to directly gather more power domestically.
Moreover, did you even hear what his future officials and policymakers have been saying about China in recent days? Tell me Trump doesn't think the same, lol.
There is NO WAY IN HELL, not even a 5% chance that the US accepts peaceful coexistence with China as equals as STATED BY THEM DIRECTLY.
Because structurally US is a ZERO-SUM empire fundamentally, they are incapable of sustaining themselves without an absolute singular global hegemony nowadays due to the changed structure of the economy/society. The US is NOT a POSITIVE-SUM empire like China in essence.
