What, if anything, should we do about TikTok? Is the forced sale of the fastest-growing social media platform in the world a commonsense step to protect America from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party? Or is legislation that would mandate the app’s sale or ban a threat to free speech?
SEOUL, South Korea — In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings, three million people marched in France to defend free speech.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jan 19, 2015
SEOUL, South Korea — Last month’s Sony hack was a national debacle, nearly canceling “The Interview” and denying moviegoers a fruitful two hours of butthole and gay jokes.
By Geoffrey Cain
USA TODAY
Jan 15, 2015
SEOUL, South Korea — Menacing battalions of police, wearing neon yellow uniforms and carrying anti-riot shields, regularly march through the South Korean capital, at times showing up en masse to small and harmless protests.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Aug 5, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — The news yesterday that Kim Jong Un purged his uncle and de facto number two leader of North Korea, Jang Sung Taek, has all the trappings you’d expect from a mysterious and ruthless dictatorship.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Dec 4, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — It started out as an airline tragedy. Then it grew into a racially charged row. On Monday, Asiana Airlines announced it will sue a San Francisco television broadcaster for defamation — after a news anchor unknowingly read a distasteful ethnic joke on air, thinking it was a major scoop.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jul 16, 2013
In April 2011, a Vietnamese dissident explained to me why he gave up blogging critically about the government. “We have jobs, motorbikes, nice coffee shops, and big luxury buildings,” he said, pointing to the then-recently opened Bitexco Financial Tower, Ho Chi Minh City’s tallest edifice, with a helicopter landing pad jutting out of its side. “The Communist Party has made this blogging unprofitable. If we go up against them, how do we get a piece of that prosperity?”
By Geoffrey Cain
CARNEGIE COUNCIL for Ethics in International Affairs
Jun 28, 2012
What to read next:
Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State | In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on years spent reporting inside some of the world’s most restrictive regimes — and on the research behind his book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.
For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.
The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.
This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.