This is very biased toward US and Taiwanese interests. I am not trying to support what the CCP does or their worldview just be aware that this article source is the Taiwan News.

As someone with no direct experience, but some serious research, a company in China does not get to where ByteDance has gotten without playing ball with the Chinese government. This should be clear, as we in the US cannot buy, sell, hire, fire, and so on without some attention paid to the government's guidelines and taxes paid on what we make.

It isn't exactly the same, but try running a company outside the purview of the government in the US and see how far that goes. Probably not more than a payroll tax cycle before you start to run afoul of someone.

There is a lot of patriotism in China, and the government is Communist. Chinese citizens don't split the baby on that.

The lesson here for anyone surprised by this is that EVERY company in China would do the same, or they won't last long. Does that change how you interact with Chinese entities?

The parliament in Beijing is full of top industrialists. Not sure about the Central Committee, does anyone know?

I wonder what Karl Marx would think of this.