One hopes your attitude towards reciprocity stops at software. "we should treat Chinese [NOUN] the exact same way that China treats American [NOUN]" is a scary Mad Lib.
Are you saying if the US puts a tariff on aluminum from Canada we’re not holding ourselves up to our ideals of freedom?
If China and other governments are intolerant of our content, code, and signals, why should we be tolerant of theirs?
Is the USA the right regime to morally champion this cause? It the real reason for these bans even remotely associated with this moral objective? I'll leave that up to the reader.
But: with what's happening at the behest of the people who ultimately and directly control the censorship and data of these applications, there is no further difficulty in applying "intolerance to intolerance" in this case.
Took me a few reads to understand your point of contention, but I'm pretty sure I described it accurately. Their intolerance of our products over whatever concerns they have justifies our intolerance of their products for the same.
The same can be applied to software and algorithms. These cannot be allowed to perpetuate evil practices in the name of liberty.[1] I don't see a problem when apps doing that get banned. Though I do understand that people will differ on how to do that.
Also - WeChat is a legit threat even outside the bounds of security.
Game Theory:
'True Free Trade' - everyone gets 10 points 'All Borders Closed' - everyone gets 0 points 'One side opens, one side closed' - the closed side gets 20 points, the open side 5
Somewhat like a prisoner's dilemma.
Finally - there is hardly an argument to be made with 'open' or 'freedom' on platforms that are completely controlled, censored, used as tools of suppression and authoritarianism.