The road for Chinese companies to go overseas has never been a smooth road. On December 11, news came from Indonesia that after more than two months of lockdown, TikTok was back online. 
On this year's Double 12, many Indonesian Internet celebrities have brought goods on TikTok again, and the sales are said to be quite good. However, behind this cooperation, TikTok's entrepreneurial road in Indonesia has actually experienced a big crisis. Indonesian market, TikTok's overseas leaderIn recent years, TikTok, the "overseas version of Douyin" launched by ByteDance, has been running wildly on the e-commerce track. Its e-commerce companies have been launched in a number of overseas markets. As of April 2022, TikTok Shop's market covers six Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom in Europe. Especially in Indonesia, TikTok's business expansion was once impressive. 
Because of China's size, few people in China realize that Indonesia is also a country with a fairly large population in absolute terms and density. 2.With a population of 7.5 billion and a relatively young population structure, the country has created a broad market potential. Before the ban, Indonesia was TikTok's largest site in Southeast Asia. The data shows that TikTok has 12.5 billion monthly active users, second only to the United States. What's even more rare is that Indonesia, similar to China, is a country with a high acceptance of live streaming. "TikTok ecological development in the first half of 2023*** shows that Indonesia is the country with the largest number of small stores with TikTok sales of more than 10,000, and it is also the country with the highest total duration and total number of TikTok live broadcasts. The high stickiness and conversion rate of the Indonesian market have enabled TikTok e-commerce to achieve rapid development in the local market. But it is precisely this kind of overly strong explosive growth that has attracted the attention of the local ** in Indonesia. Indonesia** is worried that cheap Chinese goods will wash away their MSMEs. 
As early as July this year, Indef, an Indonesian think tank, criticized the "flood of Chinese products on TikTok" at a cabinet meeting, saying that as many as 74% of the products sold by Indonesian e-commerce sellers came from Chinese imports. Indef named TikTok for tightening controls, citing the "flood of Chinese products" on TikTok's platform, which "poses a threat" to local businesses. Indonesia's SME minister, Teten Masduki, has repeatedly accused Chinese companies of being too cheap to compete. And this concern eventually prompted Indonesia to urgently introduce a ban on TikTok. The sudden ban stormAt the end of September this year, the Indonesian ** department suddenly announced new regulations, announcing a ban on e-commerce transactions on social platforms. The ban is ostensibly non-discriminatory, but in fact it is a special "watch for people" for TikTok e-commerce, because TikTok is currently the only e-commerce company that promotes this business in the country. After communicating with Indonesia** to no avail, TikTok was forced to close its TikTok Shop business in Indonesia in early October this year, and it has been up to two months now. What's worse is that after the shutdown in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries have also taken similar measures. On October 5, Vietnam announced that it had completed a nearly five-month investigation into TikTok for violating laws on e-commerce, information security, and child protection. And on October 7, Malaysia's Minister of Communications and Digital, Fahmi, said that Malaysia** intends to simultaneously investigate Indonesia's plan to ban TikTok's e-commerce business, and even consider formulating appropriate measures in Malaysia. A domino has been laid down in Southeast Asia, and if the lawsuit in Indonesia drags on for a long time, it is likely to have a knock-on effect, allowing TikTok to destroy the e-commerce industry that has been rolled out in the region. Who is the most hurt?However, since the ban was issued, opposition has persisted. Ironically, the first to be unhappy is precisely the millions of local micro, small and medium-sized business owners in Indonesia that Indonesia's ban claims to "protect". According to the survey, it is the local small and medium-sized merchants in Indonesia that constitute the basic market of TikTok Shop's 6 million sellers in Indonesia. Fast Data data also shows that in the first half of 2023, Indonesia is the country with the largest number of TikTok Shop stores with sales of more than 10,000 stores, and two of the top three small stores in the world are from Indonesia. However, after the introduction of Indonesia's new ban, the 6 million "displaced" sellers on the platform also lost their income**, falling into difficulties and confusion, which hurt Indonesia's economy. Many streamers who have worked hard to accumulate followers on TikTok and finally achieved commercial success have complained. Richard Lee, for example, is an influential local beauty blogger who sells skincare and beauty products to 4.7 million Indonesian followers. In August this year, Richard Lee's highest one-day order volume in TikTok live broadcast reached 40.3 billion rupiah (about 19 million yuan), breaking the record of Indonesia's ** direct sales, which is quite like the Indonesian version of Li Jiaqi. 
But Lee admits that the ban will inevitably have a detrimental effect on business, "I'm more worried about my dozens of employees." If the ban is not lifted, I will have to fire a lot of people". "Of course I'm against this ban!I don't understand how to execute ** to break into my house while I'm live?Yuni, a small household appliance merchant in Indonesia, was also indignant. Half a year after entering TikTok Shop, Uni's turnover has doubled, with daily sales reaching IDR 4 million (about 1,900 yuan). "The platform has allowed me to gain more**, and customers have come with it. In an interview with the New York Times, an Indonesian merchant named Dennies Soesanto said that he believes that Indonesia's first shutdown of TikTok Shop business is not about local small and medium-sized businesses at all, but other e-commerce platforms. He previously sold goods such as bags and suitcases through TikTok Shop, and his turnover was three times that of other e-commerce platforms. After the new regulations were introduced, he immediately lost this part of his income. Amid the complaints of small and micro business owners, Indonesian officials have also begun to reflect on whether Indonesia's previous decision was too hasty and hasty. Nailul Huda, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Economic and Financial Development, said in an interview that the ban on TikTok Shop would undermine the digitalization of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and was a step backwards, and the ban should be replaced by regulation. Economist Hastiadi, a former spokesman for Indonesia's ** ministry, pointed out that Indonesia's claim that "cheap Chinese goods hit the traditional Indonesian market is a set of hypocritical rhetoric", which is a "crime of wanting to add", because long before TikTok e-commerce entered Indonesia, Chinese goods have been pouring into Indonesia for more than ten years. Indef only announced the percentage of Chinese goods sold on TikTok, but did not clarify this fact, which is actually creating panic. This move is not conducive to Indonesia's own development. A win-win situation for peak and loop turnsSo after two months of stalemate, TikTok finally found a way out of the predicament - by controlling local Indonesian e-commerce companies, showing sincerity to the Indonesian side. According to foreign media on December 11**, TikTok's Indonesian e-commerce business will be merged with Tokopedia, an e-commerce platform under the Indonesian Goto Group, and the merged Tokopedia will be controlled by TikTok. 
Tokopedia's positioning in Indonesia is about the same as **, and it is one of the largest e-commerce companies in Indonesia. However, in addition to the backward infrastructure of the e-commerce industry in Indonesia, there is also a bottleneck - Indonesia is known as the "country of a thousand islands", with a population scattered on many islands, and frequent land and water conversions, resulting in high costs and expensive freight for scattered logistics. After the completion of the merger, TikTok pledged to invest US$1.5 billion to provide financial support for the future business development of Indonesian e-commerce, overcome technical bottlenecks, support local small and micro enterprises, and promised to create millions of new jobs for Indonesia in the next five years, serving more than 90% of the business of small and medium-sized enterprises. With the joint promotion of many parties, Indonesia** finally lifted the ban on TikTok before the arrival of Double 12. From the perspective of the final solution, TikTok and Indonesia can be regarded as "no fight, no acquaintance" this time, and finally successfully survived the turmoil with a win-win situation. In Indonesia, due to the pressure from the private sector and criticism from the academic community during the ban, it realized that e-commerce is an inevitable trend, and TikTok did not lead Chinese goods to hit small and micro enterprises. As for TikTok, this time it can be regarded as a blessing in disguise, the Indonesian market originally had three major e-commerce platforms - Shopee, Tokopedia and Lazada. In 2022, Tokopedia ranked second with a market share of 35%, and Shopee, which ranked first, had a market share of 36%, and the two sides were evenly matched. On the contrary, TikTok Shop only has a 5% market share. At present, investing in Tokopedia is undoubtedly very beneficial to TikTok to accelerate the expansion of its e-commerce business, and it can be regarded as a blessing in disguise. The "window of development" that doesn't wait for meBut after the crisis has passed, many of the lessons brought by this turmoil are worth reflecting on. It is undeniable that in the past ten years, due to the world's largest single market, Chinese Internet companies have bred and spawned many forms of innovation, such as Douyin's short **, live broadcasting, online short dramas and other models, foreigners have indeed never seen it, which gives TikTok a certain "first-mover advantage". However, this first-mover advantage will gradually disappear with the loss of time. For example, the Meta Group, founded by Zuckerberg and owns the two major social software of Facebook and Instagram, is now investing heavily in accelerating the improvement of its own short-term business, trying to complete the transcendence of TikTok in this field as soon as possible. In this case, China's Internet platform going overseas is not only playing with the world's first, but also racing against time, breaking through the ban a month earlier, accelerating the expansion of its overseas audience, and having an advantage in the battle with the inevitable foreign competitors. Because as Indonesia's experience has proven, users are sticky to the platform they are familiar with, and the more users there are, the stronger their ability to resist risks and attacks in the future. In this case, when domestic products go overseas, it is necessary to avoid unnecessary resistance and resistance to foreign countries that create the impression that "you only sell Chinese goods", tell more win-win stories, create more jobs for local people, and let more overseas countries realize that we are bringing a new paradigm and new opportunities. Only in this way can we go far. TikTok's turning point battle in Indonesia has shown us a successful example of the successful breakthrough of domestic apps when they encountered "siege" - butIn the face of incomprehension, suppression, and siege, the solution is never hostile confrontation, but win-win and cooperation. After all, the window period for development is fleeting, and what we need to seize most is actually the opportunity.