China condemns the US proposal to force the sale of TikTok
China on Wednesday condemned US lawmakers’ attempts to force its Chinese parent company to exit the economy TikTok to sell the popular short video platform.
In Washington, House lawmakers were expected to vote later in the day on a bill that would require Chinese internet company ByteDance to cut ties with TikTok or face a nationwide ban. Lawmakers say Beijing could use TikTok to spread messages from the Chinese Communist Party or access sensitive data about TikTok’s U.S. users.
Beijing dismissed concerns that the app would pose a danger to the United States.
“Although the United States has never found any evidence that TikTok poses a threat to US national security in recent years, it has never stopped going after TikTok,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said at a daily press conference.
China has resisted previous attempts in the United States to force ByteDance to give up TikTok.
The passion over the House of Representatives bill is the latest episode in a years-long saga about the future of the app in the United States.
TikTok, the global version of ByteDance’s popular Chinese social media app Douyin, has 170 million users in the United States. TikTok’s influence, especially among young people, has become inescapable. President Biden’s re-election campaign has used it to reach voters.
Mr. Wang accused Washington of “resorting to hegemonic moves when it could not succeed in fair competition.”
The surveillance of TikTok was disrupting global business, sowing distrust among investors in the United States and would “ultimately backfire on the U.S. itself,” he said.
The House bill has bipartisan support, underscoring lawmakers’ willingness to take tough action on China even as the country faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Mr. Biden said Friday that he would sign the bill if it were passed by Congress.
Former President Donald J. Trump has spoken out against the bill, despite once issuing an executive order of his own proposing a forced sale of the app.
Last year, Beijing said it would strongly oppose the forced sale of the platform, hours before TikTok CEO Shou Chew was scheduled to testify before Congress. China’s Ministry of Commerce said at the time that the Chinese government would have to sign off on such a sale.
In 2020, Beijing updated its export rules with technology similar to the algorithm TikTok uses to recommend videos to its users. Bids from US companies, including Microsoft and Oracle, to acquire TikTok’s US operations were ultimately shelved.