The United States contemplates banning the app TikTok and China immediately begins rushing to their defense.
On Wednesday, The U.S. House of Representatives voted on and passed legislation that would require Bytedance, a Chinese-based company which owns TikTok, to sell its stake in TikTok or the app would not be allowed for use in the U.S. This bill garnered bipartisan support claiming TikTok is a major security risk to American’s information and China fires back accusing the Untied States of surpressing economic competition.
The New York Times reported Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, declaring “In recent years, though the United States has never found any evidence of TikTok posing a threat to U.S. national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok. [The U.S. is] resorting to hegemonic moves when one could not succeed in fair competition.”
Of course the Chinese-state media echoed the sentiment of the foreign ministry trying to defend the TikTok app.
“According to U.S. constitutional law, Congress cannot simply ban TikTok or any social media platform unless it can prove it poses clear and present dangers that can’t be addressed by any other means,” an opinion piece in the China Daily proclaimed. “But the lawmakers have yet to provide convincing proof for their allegations.”
The Chinese company ByteDance has been scrutinized by lawmakers in recent years for their close ties to the Chinese government and possible data collection and espionage activities. A national TikTok ban has been tried but failed in years before. The current proposed bill would allow the company to separate ties from China or face a total ban, which would only happen if the parent company refuses to sell off TikTok.
TikTok has been lobbying lawmakers hard to urge them not to vote for this bill. “Lawmakers know – as they have repeatedly tweeted and said in the media – that the end result of this legislation is a TikTok ban in the United States,” said TikTok. “It’s shameful members of Congress would complain about hearing from their own constituents.”
The bill now heads to the Senate where Senator Majority Leader Schumer decides if it will be voted on. President Biden said recently that if the bill passed the Senate, he would ultimately sign it into law.