Yesterday it was Huawei, today it was TikTok and tomorrow, we will see. It follows American harassment of Chinese technology with no more certainty than its global success and with ambiguous threats to national security. “When someone sees something someone else is holding and tries to steal it, they use bandit logic,” the Beijing government explained yesterday, referring to the ultimatum imposed by the proposed US law on TikTok: abandon the Chinese matrix or you will be banned.
The House of Representatives testifies, by a majority of 352 votes in favor and 65 votes against, that China alone brings together Democrats and Republicans. What's missing is a vote in the Senate, which is expected to be much drier, and a signature from President Biden, who has already promised it.
Inevitable approval
No one in China doubts that the law will bear fruit, and yesterday it already announced “all necessary measures to preserve the interests of its companies.” This law, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, violates fair competition and international economic and trade rules. His spokesman asked, “If these alleged national security reasons can be arbitrarily used to suppress blue-chip foreign companies, where is the equality and justice?” A series of laments from the local press preceded the House of Representatives' decision. The media and the ministry reiterated that there is no evidence and that such a punishment for TikTok would “backfire” in the United States.
This was not the case when Donald Trump attacked Huawei, the world leader in 5G networks, for the same reasons. No one has yet given any indication of the threat TikTok and Huawei pose to national security. The head of the intelligence services in Washington said this week that he could not rule out that the TikTok application would affect the upcoming presidential elections. He did not say he could guarantee that.
The law throws TikTok into uncertainty. If its Chinese parent company, Beijing-based Bytedance, doesn't sell it, 170 million US users won't have access to it.
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