US mounts pressure on firms with unethical deals
the Trump administration’s demands.
In the statement on ByteDance’s public WeChat account, the firm criticized the US government for disregarding the facts and local laws to determine contractual terms, and for even trying to intervene in negotiations between private firms.
The US executive order set a dangerous precedence in the free and open market, and the firm will take all feasible measures to ensure that the rule of law is not abandoned, read the statement.
“The declaration is long overdue, a clear sign that [the firm] has completely abandoned fantasy and stood to fight,” Liu Dingding, a Beijingbased independent internet analyst, told the Global Times on Friday.
The social media company has been caught in the middle, trying not to offend Chinese users while yielding to US demands, he said, estimating the firm’s eventual move to take the US government to court to have an impact, at most, on its US operations and service in pro-US markets such as India.
A Tencent spokesperson also told the Global Times on Friday that the company is reviewing the executive order to get a full understanding.
The crackdown on premium Chinese assets amounts to robbery, said Chinese analysts on Friday, labeling the unscrupulous president as a pirate in the modern era and warning that the example set by the US government utilizes executive power to prey upon foreign businesses.
Trump’s latest executive order seemingly intends to put greater pressure on ByteDance to rapidly divest TikTok, thereby forcing down its acquisition cost, Liu commented.
Microsoft is by no means the only interested buyer, and growing threats from the Trump administration to force the Chinese-origin service into a dead end mean it is impossible for other potential buyers to increase their bids, he said.
The new executive order is intended to accelerate the deal and is essentially a case of expropriation, according to Tao Qiang, a senior partner at the Beijing Yingke Law Firm Shanghai Office.
The acquisition is government expropriation on the grounds of security and national interests, setting it apart from normal commercial deals, Tao said.
The enviable social media success the Chinese app has gained, an annoying weak link for US tech behemoths, makes TikTok a coveted asset, industry watchers said.
The attempt to force the sale of TikTok and a newly intensified clampdown reek of modern piracy, said Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.