China accuses US of ‘theft’ in Tiktok row

CHINA has lashed out at the United States after politicians told Tiktok it may be shut down if it fails to break away from its Chinese parent company.

The US was accused of “theft on a grand scale” in a recent editorial by the state-run China Daily newspaper, which claimed Americans “don’t see Tiktok as a threat”.

The criticism comes as US politicians prepare to vote on a bill this week that could force China’s Bytedance to sell Tiktok in the next six months or face being blocked from American app stores.

President Joe Biden has signalled that he would sign the cross-party bill into law despite using the app for his re-election campaign. US officials have long raised security concerns about the prospect of Bytedance being compelled to comply with Chinese intelligence laws and hand over data from Tiktok.

Tiktok has always insisted it would never provide data to the Chinese state and has recently spent billions of dollars to store American user data in the US.

The bill is the latest attempt by US politicians to ban Tiktok, the most notable of which was led by Donald Trump, the former president who unsuccessfully tried to block the app in 2020.

The state of Montana also attempted to impose a local ban last year, but this was overturned after a legal challenge.

Last week, Tiktok appealed to its 170m American users by sending them a notification to call their politicians to protest against the bill. The latest debate comes four years after Tiktok was nearly sold to US software giant Oracle and retailer Wal-mart in a joint acquisition, which followed Mr Trump’s shutdown threat.

However, in a surprise move last week, the former president appeared to oppose a ban on Tiktok.

He said: “If you get rid of Tiktok, Facebook will double their business.”

Warnings of a potential sale have prompted speculation over who could buy the video-sharing app, which has exploded in popularity in recent years.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Bobby Kotick, the former Activision chief executive, had been sounding out other technology executives about a possible bid.

A Tiktok spokesman said: “This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of Tiktok in the US.”