Anger and unease over sell-or-ban law against TikTok
US measure slammed as ‘robbery’ and ‘bullying’ while Beijing and ByteDance silent on next moves
The US government’s passage of a sell-or-ban law against popular short-video app TikTok has stirred unease and anger on the mainland, even as Beijing and social media giant ByteDance have kept silent on their next moves.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law a legislative measure that would ban TikTok in America unless Chinese owner ByteDance divested the platform’s US business. He has set a January 19 deadline – one day before his term is to expire – but could grant a three-month extension if he determines ByteDance is making progress.
In response, China’s state media yesterday published various opinion pieces to slam Washington’s sell-or-ban ultimatum on TikTok.
An article published by the Beijing Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party’s Beijing Municipal Committee, said the measure against TikTok was tantamount to a “robbery” that would “completely destroy American national credibility, which is already flawed”.
While both Beijing and ByteDance have stayed silent on their potential moves, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday referred media inquiries to his previous remarks about the US measure against the hit short-video app.
Wang had said the proposed ban amounted to bullying and “will inevitably come back to bite the US itself”.
Last month, Ministry of Commerce spokesman He Yadong called on the United States to “stop unreasonable suppression of companies from other countries”.
This leaves TikTok poised to challenge the constitutionality of Washington’s sell-or-ban measure, as the four-year battle over restricting the short-video app’s operations in America has turned into a significant front in the US-China tech war.
“The facts and the constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again,” TikTok chief executive Chew Shou Zi said in a video message posted on Wednesday after Biden signed into law the legislative measure against the platform operator. “Make no mistake – this is a ban on TikTok.”
In 2020, then US president Donald Trump had pushed for a sell-or-ban ultimatum on TikTok, and Beijing stepped in by requiring approval for the sale or transfer of the algorithm behind the app.
TikTok had told employees in an email sent in the past weekend, according to a report by the Post, that as soon as Biden signed the legislation, “we will move the courts for a legal challenge”, adding the measure showed “a clear violation of the First Amendment”.
The American Civil Liberties Union this week said banning or requiring divestiture of TikTok’s US operations would “set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms”.
State-run China Daily, meanwhile, published an article by British political and international relations analyst Tom Fowdy, who argued the US measure was meant to “steal, undermine or impede China’s success”.
“Under no circumstances will the company be allowed to sell such a wildly successful product under the threat of force to an American company,” he wrote.
On the mainland, some doubts have been raised on the prospects of TikTok’s US operations, four years since India banned the app after a deadly military clash in the two countries’ disputed Himalayan border region.
One user on Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-style service popular among Chinese youngsters, asked in a post whether it was still meaningful to pursue a job interview with TikTok. Several of the replies said it was pointless.
ByteDance operates Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, on the mainland where it has more than 600 million daily active users.
The facts and the constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again CHEW SHOU ZI, TIKTOK CEO