• Home
  • Politics
  • Health
  • World
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • More
    • Sports
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
What's Hot

How Smart Mattresses Improve Sleep Quality For Couples

May 9, 2025

OpenAI CEO Warns: ‘Not A Huge Amount Of Time’ Until China Overpowers American AI

May 9, 2025

Short and Funny Sayings for a Happy Summer with Friends

May 9, 2025
Facebook Twitter Instagram
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
Friday, May 9
Patriot Now NewsPatriot Now News
  • Home
  • Politics

    Security video shows brazen sexual assault of California woman by homeless man

    October 24, 2023

    Woman makes disturbing discovery after her boyfriend chases away home intruder who stabbed him

    October 24, 2023

    Poll finds Americans overwhelmingly support Israel’s war on Hamas, but younger Americans defend Hamas

    October 24, 2023

    Off-duty pilot charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after allegedly trying to shut off engines midflight on Alaska Airlines

    October 23, 2023

    Leaked audio of Shelia Jackson Lee abusively cursing staffer

    October 22, 2023
  • Health

    Disparities In Cataract Care Are A Sorry Sight

    October 16, 2023

    Vaccine Stocks—Including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech And Novavax—Slide Amid Plummeting Demand

    October 16, 2023

    Long-term steroid use should be a last resort

    October 16, 2023

    Rite Aid Files For Bankruptcy With More ‘Underperforming Stores’ To Close

    October 16, 2023

    Who’s Still Dying From Complications Related To Covid-19?

    October 16, 2023
  • World

    New York Democrat Dan Goldman Accuses ‘Conservatives in the South’ of Holding Rallies with ‘Swastikas’

    October 13, 2023

    IDF Ret. Major General Describes Rushing to Save Son, Granddaughter During Hamas Invasion

    October 13, 2023

    Black Lives Matter Group Deletes Tweet Showing Support for Hamas 

    October 13, 2023

    AOC Denounces NYC Rally Cheering Hamas Terrorism: ‘Unacceptable’

    October 13, 2023

    L.A. Prosecutors Call Out Soros-Backed Gascón for Silence on Israel

    October 13, 2023
  • Business

    OpenAI CEO Warns: ‘Not A Huge Amount Of Time’ Until China Overpowers American AI

    May 9, 2025

    Trump Announces First Post-Tariff Trade Deal

    May 8, 2025

    Electric Vehicle Sales Nosedive As GOP Takes Buzzsaw To Biden’s Mandate

    May 7, 2025

    Tyson Foods Announces It Will Bend The Knee To Trump Admin’s New Rules

    May 7, 2025

    Federal Reserve Holds Interest Rates Steady Despite Pressure From Trump

    May 7, 2025
  • Finance

    Ending China’s De Minimis Exception Brings 3 Benefits for Americans

    April 17, 2025

    The Trump Tariff Shock Should Push Indonesia to Reform Its Economy

    April 17, 2025

    Tariff Talks an Opportunity to Reinvigorate the Japan-US Alliance

    April 17, 2025

    How China’s Companies Are Responding to the US Trade War

    April 16, 2025

    The US Flip-flop Over H20 Chip Restrictions 

    April 16, 2025
  • Tech

    Cruz Confronts Zuckerberg on Pointless Warning for Child Porn Searches

    February 2, 2024

    FTX Abandons Plans to Relaunch Crypto Exchange, Commits to Full Repayment of Customers and Creditors

    February 2, 2024

    Elon Musk Proposes Tesla Reincorporates in Texas After Delaware Judge Voids Pay Package

    February 2, 2024

    Tesla’s Elon Musk Tops Disney’s Bob Iger as Most Overrated Chief Executive

    February 2, 2024

    Mark Zuckerberg’s Wealth Grew $84 Billion in 2023 as Pedophiles Target Children on Facebook, Instagram

    February 2, 2024
  • More
    • Sports
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
Patriot Now NewsPatriot Now News
Home»Finance»US Lawmakers See TikTok as China’s Tool, Even as It Distances Itself From Beijing
Finance

US Lawmakers See TikTok as China’s Tool, Even as It Distances Itself From Beijing

March 14, 2024No Comments6 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
TikTok Says it Regrets Indonesia’s Decision to Ban E-commerce Sales on Social Media Platforms
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

If some U.S. lawmakers have their way, the United States and China could end up with something in common: TikTok might not be available in either country.

The House on Wednesday approved a bill requiring the Beijing-based company ByteDance to sell its subsidiary, TikTok, or face a nationwide ban. It’s unclear if the bill will ever become law, but it reflects lawmakers’ fears that the social media platform could expose Americans to Beijing’s malign influences and data security risks.

But while U.S. lawmakers associate TikTok with China, the company, headquartered outside China, has strategically kept its distance from its homeland.

Since its inception, the TikTok platform has been intended for non-Chinese markets and is unavailable in mainland China. It pulled out of Hong Kong in 2020 when Beijing imposed a national security law on the territory to curtail speech. As data security concerns started to rise in the United States, TikTok sought to reassure lawmakers that data gathered on U.S. users stays in the country and is inaccessible to ByteDance employees in Beijing.

TikTok’s parent company is following the same playbook as many other Chinese companies with global ambitions: To win customers and trust in the United States and other Western countries, they are playing down their Chinese roots and connections. Some have insisted they be called “global companies” instead of “Chinese companies.”

But for TikTok, this may not be enough. The House bill passed overwhelmingly on a 352-65 vote. Its prospects in the Senate are uncertain, but if it clears both chambers, President Joe Biden said he would sign it into law. The moves in Washington threaten the app’s survival and cast a spotlight on the quandary that many private Chinese companies have found themselves a part of as they seek to engage Western markets at a time of souring China-U.S. relations.

See also  Dow Jones Futures Fall: Stocks Run With Big Earnings, Nasdaq 100 Rebalance Due

“It’s the most difficult time for Chinese tech companies and private businesses in decades as tensions and rivalry between the United States and China continue to grow,” said Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University.

“These companies and businesses face squeezing from both sides as they struggle to survive,” Zhu said. “While the U.S. and other Western countries have imposed sanctions or restrictions on these companies, China itself has moved to favor state-owned enterprises in recent years, leaving little room for Chinese tech and private businesses to operate.”

Alex Capri, senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore and research fellow at Hinrich Foundation, agreed that companies like TikTok with Chinese roots are “really stuck in two polar extremes” between the heavy-handed Chinese Communist Party and the deeply suspicious West.

“Any Chinese tech company has to operate under a cloud of suspicion, and that’s because there’s a total breakdown of trust,” Capri said.

With the rise of techno-nationalism, by which technological capabilities are deemed a national strategic asset, China’s tech companies are obligated by Beijing’s laws and rules to turn over data and have become “essentially a de-facto representative” of China’s ruling communist party, Capri said.

“That in itself makes it very challenging for companies like TikTok,” he said.

In 2018, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, toed the party line after Beijing shut down ByteDance’s jokes app. He apologized publicly for his company’s deviations from socialistic core values and promised to “comprehensively rectify the algorithm” on its news app and add significantly more layers of censoring – a move considered necessary for any company to survive in China.

See also  What to know about the Goldilocks job market

That explains the oft-repeated claim by U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher, chair of the House Select Committee on China’s Communist Party, that “there’s no such thing as a private company in China.”

The bill, as approved by the House, seeks to remove applications from app stores or web hosting services in the U.S. unless the application severs its ties to companies – such as ByteDance – that are subject to the control from foreign adversaries, like China.

“This is my message to TikTok: Break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” said Gallagher, the bill’s sponsor. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States. TikTok’s time in the United States is over unless it ends its relationship with CCP-controlled ByteDance.”

Congressional mistrust of TikTok was evident at a January 31 hearing when Senator Tom Cotton repeatedly asked CEO Shou Zi Chew if he is a Chinese citizen beholden to the Communist party. Chew, who is Singaporean, repeatedly said no.

On Tuesday, Represenative Nancy Pelosi said it’s problematic that ByteDance, which owns the social platform’s algorithm, is subject to Beijing’s control.

Chew, in another congressional hearing last year, told Congress that “we do not remove or promote content on behalf of the Chinese government.”

In a recent interview with Wired magazine, Chew acknowledged that the company’s Chinese origins have given TikTok a “bigger trust deficit than most other companies.”

“Maybe our trust starting line is behind other businesses, but I also think that there are very serious approaches that we’ve taken to try and earn that trust and to close that gap,” Chew said, citing efforts by TikTok to protect U.S. user data, be transparent, and “not be manipulated by any government.”

See also  Why Barrick Gold Remains Interested in Pakistan’s Reko Diq Reserves

Short of severance from the home country, Chinese companies chasing global ambitions have tried to distance themselves from China by introducing many foreign investors, hiring foreign executives, moving headquarters to outside China, and limiting operations to overseas markets, said Thomas Zhang, China analyst at FrontierView, a U.S.-headquartered market intelligence provider. But “the effects are limited as long as the founder in China does not relinquish control,” Zhang said.

For TikTok, the trust is so lacking that even a full divestiture from its Chinese parent company may not work, because complicated ownership structures can obscure potential Chinese ownership, Capri said.

Even if ByteDance agreed to sell TikTok, it’s unclear whether the Chinese government would allow it to do so. China restricts the export of certain technologies, potentially including the powerful algorithms at the heart of TikTok’s success.

As TikTok fights for survival, it has made a move that is very present in American politics: It’s engaging in heavy lobbying and appealing to its 170 million U.S. users to contact their lawmakers to say a TikTok ban would infringe on their free speech rights.

It’s won over one powerful critic: Former President Donald Trump, in a reversal, came out against the TikTok legislation. But Trump, for all his sway with congressional Republicans, couldn’t prevent House passage.

If the bill becomes law, Capri said, TikTok could pursue the ultimate American recourse: a lawsuit to challenge the ban.

Beijing Chinas distances Lawmakers TikTok Tool
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

‘Wait Them Out’: John Kennedy Tells Larry Kudlow One Lie He Suspects China’s Telling US

May 7, 2025

China’s Export Economy Under Trump’s Tariff Onslaught The Worst Since COVID

April 30, 2025

Chinese Manufacturers Flood TikTok To Subvert Trump’s Tariff Agenda

April 28, 2025

Ending China’s De Minimis Exception Brings 3 Benefits for Americans

April 17, 2025
Add A Comment

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Top Posts

DIRTY COPS, DIRTY MEDIA… REVEALED: Undercover Police Helped Steal Police Riot Shields and Passed Through Broken Glass Doors on Jan. 6

March 27, 2023

Former NFL Player Stanley Wilson Collapses at Mental Hospital, Dies at 40

February 24, 2023

Bringing the War on Terror Home to Target Americans for ‘Disinformation’

May 2, 2023

Poor African children face malnutrition risk, while rich kids become obese

May 3, 2023
Don't Miss

How Smart Mattresses Improve Sleep Quality For Couples

Lifestyle May 9, 2025

Sharing a bed with your partner can be romantic… until it’s not. One of you…

OpenAI CEO Warns: ‘Not A Huge Amount Of Time’ Until China Overpowers American AI

May 9, 2025

Short and Funny Sayings for a Happy Summer with Friends

May 9, 2025

Trump Announces First Post-Tariff Trade Deal

May 8, 2025
About
About

This is your World, Tech, Health, Entertainment and Sports website. We provide the latest breaking news straight from the News industry.

We're social. Connect with us:

Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest
Categories
  • Business (4,111)
  • Entertainment (4,220)
  • Finance (3,202)
  • Health (1,938)
  • Lifestyle (1,628)
  • Politics (3,084)
  • Sports (4,036)
  • Tech (2,006)
  • Uncategorized (4)
  • World (3,944)
Our Picks

He Calls It His ‘Biggest Secret’—Some Experts Call It Bogus

July 16, 2023

Altria Lays Out a Transition to Smokeless Products. But It Begins With the Dividend.

April 1, 2023

China-Cuba Spy Base Report Not True, But We Won’t Say How or Deny Plans for Base Exist

June 10, 2023
Popular Posts

How Smart Mattresses Improve Sleep Quality For Couples

May 9, 2025

OpenAI CEO Warns: ‘Not A Huge Amount Of Time’ Until China Overpowers American AI

May 9, 2025

Short and Funny Sayings for a Happy Summer with Friends

May 9, 2025
© 2025 Patriotnownews.com - All rights reserved.
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.