China has revealed it will not accept the U.S.’ “theft” of a Chinese technology company – TikTok, state media reported on Tuesday.
The Trump administration’s pressuring of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company in China, to sell its U.S. operations to Microsoft or risk closure amounts to a “smash and grab,” the state-run China Daily newspaper wrote in an editorial.
Beijing has ways to retaliate against Washington’s pressure on the Chinese-owned short video app TikTok according to the state media.
While Beijing will likely be “cautious” in imposing equivalent restrictions on U.S. companies in China, it has “plenty of ways” to retaliate, the paper said.
Microsoft said on Monday that it was in discussions with ByteDance to buy parts of TikTok after U.S. President Donald Trump gave the companies 45 days to reach a deal.
Trump had initially threatened to ban TikTok in the U.S. on national security grounds because the app collects too much data. However, recently backpeddaled giving the Chinese owned company 45 days to seal a deal with American company, Microsoft. Trump also announced that the government also expects to benefit from the deal for allowing the sale to go on.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said over the weekend that Washington might take action “shortly” against TikTok and other Chinese companies believed to share data with the Chinese government.
ByteDance said in a statement late Sunday it was still committed to being a global company despite “complex and unimaginable difficulties” including the “tense” international political environment.
TikTok will be the second owned Chinese company to face serious backlash in the United States, the first being the Chinese Huawei revolving around the same issue of collecting American users data as well coming up with the 5G network which the US have categorically refused to use and also encouraged their allies to do likewise.
