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U.S. app stores will be banned from carrying TikTok within 270 days unless its Chinese owner sells the video-sharing platform, after Congress passed a security package containing measures to counter threats from China. Ru.
The Senate approved the bill 79-18 on Tuesday, triggering ByteDance’s bid to sell TikTok to avoid the ban. TikTok is expected to take legal action to block the bill after lobbying efforts failed to weaken Congressional support for the bill.
TikTok has vowed to file a legal challenge to the “unconstitutional law” that amounts to a “ban” that “destroys 7 million businesses and silences 170 million Americans.”
“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side and that ultimately we will prevail. “We have invested billions of dollars to protect against outside influence and manipulation,” TikTok said.
President Joe Biden has promised to sign the $95 billion security aid package passed by the Senate on Tuesday, which also includes funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. His team helped draft the TikTok language with members of the House China Committee, which introduced the bill last month.
If you ban TikTok from the store, the app will no longer receive updates, become increasingly difficult to use as operating systems evolve, and will eventually become obsolete.
The bill gained rapid attention after security officials warned that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over the personal data of the 170 million Americans who use the app. Collected.
The House passed the bill last month, but it faced hurdles in the Senate over free speech concerns. To speed up the bill, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson bundled it with money for Ukraine, creating a package that is highly unlikely to be opposed by most senators.
Democratic Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, who had previously balked at the bill, spoke on the Senate floor early Tuesday and urged her colleagues to support it.
“Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, and blind operations to harm vulnerable Americans, servicemembers, members of the military, and U.S. government officials.” said.
TikTok has denied that the Chinese government has any authority to control the app. But Mark Warner, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that the fact that the Chinese government lobbied members of Congress on the bill “shows how serious a problem it is.” [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is investing in this product. ”
The senators also called on young Americans to understand that Congress is trying to protect them, not ban the popular app.
“It’s understandable that many Americans, especially young Americans, are skeptical,” Warner said. “At the end of the day, they haven’t seen what Congress has seen. They haven’t participated in a classified conference held by Congress that delved deeper into some of the threats posed by foreign control of TikTok.”
China’s Foreign Ministry told reporters Wednesday that the Ministry of Commerce referred to a previous statement last month calling on the United States to “stop its unjust oppression of foreign companies.”
Commerce Ministry Spokesman He Yadong added that ByteDance must comply with Chinese law, referring to export controls introduced in 2020 to give the Chinese government control over the sale of TikTok. There is.
The Trump administration previously tried to ban TikTok, but the company blocked the move in court. The Biden administration and Congress hope the new bill will have a better chance of withstanding legal scrutiny.
“The House vote highlights the waning influence of China’s corporate champions in Washington,” said Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Despite its massive lobbying machine, TikTok’s loss sets a troubling precedent for other Chinese companies seeking to circumvent regulations, such as drone maker DJI.”
Most China experts in Washington believe that unless it wins in court, the Chinese government will not hand over the algorithms that made the app so successful to ByteDance, and TikTok’s presence in the United States will disappear. Anxiety is increasing.
Additional reporting from Beijing by Ryan McMorrow
