Tik Tok Ban
How will we live without it?
American President Donald Trump targeted two popular Chinese apps, announcing sweeping bans on U.S. financial transactions with China’s ByteDance, owner TikTok, and Tencent, operator of WeChat.
The sanctions take effect in 45 days. Trump’s executive order comes as his administration steps-up efforts to purge “untrusted” Chinese apps from American digital networks. In the order, Trump called the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok and messenger app WeChat “significant threats.” and added, “These mobile applications may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party.”
The American media scoffed. But my friend’s mother is traveling in a major Chinese city right now. And under the guise of Covid-19, she has to use an app that tracks her every movement. And I mean every movement.
She visited a friend on the outskirts of town, and went to get groceries on the way home. That requires pulling up the app, and showing it to security for store entry. The guards saw where she had just gone, told her she had left the city, and could not be admitted.
The point: China is building an insidious system to track everyone, everywhere. In real time, they will know anyone you meet with. It’s the kind of thing that should strike terror in the hearts of the incompetent fools in the media who depend on sources for stories. But they’re too Trump-blind to get it — no one should be providing any personal data to China, or helping it build this system in any way. All of these companies work with Beijing on building its surveillance state, which it is exporting, as we revealed in our special series, How China Undermines Democracy."
As such, TikTok and WeChat won’t be the last Chinese-owned apps in the crosshairs. Last year, the U.S. forced the sale of a Chinese-owned dating app called Grindr. And U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the Trump administration would soon announce measures targeting a “broad array” of Chinese-owned software.
So who else is at risk?
Pompeo has also suggested that software which collects facial recognition patterns are a particular concern. Although he did not mention any product by name, the social network Kwai and beauty app YouCam Makeup both use facial recognition algorithms
India’s full blacklist
India might give a hint as to which other Chinese apps could be barred. New Delhi recently banned 59 China-linked apps on the grounds they threatened its "sovereignty and security". TikTok and WeChat were on the list, and other big names included:
Baidu Maps and Baidu Translate - rivals to Google's products from China's leading search provider
Weibo - the Twitter-like micro-blogging service
Clash of Kings and Mobile Legends Bang Bang - two video games
CamScanner - a document-scanning product
QQMail - an email and file-transfer service
AliExpress, a shopping app from the Chinese online retail giant Alibaba
Video games from NetEase, which publishes several Marvel super-heroes titles among others
Tencent Games titles, which include Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile
Various Mi-branded apps from the mobile phone maker Xiaomi
Zoom is also questionable. On the June 4 anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre, Zoom suspended user accounts and ended meetings linked to commemoration services after the Chinese government demanded it do so.
One of its key funders is Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures. Li and his girlfriend Solina Chau, who runs Horizons, are well-known Chinese government “friends.”
It should be noted that US restrictions on Chinese firms are not entirely new. In the past year or so, the Trump administration has added dozens of Chinese companies to economic blacklists, which restrict the firms in question from buying US technology without government approval. Among those recently added are:
Qihoo 360, a cyber-security firm
NetPosa Technologies, which makes video recording devices
CloudMinds, a provider of internet-based tools to control robots
iFlyTek, a provider of voice-recognition services
Megvii and Sensetime, two facial-recognition tool providers
Image caption CloudMinds offers tools to control Pepper and other robots from afar
China, meanwhile, is reportedly targeting perhaps the most American of American exports – fast food – by tightening the regulatory screws on Burger King, McDonald’s and KFC, all of which are depending heavily on the Chinese market for growth.
Expect the decoupling to continue. Unless Donald Trump is replaced by Joe Biden, whose family has done US $5 billion in deals in China. Or Xi Jinping is replaced by those sick of his bungling of relations with China’s biggest customer. Tik-tok, indeed …