Washington and Beijing also clashed on Tuesday, in the midst of an escalation of tension due to a series of thorny issues. Now the center of the struggle is the popular Chinese application TikTok – the US government he banned their use on officials’ cell phones federal. And the Asian country has responded with disdain.
China on Tuesday accused the White House of “abusing its state power” and its “concept of national security.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press conference that the United States was “abusing” by “unjustifiably cracking down on companies from other countries.”
According to Mao, “The United States, a great power, shows a lack of self-confidence in fear of an app popular with young people.”
The spokeswoman expressed Chinese opposition to what she described as an “abuse of state power” by Washington, and called on Joe Biden’s government to “respect the principles of the market economy and fair competition”.
At the same time, the spokeswoman urged the United States to “create an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for companies from around the world to invest and operate” in its territory.
TikTok, belonging to Chinese tech giant ByteDance, has become a political goal due to concerns that the application, which is very popular around the world, could be used espionage or propaganda by the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Canada and Europe are also suspicious
Strictly speaking, not only has Washington opposed the application of microvideo that is rampant among children and young people. In Canada, too, there are fears that Chinese espionage is leaking through TikTok and the government has banned its use on official devices. And several countries in Europe have taken similar measures.
“I suspect that as the government takes the conspicuous step of telling all federal employees they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians, from businesses to individuals, will be thinking about the security of their data and perhaps making decisions,” he said. said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The executive branch of the European Union, meanwhile, said last week that it had temporarily banned TikTok from cell phones used by its employees as a cybersecurity measure.
TikTok questioned those bans. He says he hasn’t had a chance to answer questions and that governments are depriving themselves of a platform adored by millions.
China, in turn, has long blocked a long list of foreign social media platforms and messaging apps, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
term of one month
The White House has given US federal agencies 30 days to take down TikTok of all government electronic devices.
White House Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young issued a memo to “remove and disable installations” of the app on devices managed by government agencies.
It also set out to “ban internet traffic” from devices to the app.
The Biden government is thus abiding by a bill passed by the US Congress late last year requiring federal agencies to suppress TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, due to fearing that user data could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
The government ban doesn’t apply to businesses in the United States that aren’t affiliated with the federal government, nor to the millions of citizens who use the popular app.
Two-thirds of American teenagers use TikTok, but Washington fears China could use its legal and regulatory powers to do so obtain private data from users or attempt to spread misinformation or messages favorable to China.
Relations between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated in recent years, especially during the US presidency of Donald Trump (2017-2021), marked by the trade war launched against China, which ended up leading to an increasingly tense conflict in other fields like the technological one.
National security concerns over suspected Chinese espionage have been heightened by an incident involving a Chinese balloon flying through US airspace and then being shot down.
Source: agencies
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.