Former White House National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien (pictured), a close associate of former U.S. President Donald Trump, strongly criticized the Fair Trade Commission’s ‘Platform Fair Competition Promotion Act’, calling it “a regulation that is detrimental to the United States but a gift to the Chinese Communist Party.” This is because large American information technology (IT) companies such as Google, which have a high market share in Korea, are likely to be subject to regulation by this law, while Chinese IT companies such as TikTok and Alibaba are likely not to be included. Former aide O’Brien is being mentioned as a candidate for Secretary of State if former President Trump returns to power, so his remarks are said to carry a lot of weight.
On the 28th (local time), former aide O’Brien said in a contribution to The Hill, a media outlet specializing in Congress, “President Yoon Seok-yeol and the National Assembly must carefully review the secondary and tertiary impacts on relations with the United States and the digital economy before pushing ahead with the passage of the bill.” claimed. This law defines several large platform companies as ‘dominant operators’ and prohibits actions that interfere with fair competition, such as preferential treatment of their services and restrictions on the use of competing platforms. The industry predicts that major U.S. big tech companies, as well as Naver and Kakao, will be included as ‘dominant operators.’ In this way, former aide O’Brien argues that if all Korean and American big tech companies are subject to regulation, only Chinese big tech companies with relatively low market share in Korea will enjoy the fishermen’s position.
He said, “The Chinese Communist Party is putting the security of Korea and the United States at risk by using its own companies to collect user information,” and in this situation, if a bill targeting only American companies is implemented, it could cause unnecessary friction between Washington and Seoul. I was concerned that there was. He said it was also worrisome that such friction would arise at a time when the ROK-US relationship is particularly important for maintaining security and economic prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.