Ban on TikTok could affect more Chinese-owned apps

According to Alex Capri, a lecturer at the National University of Singapore Business School as well as a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation, more Chinese-owned apps in the US may be in trouble if TikTok is banned in the country.

There has been a bill that has passed the US House of Representatives that would bar TikTok from operating in the country if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, fails to sell the app to a company that meets the requirements of US regulation, as reported by CNN.

At a briefing on Thursday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, expressed concern that the US would be put on the opposite side of the principle of fair competition and international economic and trade rules by the bill passed in the US House of Representatives.

As CNN reports, however, China has also been blocking American apps historically, as well as traditionally, according to the Chinese government. There are a number of reasons for this, the primary one being that these US social media applications violate the Chinese government’s regulations concerning the collection of data and sharing of content.

There are currently many Western websites that are restricted in Beijing, such as Google, YouTube, X, Instagram, and Meta, among many others.

As a result of four years of operation on mainland China, Google departed the country in 2010. As far as the Google.cn website is concerned, it has recently been the victim of cyberattacks carried out by Chinese hackers, and the company did not wish to continue filtering the results on its website as a consequence.

Even though the situation is not exactly the same as it was a decade ago, there has been a drastic change in the circumstances since that well-publicised retreat.

In his statement, Brock Silvers, managing director at Kaiyuan Capital, said that it appears likely that the TikTok bill will pass and that China’s displeasure seems ironic, whether it is hypocritical or not, given China’s position towards American social apps.

Asked about China’s position on US apps, Wang replied that “this is absolutely different” and that “you can clearly see where bullying is, where gangster logic is, and what China will do in response.”.

Whatever the case is, the US Senate is at the center of the attention right now, with some senators stating they are still reviewing the legislation, according to the Wall Street Journal. It has been stated that if the measure reaches the desk of President Joe Biden, he will sign it, if it ends up on his desk.

Timenews1 provided that news.