Trump Bans China's TikTok and WeChat

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman) 

By executive order that's effective in 45 days, Trump banned China's video-sharing TikTok from operating in the US under the ownership of its present parent company.

The WeChat mobile text and voice messaging communication service was also banned from operating in the US.

Trump's hostile action was his regime's latest assault on Sino/US relations — based on nonexistent national security concerns, the phony pretext invoked time and again in pursuit of US hegemonic aims.

TikTok and WeChat are privately owned Chinese firms.

Trump's EO cites dubious authority under the US National Emergencies Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act at a time when no emergency exists relating to China, its private enterprises, or any other nations. 

The unacceptably hostile order falsely claims that data from users of TikTok's service "potentially allow(s) China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors (sic), build dossiers of personal information for blackmail (sic), and conduct corporate espionage (sic)."

No evidence was cited to corroborate the above accusations because none exists.

There's no proof that "TikTok…censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive (sic)."

Nothing suggests the video-sharing service "may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit" Beijing.

Claiming "risks are real" is one of countless examples of US Big Lies and deception.

Nothing whatever justifies the US "tak(ing) aggressive action against the (ByteDance) owners of TikTok to protect our national security."

The same reality applies to Trump's ban on (parent company Tencent Holdings), owner of WeChat.

Trump's EO calls on commerce secretary Ross to define banned transactions.

According to the Eurasia Group, a research and consulting firm, Trump's EO is an "unprecedented intervention by the US government in the consumer technology sector."

Shanghai consultancy China Skinny managing director Mark Tanner said the ban on WeChat will greatly impact the ability of Chinese nationals in the US to keep "in touch with folks back" home through the mobile text and voice messaging service, adding:

Many current users may circumvent the ban by using VPNs (virtual private networks)" that are readily available to mobile users and everyone connected online.

The Trump regime targeted scores of Chinese tech companies, additional ones likely to be barred from the US market based on phony national security concerns — part of hostile US war on China by other means.

On Friday, China's Global Times said Trump's banning of TikTok and WeChat makes him a "modern-day pirate," ordering state-sponsored "robbery."

According to Sinosteel Economic Research Institute senior fellow Hu Qimu, TikTok "touched the bottom line of US (inter)national competitiveness."

It incorporates cutting-edge technologies, challenging America's "technological monopoly…outsmarting…Facebook."

Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok. Other US tech firms may want to acquire the firm.

On Friday, China's Foreign Ministry denounced Trump's ban on TikTok and WeChat as US "hegemony on full display."

On Thursday, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yu said the following:

"The real challenge to the current international order…is that the US places its own interests above everything else, and takes this as its code of conduct."

"It has gone extreme to pursue unilateralism and bullying."

China's official People's Daily accused the US of "dragg(ing) the world's most important relationship into a dangerous zone."

"Washington has never stopped abusing national and political power to repress law-abiding Chinese tech companies."

"Such a blatant act of bullying runs against the World Trade Organization's principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination, and has exposed (Washington's) hegemonic nature."

China will surely retaliate in ways it considers appropriate in response to hostile US actions.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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