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Journalism of Courage
A Bill that could force social media app TikTok’s sale by its Chinese owner, or ban it outright, has been passed in the United States Senate, underscoring the continuing tensions between Washington and Beijing amid backchannel parleys to mend diplomatic ties. The move by the US is the latest salvo aimed at targeting the Chinese tech industry, which has so far included tough economic sanctions and export controls.
The latest step is also symbolic of the action that governments now seem open to take against Internet platforms from a country in times of soured diplomatic relations, and are becoming a key part of foreign policy jurisprudence. At the height of border tensions between India and China in 2020, New Delhi too had banned TikTok along with a spate of other applications owned by Chinese companies through an executive order.
What is the Bill?
The US Senate has passed the measure citing national security concerns because of TikTok’s Chinese ties. The government is wary of the speculated risk that the Chinese government can force domestic companies like Bytedance to share sensitive personal data of over 170 million American users, or be abused to spread pro-Chinese propaganda.
The proposed law would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US if Bytedance was to sell it within nine months. The Bill will become law once President Joe Biden signs it, and he has shown a keen interest in doing so.
Experts, however, believe that the way forward from this point could be filled with legal challenges against the measure, and also expect Beijing to make retaliatory moves if the Bill were to become law.
The arm-twisting of the social media app is also being seen as an attack on free speech by some in the US, including TikTok. The company has said that the Bill would “trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy, annually.”
Déjà vu
TikTok and the US have been at this crossroads before, under the tenure of former President Donald Trump. Under his administration, there was a significant movement to force Bytedance into selling TikTok’s American operations to an American company. Many companies had joined the line, including the likes of Oracle, and most prominently Microsoft.
Microsoft in August 2020 began talks on the proposed acquisition but the deal collapsed by September. After that, the company’s CEO Satya Nadella said that the near-acquisition of the social media app was the “strangest thing I’ve ever worked on”.
Tech bans as a foreign policy tool
China is a major tech superpower and as a result, countries that have seen their relationship with Beijing worsen have tried to attack the country’s burgeoning tech sector. Beijing has also retaliated with similar moves.
Huawei is a case in point. At one point in time, it was a leading name in 5G technology apart from also making high-end smartphones. However, under the Trump administration, Huawei’s access to US-made components and technology, including Google’s Android services were cut-off. The White House had also barred manufacturers globally from using US tech to make components for Huawei.
As a result, Huawei had to develop its own smartphone operating system and also developed its own chip for the phone. The company seems to have shrugged off US sanctions and grew faster in 2023 than it has for four years.
In 2020, the United Kingdom also banned the use of Huawei gear in the region’s telecom network owing to alleged national security risks. India has followed a similar path, and aside from banning TikTok and similar platforms, disallowed Indian telephone companies from partnering with Huawei to set up their 5G networks.
Beijing in turn has retaliated against the US in a similar way, albeit at a much smaller scale. Earlier this year, China introduced new guidelines aimed at blocking Intel and AMD chips in government PCs and servers.
Experts believe that such tech sanctions could be a double edged sword. On one hand, they might slow down the progress of a company because they would not have access to cutting edge tools being made in the rest of the world. However, such sanctions also may force them to develop their own technology which could reduce their dependence on foreign companies and boost domestic tech.
