China Likely to Close Down TikTok U.S. Than to Impose Forced Sale
Beijing is in opposition to TikTok U.S.’s forced sale operations by ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, and would like to see the video application shut down completely in the United States according to three direct people of matter as expressed on Friday.
ByteDance is already in talks with giants like Oracle and Microsoft looking for selling prospects of TikTok U.S. after a potential threat from President Donald Trump of banning the service if it fails to garner substantial sales.
A deadline has been imposed on ByteDance by the President till mid of September to come up with a final deal regarding the issue.
As per research, China is of the opinion that a forced sale would lead to China and ByteDance’s weak position before the country under the pressure from Washington. Sources have also said that it is a situation of high sensitivity.
In a recent statement to the Reuters, ByteDance said that the Chinese government never intended on closing down TikTok U.S. or in any other markets around the world.
As per sources, China was also willing to reutilize revisions made to the technology exports list of 28th August in order to delay any potential deal extended by ByteDance in case it had to.
There have been no official comments from the Chinese State Council Information Office or its foreign and commerce ministries yet.
Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday at a regular press briefing that the U.S. is abusing its powers and proximities of security and urged the government to stop their oppression on foreign companies.
Reuters said that TikTok has prospective buyers in the market who are looking for ways to come up with an acquisition from ByteDance.
Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance has been caught up in a clash between the two countries.
Trump issues two executive orders last month that asked ByteDance to set TikTok’s American assets or face a direct ban where the application is widely popular.
The U.S. has criticized TikTok’s privacy and security measures alleging that user data might be shared with China. But TikTok confirmed that they do not comply with the request for any user data sharing with China.
Beijing is opposing Trump’s orders and is revising its technical aspects so that they go through the Chinese government approval before export. A recommended algorithm put forward by TikTok might be part of this list.
Chinese authorities also said last week that these rules do not target specific companies but they have stated their rights for enforcement.
Glenda Bozeman – Business and Services
Glenda Bozeman writes Business articles for industries that want to see their Google search rankings surge. Her articles have appeared in a number of sites. Her articles focus on enlightening with informative Services sector needs. She holds the degree of Masters in Business and Marketing. Before she started writing, she experimented with various professions: computer programming, assistant marker, and others. But her favorite job is writing that she is now doing full-time.
