WASHINGTON: Appearing to take the cue from India, the Trump administration is considering banning TikTok amid concerns that the social media platform poses a threat to US national security, a top US official indicated on Tuesday even as Washington began formulating a tougher China policy that puts trade on the backburner.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told Fox News that Washington is taking “very seriously” reports that the app collects users’ cellphone data and shares it with Beijing. Americans should only download the app "if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party," he warned.
"With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right. I don't want to get out in front of the President, but it's something we're looking at," Pompeo said amid expectation that Trump is soon going to sign punitive executive orders aimed at China.
TikTok, a short-form video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, was banned in India last week along with 58 other Chinese apps although it distanced itself from China and claimed that its data centers are located outside the country. But US officials have long harbored suspicion of the entity -- which has more than 175 million downloads of its app in the US and is becoming increasingly popular among youth in America - and other Chinese intrusions it suspects is aimed at undermining America.
In fact, some users have expressed suspicion that the Trump administration is banning TikTok because youngsters have used it extensively to chronicle and relay BlackLivesMatter protests. But the move seems to part of the growing realization about China’s bid to challenge American primacy in various spheres through nefarious, unscrupulous means.
For instance, apps and platforms such Twitter and TikTok are not available for Chinese people themselves but Chinese officials, nationalists, and shills for the ruling junta in Beijing make extensive use of the platform for global propaganda.
After prolonged efforts to engage and woo China and its large market to buy into American produce to bridge a yawning trade deficit, the Trump administration now appears to be changing course realizing China is not playing ball. It is not buying enough from America for Washington to ignore its depredations.
In a separate interview to Washington Watch, Pompeo conceded that the American theory that "more economic opening will lead to more political freedoms, more fundamental rights being provided to the Chinese people, just turned out not to have been true."
"It just didn't work. I'm not criticizing those who came before; we can now plainly see that it didn't work, and that means the United States has to take a different path," Pompeo said.
The Secretary said Trump is the first President – Republican or Democrat – to realize the danger posed by China to US national security: Republican and Democrat presidents before him allowed China to engage in a trade relationship with the United States that caused middle (class) America, working people all across the United States, to lose their jobs.
Monday’s move to ban foreign students from US academia if they cannot take in-person courses also appears to be part of the administration’s effort to staunch this, partly by shutting out 400,000 Chinese students, a majority of them STEM students who hardline Republicans say often spy on behalf of their country. The move does no favors to New Delhi – and Washington’s intent to build it as a counterweight to Beijing – since India’s 200,000 students in the US are collateral damage to the perception of a Chinese threat.
"The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States. What's worse is that their efforts exploit gaps in current law. It's time for that to end. The SECURE CAMPUS Act will protect our national security and maintain the integrity of the American research enterprise," US Senator Tom Cotton said last month while moving a bill that would prohibit Chinese nationals from receiving visas to the United States for graduate or post-graduate studies in STEM fields.
Although the bill is aimed at China, the uncertainty such moves have created in the academic world has unnerved the large contingent of Indian students in the US, given that conservative immigration hardliners have sought to build a wall around US academia – which is also seen as a liberal bastion.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told Fox News that Washington is taking “very seriously” reports that the app collects users’ cellphone data and shares it with Beijing. Americans should only download the app "if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party," he warned.
"With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right. I don't want to get out in front of the President, but it's something we're looking at," Pompeo said amid expectation that Trump is soon going to sign punitive executive orders aimed at China.
TikTok, a short-form video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, was banned in India last week along with 58 other Chinese apps although it distanced itself from China and claimed that its data centers are located outside the country. But US officials have long harbored suspicion of the entity -- which has more than 175 million downloads of its app in the US and is becoming increasingly popular among youth in America - and other Chinese intrusions it suspects is aimed at undermining America.
In fact, some users have expressed suspicion that the Trump administration is banning TikTok because youngsters have used it extensively to chronicle and relay BlackLivesMatter protests. But the move seems to part of the growing realization about China’s bid to challenge American primacy in various spheres through nefarious, unscrupulous means.
For instance, apps and platforms such Twitter and TikTok are not available for Chinese people themselves but Chinese officials, nationalists, and shills for the ruling junta in Beijing make extensive use of the platform for global propaganda.
After prolonged efforts to engage and woo China and its large market to buy into American produce to bridge a yawning trade deficit, the Trump administration now appears to be changing course realizing China is not playing ball. It is not buying enough from America for Washington to ignore its depredations.
In a separate interview to Washington Watch, Pompeo conceded that the American theory that "more economic opening will lead to more political freedoms, more fundamental rights being provided to the Chinese people, just turned out not to have been true."
"It just didn't work. I'm not criticizing those who came before; we can now plainly see that it didn't work, and that means the United States has to take a different path," Pompeo said.
The Secretary said Trump is the first President – Republican or Democrat – to realize the danger posed by China to US national security: Republican and Democrat presidents before him allowed China to engage in a trade relationship with the United States that caused middle (class) America, working people all across the United States, to lose their jobs.
Monday’s move to ban foreign students from US academia if they cannot take in-person courses also appears to be part of the administration’s effort to staunch this, partly by shutting out 400,000 Chinese students, a majority of them STEM students who hardline Republicans say often spy on behalf of their country. The move does no favors to New Delhi – and Washington’s intent to build it as a counterweight to Beijing – since India’s 200,000 students in the US are collateral damage to the perception of a Chinese threat.
"The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States. What's worse is that their efforts exploit gaps in current law. It's time for that to end. The SECURE CAMPUS Act will protect our national security and maintain the integrity of the American research enterprise," US Senator Tom Cotton said last month while moving a bill that would prohibit Chinese nationals from receiving visas to the United States for graduate or post-graduate studies in STEM fields.
Although the bill is aimed at China, the uncertainty such moves have created in the academic world has unnerved the large contingent of Indian students in the US, given that conservative immigration hardliners have sought to build a wall around US academia – which is also seen as a liberal bastion.
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