An analyst told Newsweek censorship-happy Beijing is in no position to cry foul over U.S. efforts to split TikTok from Chinese parent company ByteDance.
Ahead of the House of Representatives’ vote to pass a bill that would ban short video-sharing app TikTok if it fails to separate from its Chinese parent company, China warned the move would come back to haunt the United States.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accused lawmakers of «robbery logic» and said Washington risked showing the world it only takes legal action for its own benefit—a line of reasoning one China analyst called ironic, citing Beijing’s heavy censorship apparatus.
The controversy over TikTok centers on national security concerns. Critics point out its parent company, ByteDance, could share user data with the Chinese government. The bill would compel TikTok to divest from ByteDance within six months, seeking to mitigate the risk of data theft or Chinese Communist Party influence over American users.
Beijing’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires all Chinese companies and citizens to hand over information to the government upon request.
«The bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives puts the U.
