TikTok’s travails highlight that almost every Chinese investment in the United States these days is a concern for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the U.S. national security regulator commonly called CFIUS. In a world where trade competition and parity is the policy goal of both the United States and China, the divide between China and the remainder of the world will likely only increase.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company based in Beijing. The U.S. concerns focus on data collection and the ability of the Chinese government to access U.S. data as well as worries that TikTok’s American users will be censored or manipulated by the app. TikTok has repeatedly denied any Chinese control, but it cannot dispute that its parent is in China and that ByteDance is subject to PRC law. After what happened in Hong Kong, TikTok’s protestations that it wouldn’t be in China’s interests to exercise control rights ring hollow. Moreover, TikTok
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