Washington — The new House Select Committee tasked with alerting Americans to the risks of an emerging China is focusing on TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app that has built a large suite in the U. S. Espionage or influence tool.
The implications of this new review, which is part of a broader congressional review of U. S. commitment, are being reviewed. The U. S. government with China is unclear. Washington remains divided over whether to ban the hugely popular app, tidy it up, or allow TikTok to continue scrolling across a hundred million U. S. smartphones. U. S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif. ), who introduced the committee as one of his first steps, named his thirteen Republican members this week. The Democrats have yet to exploit theirs.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis. ), chairman of the panel, to ban the app or force its sale to a U. S. buyer. The U. S. government brought up knowledge security considerations and Beijing’s possible use of TikTok as a propaganda weapon. In an interview, he said that the overlapping technology, privacy and foreign policy issues that arose through the app’s meteoric expansion in the U. S. The U. S. government illustrates why a wide-ranging committee is needed.
Gallagher’s objections to TikTok, which offers short user-created videos, are shared through prominent Democrats. Biden’s management has been contemplating for months a proposal through TikTok to restructure its operations to eliminate the threat of Chinese government control or influence. Some analysts that the congressional action, or the technique of the 2024 election, may simply force the hand of management.
But the TikTok controversy was limited to the fate of the newest web sensation.
The debate also highlights a key challenge facing the administration: how to outline the parameters of an economic relationship with a country it considers America’s main strategic rival, which many in Congress describe as an absolute enemy.
“Is there such a thing as a personal enterprise in China? I’m sure it exists,” Gallagher said. “This is what makes the ‘new Cold War’ much more confusing than the old Cold War. We never had to separate from the Soviet Union. “
As the perspectives of U. S. policymakers become more important. As the U. S. government over China has hardened into reflexive distrust, Chinese corporations that governors and mayors once courted to invest in job creation are now considered Trojan horses for the Chinese Communist Party. to ban Chinese purchases of U. S. farmland.
Democrats have also adopted a more yellowish view of security hazards similar to relations with the world’s second-largest economy. chips or the apparatus that makes them, a move that William Overholt of Harvard University called a “declaration of economic war. “
Gallagher’s plans show that the review of U. S. -China economic relations is not a major development in the U. S. The U. S. and China are intensifying. The stakes even with a partial decoupling of the two economies may hardly be higher. Despite growing geopolitical rivalry, the bilateral industry between the U. S. is expected to be in the U. S. The U. S. and Chinese record setting a record in 2022, while corporations such as Apple, General Motors and Caterpillar sell billions of dollars’ worth of goods to Chinese consumers each year, and are vulnerable to retaliation from Beijing for any U. S. action. The U. S. government is opposed to TikTok.
In a sign of the bipartisan call for a tough stance toward China, the new House Committee on “Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party” was created by an unbalanced vote of 365 to 65.
The former Marine chairing the panel is a Princeton graduate with a Ph. D. At just 38, he is a rising star in the Republican ranks and a vocal Chinese hawk. In addition to TikTok, Gallagher plans to take a look at the military, economic and human rights issues involving China and is compounding our minds to lessen what he calls a harmful reliance on Chinese suppliers, adding propellants used in U. S. military munitions. U. S.
The weapons we want for a long-term confrontation with China come from China!” he said.
However, after 40 years of a growing industry between the two nations, it will not be easy to determine which agreements are suitable in this new environment and which are negative for U. S. national security. U. S.
Biden has already taken steps to make the origin chains of semiconductors, electric batteries, commercial fabrics and prescription drugs more resilient by reducing U. S. dependency. UU. de foreign suppliers, adding China, restrict a restricted number of complex technologies while allowing a maximum of plus or minus $650 billion to continue in the annual product industry.
The president rejects the idea that the United States is embarking on a “new bloodless war” with China. But Gallagher and other Republicans are less moderate and portray China as an adversary determined to change the U. S. -led foreign order rather than a viable trading partner.
Caught up in this are multinational corporations. While the political winds have shifted against engagement with China, agreements that were once concluded are now being avoided.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin this month rejected a potential offer through Ford to locate a new battery plant for electric vehicles in the state, saying the automaker acts as “a front for China” in seeking federal subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Ford had sought the state for a joint venture with Contemporary Amperex Technology, a Chinese manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries. The $3. 5 billion plant would have 2,500 jobs for an underdeveloped corner of the state.
A 2020 study on European industry with China provides a rough indication that the industry will have an effect on greater concentration on national security. More than a portion of European products exported to China posed no protection concerns, while 83% of Chinese products shipped to European consumers were also routine, consultancy Rhodium Group concluded. But about a portion of Chinese investment in Europe and a third of European currency holdings in China were classified as problematic, adding those involving edge computing, sensitive knowledge and critical infrastructure.
The investigation of European industry flows provides “a smart basis” for analyzing how the U. S. industry evolves with China as security considerations muddy the relationship, said Daniel Rosen, a partner at Rhodium in New York.
“We want to start from scratch on the basics of our appointments with China,” Rosen said. disease. “
The debate over how to navigate reduced economic ties is taking a stand against a backdrop of public hostility toward China. In a Pew Research Center vote last year, 82 percent of Americans surveyed said they had an unfavorable view of the country, more than double the figure in 2012 when President Xi Jinping took office.
Even before Xi became president, China began developing local technologies. The attempt to reduce its dependence on the United States has accelerated over the past year throughout the state’s upcoming economic role.
In an earlier era, TikTok may have been just an emblem of US-China collaboration. The service evolved through a subsidiary of ByteDance, a Beijing-based startup that secured investments from U. S. investment companies such as Tiger Global Management, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
A few months after the incorporation of ByteDance in 2012, for example, Susquehanna International Group Ltd. Philadelphia bought 15% of the company in a $5 million investment round. Susquehanna’s stake is now valued at $15 billion, according to an Internet Governance report. Project (IGP) at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The investment company responded to a request for comment.
Now, after being celebrated, the popular social networking site represents a warning about the prices involved in the final results of the US-China partnership.
TikTok says it has already spent $1. 5 billion on its proposal to address Washington’s security considerations through its U. S. operations. Since August, the Interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been reviewing the “mitigation agreement,” which would place the U. S. edition of Tik Tok under a three-person board of trustees comprised of U. S. executives subject to government approval.
A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which CFIUS chairs, declined to comment.
Former President Donald Trump in 2020 tried to ban TikTok, but a federal ruling blocked the move.
Now, with the new congressional panel, Capitol Hill is about to enter. The committee cannot draft a law, but plans to release a report by the end of the year with recommendations for U. S. policy. U. S. in China.
Whether it’s a TikTok ban or a forced sale you can simply lower ByteDance’s price and charge a high price to your American investors. Other prices of a ban come with the possible loss of virtual content created through the millions of Americans who posted videos on the site and retaliation against U. S. corporations operating in China, according to the PGI study.
These prices have value, according to those who doubt that anything will provide foolproof coverage against Chinese influence on TikTok.
“My genuine fear is, especially if this tension and the festival with China suddenly continues to rise, well, you may not see any videos criticizing the CCP or suddenly see videos that are more critical of the United States. “United or democracy,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va. ), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Some independent analysts say that anyone who introduces pro-China propaganda into the flow of entertaining and fun content created through the app’s users would only drive American users away. The alleged national security hazards related to the service are “nonexistent or exaggerated,” IGP said. Report concluded.
Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepare to act, the president may be caught between approving the TikTok mitigation deal, and being attacked as “weak” in China, or accepting a legislative crackdown on one of young Americans’ favorite social media apps.
On TikTok, frustrated executives complain of being caught up in a political debate ruled by suspicion of all things Chinese. Leaders continue to put the mitigation agreement into effect as if it had been approved.
Earlier this month, TikTok opened its first “transparency center” in a suburban Maryland park. Every day, groups of Oracle software specialists go online through the application’s computer code, in order to make sure that no knowledge of U. S. users is likely to be aware of the application. UU. se surreptitiously transferred to the Chinese government and that the site’s rule set is not used as Chinese propaganda for an American audience.
That probably wouldn’t be enough. Although it gives the firewall its operation in the US. In the US, critics note TikTok as a representative of Chinese communism.
“I am not advocating general disengagement. It’s not in our economic interest,” Gallagher said in an interview. It will be done almost on a case-by-case basis. “