Chinese tech company ByteDance owns short-form video app TikTok.
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Chinese officials would rather see the short-form video TikTok shut down in the US instead of a forced sale of TikTok’s US operations by its parent company ByteDance, Reuters reported on Friday.
Officials are concerned that selling TikTok’s US operations because of pressure from the Trump administration could make China and ByteDance appear weak, Reuters said, citing three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
A spokesperson for ByteDance said that “the (Chinese) government has never suggested to us that we should shut down TikTok in the US or any other market.”
ByteDance has been in talks with several companies to sell its US operations after Trump issued an executive order in August that would ban TikTok in the US unless it’s sold to another company by Sept. 20. The executive order cites national security concerns that the Chinese government could use data gathered from TikTok to “track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.” TikTok said it stores US user data in the US with a backup in Singapore. The company also said it wouldn’t turn over data to the Chinese government even if it were asked to do so.
TikTok and ByteDance is challenging Trump’s executive order in the courts. Both companies sued Trump and US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross over the administration’s first order. In the lawsuit, TikTok alleges that Trump’s order violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment because the administration didn’t give the company a chance to be heard. The lawsuit also alleges the president acted beyond his legal authority because his administration hasn’t proved with evidence that TikTok poses a national security threat.
The Trump administration also signed a second executive order in August that ordered ByteDance to sell its US operations by Nov. 12.
Trump said this week that the administration doesn’t plan to extend the “TikTok deadline,” which Trump said is on Sept. 15.
Microsoft and Walmart along with other companies have been in talks with ByteDance to acquire TikTok’s US operations but a deal hasn’t been announced yet. The deal appears to be delayed because China started restricting the export of artificial intelligence technology. ByteDance could still move forward with a deal by selling TikTok’s US operations without including its key algorithms.
The Chinese embassy in the US and the White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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