China said today that the “waste crackdown” in the United States on the short-sighted application Tiktok “seriously violates the principles of market economy and fair competition” and constitutes “an abuse of public power.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning explained that “US-style travel will not only harm US companies, but also their reputation and investor confidence.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently criticized Tiktok as a “threat” and the administration of US President Joe Biden threatened the Chinese parent company ByteDance to block the social network if its shares in the app.
Likewise, French officials last week banned TikTok from using professional phones for essentially security reasons.
Mao declared on Thursday that China “opposes the abuse of the concept of national security” and that “all countries should prepare a non-discriminatory trade condition for foreign investment and normal operation of foreign enterprises.”
Some critics have accused ByteDance of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party, although TikTok has denied such allegations, saying it does not censor content or give the Chinese government access to its data.
The White House recently gave US federal agencies 30 days to remove the social network TikTok from all government electronic plans.
The European Commission and the Council of the European Union have also banned their employees from using Tiktok on official phones due to security reasons, a decision Beijing has also criticized.
