TikTok ban could damage US-China trade, expert says

After the US House of Representatives voted to approve a bill that could result in US app stores removing TikTok, a US-China tech relations expert told The Independent the legislation could increase tensions between the two countries.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applicants Act, which passed with overwhelming support, will now go to the US Senate. Authored by a bipartisan group of representatives, the bill would allow federal law enforcement agencies to label certain apps as national security threats if they are determined to be under the control of foreign adversaries.

If the bill becomes law, TikTok parent company ByteDance will have 180 days to sell 80 per cent of its stake to a US company or face the app being removed from American app stores. Now, an expert in US-China tech relations says the bill will only increase tensions between the two countries if it passes the US Senate and receives a signature from President Joe Biden.

Dr Aynne Kokas, a professor at the University of Virginia, told The Independent that the Chinese government may retaliate through trade if the bill becomes law.

“We could see more bellicose rhetoric or greater kind of trade pressures that are placed on the US by China,” Dr Kokas said just hours after the successful House vote. “It would be quite shocking for there not to be some sort of, at a very minimum, trade-related reciprocal action on the part of China. The big challenge is, it’s never really clear what that is going to be.”

Dr Kokas, who has written extensively on US-China tech and media relations, explained that US legislators would be better off passing a bill that impacts the privacy regulations around all media companies — not just those controlled by