BEIJING: The US’ TikTok hearing is politically manipulated to cover its real purpose of robbing the profitable firm from China, which reflects the US’ mounting hegemony and bullying against firms with Chinese background, experts said on Friday, noting the US witch-hunting against TikTok portends US’ technological innovation is going downhill and the political farce against a tiny app has seriously shattered the US values of fair competition and its credibility.
The US House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on Thursday (US time) titled, “TikTok: How Congress can safeguard American data privacy and protect children from online harms.”
While US lawmakers acted like they are pursuing a solution on how to ensure data security, the hearing turned out to be a political show that was designed to smear an international firm that has Chinese background and cover up its real purpose of stealing the firm from its Chinese parent, experts said.
Whether it ends up “killing” TikTok or forcibly taking the child out of its parent ByteDance’s arms, it is one of the ugliest scenes of the 21st century in high-tech competition, they said. “Your platform should be banned,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said as she started the hearing, claiming that the app has ties with Chinese government.
During the roughly five-hour hearing, CEO Shou Zi Chew’s attempts to illustrate TikTok’s business operations were frequently interrupted. His requests to elaborate on concerns of members of US Congress were also blocked.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning denounced the US’ move on Friday, saying the US is adopting the presumption of guilt and engaging in an unreasonable crackdown against TikTok without any proof.
“We noted that some US lawmaker has said that to seek a TikTok ban is a ‘xenophobic witch hunt’,” she said, urging the US to respect the market economy and fair competition rules, stop the unreasonable crackdown on foreign firms and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for other countries’ firms in the US.
The Chinese government places high importance on protecting data privacy and security according to laws. China has never and will never ask firms or individuals to violate local laws to collect or provide data and information stored within other countries’ borders, Mao stressed.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exhange item
