'Taste of own medicine' hint missing as China splutters over US crackdown on its companies

China has responded to US President Donald Trump’s plan to take "strong actions" against TikTok and other Chinese-owned social media apps for alleged misuse of user data. In a recent article, China’s mouthpiece Global Times stated that actions of the US government underline the ‘cruel discrimination’ that Chinese companies face in the US market, amid rising rivalry between the two countries. This is the same China that has banned every US tech giant worth its salt.

White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said on Sunday that Trump will take strong actions against TikTok and WeChat as the apps can be utilised to ‘steal data’. Navarro's remarks came just days after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the US government is looking at banning TikTok.

China stated that these accusations of engaging in information warfare against the US are another type of political stigmatization of Chinese businesses. The US government has constantly escalated its crackdown on Chinese technology companies in its bid to foil their competitiveness, the article read.

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Data on Chinese app is unsafe, says Navarro

In a televised interview with an international media outlet, the White House trade adviser argued that the American people are currently unable to understand the flow of data through the Chinese mobile applications. Navarro said that while young people are ‘having so much fun’, the data that goes in their smartphones "goes right to servers in China, right to the Chinese military, the Chinese Communist Party". TikTok belongs to a china-based group Bytedance and has over one billion users in the world. 

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‘Political strike on Chinese businesses’

In a strong protest against ‘political strike on Chinese businesses,’ Beijing said that US politicians are using all types of rhetoric measures to get their companies to move their supply chains out of China or force other countries to stop using advanced technology made by Chinese companies like Huawei.

The article further mentioned that some US senators had introduced a bill to encourage pharmaceutical companies and suppliers to move out of China and to relocate to the US. It also recalled that the US Federal Communications Commission designated Huawei and ZTE as security threats and prohibited US telecom operators from using government subsidy programs to buy services offered by these Chinese companies.

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