Beijing Denies Pressuring Companies Like TikTok to Spy for China

China on Friday denied pressuring corporations to gather data overseas on behalf of the federal government, rebuffing claims made by American lawmakers concerning the viral video app TikTok, which is on the middle of an escalating dispute between Washington and Beijing over politics, expertise and economics.

At a information convention, a Chinese language international ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, stated China “has by no means and won’t” ask corporations or people to gather knowledge saved in international nations in a method that violates these nations’ legal guidelines.

The denial got here a day after a heated, five-hour congressional listening to wherein U.S. lawmakers grilled TikTok’s chief govt, Shou Chew, over the app’s ties to its Chinese language mother or father firm, ByteDance, in addition to its doable use as a surveillance device by the Chinese language authorities.

China’s response to the listening to highlighted how TikTok, which has roughly 150 million customers in america, has change into a flashpoint within the geopolitical tussle between the world’s two largest economies. Hours earlier than Mr. Chew’s listening to on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce stated it will oppose a compelled sale of the app, a rebuke to the Biden administration, which lately referred to as for the app’s Chinese language house owners to promote it or face a doable ban in america.

This month, the White Home endorsed a bipartisan Senate invoice that may give the Commerce Division energy to ban any app that endangered Individuals’ safety, placing potential restrictions on TikTok on extra stable authorized footing.

U.S. lawmakers and regulators concern that Beijing might compel TikTok handy over delicate knowledge about U.S. customers, or tweak its advice algorithm to serve propaganda. They level to expansive Chinese language legal guidelines that require residents and personal corporations to cooperate with authorities’ public safety investigations and intelligence work.

At Thursday’s hearings, lawmakers repeatedly pressed Mr. Chew on ByteDance’s admission that workers had obtained the information of U.S. customers, together with two American journalists.

Tensions between the superpowers intensified after the invention of a Chinese language surveillance balloon floating over U.S. territory in February. One Republican lawmaker lately referred to as TikTok a “spy balloon in your cellphone.”

China’s declare that the federal government would by no means ask corporations to spy for it was “much like their argument that they don’t censor the web,” stated Lokman Tsui, a fellow on the Citizen Lab on the College of Toronto and an professional on Chinese language censorship, who referred to as it “preposterous and laughable.” China’s strict web censorship legal guidelines require corporations — together with TikTok’s home counterpart, Douyin — to surveil their customers, he added.

Within the early 2000s, Chinese language authorities requested the U.S. web large Yahoo handy over the emails of a Chinese language journalist, who was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in jail. Chinese language guidelines additionally blocked some U.S. tech corporations, together with Google and Fb, from working within the Chinese language market fully, a choice that led to complaints about unfair market practices. On the briefing on Friday, China turned that criticism on its head.

The U.S. authorities ought to “cease unreasonably suppressing international corporations” like TikTok, Ms. Mao of the international ministry stated. As an alternative, she added, it ought to “respect the market financial system and precept of honest competitors.”