China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the U.S. for targeting TikTok a day after the company’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, testified before Congress.
Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the U.S. had presumed TikTok’s guilt and unreasonably suppressed the app even though the U.S. government has provided no evidence that TikTok threatens the U.S.’s national security.
- Mao added that the Chinese government has never and would never ask any company or individual to collect or provide data information or intelligence in other countries through means that violate local laws.
- Hours before the hearing, the WSJ reported that China said it would strongly oppose any forced sale of TikTok.
- China’s Commerce Ministry said that a sale or divestiture of TikTok would involve exporting technology and need to be approved by the Chinese government.
- Following the hearing, TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said political grandstanding had dominated the conversation.
- Oberwetter noted that U.S. lawmakers ignored the solutions that TikTok was working on, such as Project Texas, to protect user data and keep content harmful to young people off the site.
