2024-04-21 13:42:44
Anticipation of long-term litigation… which should drag on until following the presidential election
China orders removal of major US social networks from app stores
TikTok logo and American flag <사진=AFP 연합뉴스>
The possibility of TikTok being sold to a US company has increased since the US House of Representatives, which passed the mandatory sale of TikTok bill, set the “sale deadline” at 270 days. In Washington, there is a good chance the TikTok sale bill will pass when it goes to the Senate next week, along with other major bills.
The Chinese government strongly opposes this, but there is currently no way to stop the sale. Even in 2020, when Washington pulled out a forced sale card, the Chinese government announced its policy banning the sale of TikTok to companies outside China.
TikTok’s parent company, Chinese company ByteDance, plans to first try to block the forced sale through legal action. Given that former Republican presidential candidate President Trump has taken a critical stance toward the sale of TikTok, there might be an opportunity for a reversal if the execution is postponed until following the presidential election. In fact, in 2020, former President Trump issued an executive order to force the sale of TikTok, but it was stopped by a federal court.
According to Bloomberg, TikTok recently decided to transfer Erich Andersen, who was in charge of relations with the US Congress, to another position. This is likely a strategy to focus on legal battles, believing that lobbying in the US Congress is already running out of steam.
If the TikTok forced sale bill is indeed passed, it is possible that the tech war between the two countries will expand even further.
The Chinese government recently ordered the removal of major US social media apps such as WhatsApp and Discord from Apple’s App Store in China. Previously, the service was not available in China, but applications that might be used indirectly through a VPN (virtual private network) were completely blocked. The Wall Street Journal analyzes that this measure is not unrelated to the bill for forced sales of TikTok. The interpretation is that if TikTok is forced to be sold, harsher retaliatory measures might be taken once morest American companies operating in China.
However, some believe that China’s retaliation will not stop the forced sale but will only worsen the conflict between the two countries. If the Chinese government does not allow the sale of TikTok, the TikTok service itself might be suspended in the United States, depending on the contents of the bill.
Big American players are lining up to acquire TikTok. Private equity funds, including former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, are expressing interest. Even though the source code and “valuable” algorithm of the TikTok software are excluded from the sale, the investment is worth it given TikTok’s influence in the United States. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities predicted that the TikTok app would be worth around $100 billion if its source code and algorithm were included, and $40 billion if it was not included.
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