China Issues New Restrictions That Prevent TikTok From Being Sold To The US

The Chinese government has just issued new restrictions that could make it harder for ByteDance to sell TikTok to the US and avoid the potential US ban as well.

Last Friday, Beijing issued restrictions on tech exports, which require companies to obtain government approval. However, this process can take 30 days to complete. Last month, Donald Trump gave Byte Dance 90 days to either sell TikTok to a US company or shut down its operation in the country.

Since the rules on tech exports hadn’t been updated since 2008, the latest change is believed to be an attempt in delaying the sale of Tiktok to US companies as ordered by the Trump administration.

New additions to the list of regulated exports include technologies related to voice recognition, AI interfaces, as well as content recommendation analysis while vaccine technologies have been removed.

The recommendation algorithm used in TikTok relies on Chinese technologies that might be transferred to a new owner overseas, according to Professor Cui Fan, a Chinese trade expert.

Cui said that the new update is not to avoid the ban but rather because some forefront tech may have an influence on public welfare and national security, hence the need for restrictions. He added that ByteDance should have cautious and serious considerations about whether or not it’s necessary to suspend negotiations around the sale of TikTok.

Over the past months, Donald Trump has accused TikTok of threatening national security in the US. The allegations resulted in a warning late last month that order ByteDance to sell the app to a US firm in 90 days or it will be banned from this market.

Trump then issued executive orders that ban transactions between the US and Chinese firms that own WeChat and TikTok, saying that aggressive action must be taken for the sake of national security.

Tech giant Microsoft was in talks for several weeks to buy TikTok and partnered with Walmart for a joint bid that might compete with Oracle Corp.

On the other hand, the Chinese popular social app is suing the US government over the executive orders while WeChat users in the US have filed a class-action lawsuit. The US WeChat Users Alliance said they believed the orders violate the US constitution and Administrative Procedures Act, and a ban would have serious impacts on the work and lives of millions of people in the country.

>>> TikTok Created A Twitter Account To Fight Misinformation Around Its App