Wednesday, January 06, 2021
Alipay, WeChat Pay and Co.
Trump wants to ban Chinese apps
According to US President Trump, Chinese payment services forward user data to Beijing. The Republican now bans numerous apps from the People's Republic by decree. However: The ban should only come into force when Trump is no longer in the White House.
The outgoing US President Donald Trump has issued a ban on the payment services Alipay, WeChat Pay and other Chinese apps. The Trump administration justified the measure on Tuesday by saying that these apps could be used for espionage purposes. User data could therefore be forwarded to the government in Beijing. The Trump administration therefore sees these apps as a threat to "national security".
The apps were selected for the ban because they were downloaded in large numbers in the United States, a senior government official said. This brings with it the risk that tens of millions of user data could be misused.
However, the ban will only come into force in 45 days, when the new President Joe Biden is already in office. The change of power in Washington is scheduled for January 20th. The government official said the ban on the apps had not been discussed with the "potential" Biden government. Trump does not recognize his election defeat against Biden so far. Biden accuses him of hindering the handover of official business to the new government.
The Trump administration also took action against the popular Chinese video platform Tiktok last year. However, the planned Tiktok ban had been blocked by a federal judge. The Trump administration appealed against this judge's decision in late December. The outgoing government also suspects Tiktok's owner Bytedance of forwarding user data to the Chinese government.
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