Lhe setback is, at first glance, obvious for China. The social network TikTok, one of its first brands which had managed to really break through into foreign markets, finds itself under American fire. After a favorable vote on first reading in the Senate, the bill forcing its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the application or see it blocked passed by a very large bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives, Saturday April 20. Its final adoption by a final vote of the Senate, in the coming days, is beyond doubt, and President Biden has already made it known that he will happily sign the text.
Here, from the Chinese point of view, is definitive proof of the hypocrisy of the American discourse on a supposedly welcome China in its rise to the rank of superpower. The case recalls the obstacles posed to Huawei, whose success in smartphones was greatly affected by the ban on access to Google’s Android operating system, and 5G installation contracts slowed down by intense lobbying. carried out by Washington against it in all possible countries. Conclusion, seen from Beijing: as soon as a Chinese company succeeds, America strives to bring about its downfall. Who should worry about the future? BYD cars, CATL batteries, the ultra-fast fashion and ultra-low-priced sites Shein and Temu?
In a note for the Carnegie Foundation, Xing Jiaying, a researcher at the Sinnathamby-Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, considers how China could react to the TikTok issue. “Rather than agreeing to the sale to limit ByteDance’s commercial losses, it is more likely that Beijing will make the political decision to block the sale under the argument of export controls. This approach could fuel an already strong narrative against Washington, helping to further heighten diplomatic tensions between China and the United States., she writes. How could China, whose company has developed a high-performance algorithm, politically accept the latter’s transfer, imposed with a knife to its throat, by the power it intends to dethrone?
Politics and morality
But, in this battle, it is an understatement to say that Beijing will have difficulty making its argument heard. The People’s Republic of China is the great champion of blocking foreign sites, American social networks in particular. Hearing him complain about similar practices in the opposite camp is just as ironic as seeing his propagandists express themselves every day on Twitter, a site to which they, like the rest of the Chinese population, are supposed not to have access. . Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have been blocked in China since 2009, Instagram since 2014, WhatsApp since 2017… The list is endless.
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