It’s Not Just TikTok. Chinese Firms Face More US Roadblocks

Now, though, Tencent and other Chinese companies face US hostility not unlike what Facebook dealt with in China.

On Monday, President Trump repeated his threat to ban TikTok, a hugely popular US video-sharing app owned by China’s Bytedance.

“These Chinese software companies doing business in the United States, whether it’s TikTok or WeChat, are feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist party, their national security apparatus,” Pompeo said.

“The question is, if a Chinese entertainment app like TikTok is being perceived as a national security threat by the United States, then what app developed by the Chinese is not?”.

(TikTok makes the same arguments.) This year, the company engaged Washington, DC, lobbyists for the first time, through Riot Games, according to Congressional records.

“The question is, if a Chinese entertainment app like TikTok is being perceived as a national security threat by the United States, then what app developed by the Chinese is not?” says Yun Sun, codirector of the Stimson Center, a Washington, DC, nonprofit that aims to foster international peace and stability.

Yun believes it is still possible for Chinese tech companies to navigate US government concerns, perhaps by accepting compliance officers or foreign board members to provide oversight.

“It’s not that if a company is Chinese there is absolutely no way to remedy the security threat,” she says.

Telecom giant Huawei has been banned from US networks and is a target of investigations and sanctions due to alleged intellectual property theft, perceived ties to the Chinese government, and alleged sales to Iran.

US lawmakers have also highlighted electric-vehicle maker BYD as a potential security threat, because it has received money from China’s government.

China may be a no-go zone for Facebook and Google, but other tech companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, currently enjoy access.

Last year, CFIUS forced the genomics company iCarbonX to divest a majority stake in PatientsLikeMe that it acquired in 2017, and it made Beijing Kunlun Tech, a games company, sell off Grindr, a US gay dating app that it bought in 2016.

But now he suspects that tech companies will be postponing or shrinking these outposts.

“There is always this idea that Chinese companies are beholden to the Chinese government, and there's obviously some truth to that,” he says.

“What people fail to recognize is that companies are not always happy to do the bidding of the Chinese government, and they have a lot more wiggle room that I think most people assume.”.