China Just Called Trump's Bluff on TikTok
(Bloomberg via Msn) Imagine a bidder wanting to buy KFC, but being told the deal might not include the Colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices. That’s effectively what Beijing has told the list of U.S. companies keen to purchase short-video app TikTok: The key ingredients may be out of reach.
At first it looked like the Trump administration had it all figured out.
ByteDance Inc., it decided, was a risk to national security and the Chinese company’s main product for international markets had to be sold. For reasons that remain confounding, Satya Nadella entered the fray and Microsoft Corp. put in a bid. Soon, suitors were apparently lining up to buy the hip new product that claims 100 million U.S. downloads. A short deadline — Sept. 15 — helped build a sense of urgency. TikTok is essentially going through a forced sale.
Then Beijing stepped in. China’s Commerce Ministry added new items to its list of export controls late Friday. Now, artificial intelligence interface technologies such as speech and text recognition, as well as methods to analyze data and make personalized content recommendations, are matters of national security.
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This move puts the ball back in Donald Trump’s court. The U.S. president may need to contend with the real possibility that TikTok doesn’t find a buyer, and he’ll have to decide whether one of the nation’s most popular products should be removed from the app store of its most valuable company. Trump may think that strong-arming China will boost his re-election chances, but being outplayed could backfire. It’s also possible that if TikTok ends up being banned altogether, there will be a backlash by the app’s fans.
Read More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/china-just-called-trump-s-bluff-on-tiktok/ar-BB18x0Ze?li=BBorjTa
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