TikTok ‘deal’ fails to ease US-China trade war fears
‘The goal was to break the deadlock’ in economic relations,’ but again there was no ‘breakthrough’
Has the clock stopped ticking on TikTok’s fate? Maybe. On Monday, China agreed to the spin-off of the highly addictive short video app to a group of American investors. It is understood they include fund manager Blackstone and tech company Oracle.
The “framework agreement” was thrashed out between officials from the United States and China during high-level talks in Spain’s capital, Madrid. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the media that some ‘cultural aspects’ of TikTok would be preserved.
“They’re interested in Chinese characteristics of the app, which they think are soft power. We don’t care about Chinese characteristics. We care about national security,” Bessent said at the end of two days of talks, as reported by the Reuters news agency.
At the heart of the on-off-on sale of TikTok are “national security” issues linked to its Chinese parent company ByteDance and China’s Communist Party government. Fears about user data being accessed by Beijing to spy on Americans persist.
The only tangible result was the framework for a TikTok deal.
China Business Spotlight
The Tik behind the Tok:
- Millennials and Gen Z have flocked to the social media app, which has 170 million American users and is valued at around US$40 billion.
- Critics have claimed that its addictive algorithms are hoovering up a treasure trove of personal data, which ends up being eyeballed by China’s regime.
Delve deeper: A key part of Beijing’s outlined deal with Washington includes “licensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights,” the Financial Times reported.
Big picture: Still, the Madrid meeting was the fourth round in a series of trade talks since May, following discussions in Geneva, London, and Stockholm. “[Yet,] the only tangible result was the framework for a TikTok deal,” China Business Spotlight reported.
Between the lines: “The goal was to break the deadlock in trade relations before the customs standstill agreement expired on November 10. In the end, there was once again no breakthrough,” the CBS newsletter on Substack pointed out.
China Factor comment: The latest twist in the TikTok saga might top the trending charts, but it has failed to end the tariffs war between the world’s two largest economies.