Peter Navarro also accused TikTok’s new boss, Kevin Mayer, of being a puppet. (File)
San Francisco:
A senior White House official said he expected President Trump to act firmly against social media apps TikTok and WeChat, triggering an angry reaction from China on Monday.
China dismissed comments by White House trade advisor Peter Navarro as “ridiculous and stubborn”, and called the United States a “veritable empire of the world‘s hackers” amid growing tensions between the two superpowers.
“The United States has a long history of conducting indiscriminate and unlawful cyberattacks, monitoring and stealing secrets worldwide,” said Chinese Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying in a routine briefing.
“The United States continues to have strong values, but why are they so afraid of a fun social media sharing network that young people love?”
Trump said last week that he was considering banning the popular TikTok app as a way to punish China for the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Navarro argued that “what the American people need to understand is all the data that goes into these mobile apps that kids have so much fun with … goes straight to the servers in China, the Chinese army, the Chinese Communist Party. “
He said these apps can be used to steal intellectual property. “So expect strong action on this,” warned Navarro.
TikTok belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance and has nearly one billion users worldwide.
He sought to distance himself from his Chinese owners, stressing that he has an American CEO and constantly denying allegations that he is sharing data with Beijing.
WeChat, owned by Tencent, is a versatile app with more than one billion users in China who use it for text messaging, mobile payments and social media.
Navarro also accused TikTok’s new boss, Kevin Mayer, former head of Disney’s streaming platforms, of being a puppet.
Amazon said on Friday that it mistakenly sent workers an email telling them to empty the TikTok mobile app from their cellphones due to security concerns.
An Amazon spokesperson later told AFP “there are no changes to our policies at this time regarding TikTok”.
Democratic campaign teams for the US presidential election were urged to avoid using TikTok on personal devices and, if they do, to keep it on an unprofessional phone.
The research firm eMarketer estimates that TikTok has more than 52 million American users, having gained around 12 million since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. TikTok is particularly popular with young smartphone users.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
