TikTok hearing exposes US politicians' xenophobia

Millions of people around the world saw Congressmen and Congresswomen in the United States grilling TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in a hearing that was held on March 23 in the US Capitol. In the eyes of some young Chinese people, particularly users of Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, Chew, a Singaporean national, has become an overnight hero for standing up to bullying by hysterical US politicians.

The hearing was called for Chew to testify whether the Chinese government and the employees of TikTok's parent company ByteDance can use the app to spy on US citizens, or promote content favorable to Chinese interests.

Instead of asking questions about how TikTok does business and uses the data it gathers from users, the lawmakers' questions and behavior bordered on xenophobia. They were mostly seen making statements rather than interrogating. Surprising to many, if not all, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, who is Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, pronounced in her opening statement that "Your platform should be banned". She had a verdict even before the hearing had commenced.

Indeed, many countries have a system called national security review in place to screen foreign investment. However, even such a review should not be biased or carried out arbitrarily.

Unfortunately, all these years, the US has politicized its national security review system vis-à-vis investors from China, as it has stepped up its strategic competition with China. There has been a growing chorus of bipartisan lawmakers that view Chinese investment, particularly from State-owned enterprises, as a threat. For them, anything from China raises suspicion.

In the US, investments by Chinese companies are naturally associated with the Chinese government, and, they believe, the Chinese government could put a lot of pressure on any company in China to turn in data and spy on other countries.

In this context, given that US-based TikTok appeals to more than 1 billion users, most of them young US residents, the politicians there regard it as a threat to national security, as also a thorn in the flesh.

During former US president Donald Trump's tenure, TikTok was once on the verge of being ousted from the US until its data storage facility was taken over by Oracle, an American tech giant. The Joe Biden administration has not shifted its focus from TikTok and other Chinese giant techs. Instead, first, a presidential order was issued requiring all US federal agencies to remove TikTok from their phones and systems within 30 days. Earlier TikTok was warned to either divest from ByteDance, or face severe punishment, including the possibility of a ban.

Ironically, all these hostile allegations were not supported by evidence, but simply by the presumption that the TikTok app can be used to spy on, or blackmail, the millions of US residents who use it every day.

From the legal point of view, TikTok is an international company, a separate entity from its parent company, ByteDance, which is a private company that is not under the control of the Chinese government. Unfortunately, repeated assurances that TikTok does not promote or remove content at the request of Chinese authorities, and the fact that TikTok data is safe from foreign intrusion, as Chow testified in the Congress hearing, has not cut ice with the xenophobic politicians.

Once obsessed with political correctness, politicians tend to hysterically exaggerate the threat from their opponents. Unfortunately, with the unhealthy political atmosphere in Washington, TikTok is becoming a convenient target for attack.

TikTok is now flooded with videos of its users mocking Congressmen and Congresswomen, hailing Chow and supporting TikTok. If only the xenophobic political figures spent some time listening to their young countrymen and became more reasonable.

The author is dean of the School of International Law, China University of Political Science and Law.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.