US President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked executive orders from his predecessor, former US president Donald Trump, seeking to ban Chinese-owned mobile phone apps TikTok and WeChat over national security concerns, the White House said.
A statement said that instead of banning the popular apps, the Biden administration would carry out a “criteria-based decision framework and rigorous, evidence-based analysis to address the risks” from Internet applications controlled by foreign entities.
Trump had claimed that the apps posed national security risks and had sought to force the sale of TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) and remains one of the world’s most popular social media apps, to US investors.
Photo: AFP
The effort by the Trump administration prompted a series of legal challenges, delaying the efforts to ban or force the sale of the applications, which heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.
There was no immediate comment from the two companies.
Biden issued a new executive order citing an “ongoing emergency” related to “the continuing effort of foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain United States persons’ data” and calling for a four-month review.
Bobby Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas who follows national security issues, called the Biden order “a good middle path.”
“They affirmed the nature of the threat and the propriety of using sanctions to address it, and they have held the door open for reimposing some version of these sanctions ... but likely with a far stronger and more defensible record,” Chesney wrote on Twitter.
However, US officials said that Biden’s order stopped short of rescinding a review of the 2017 acquisition of TikTok forerunner Musical.ly by ByteDance.
“It would be premature to celebrate; Bytedance remains subject to an entirely separate CFIUS divestment order,” Chesney said in a blog post, referring to the intergovernmental Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is carrying out the review.
“Today’s action by President Biden does nothing to change that. Of course, it could be that this too will change,” he added.
Biden’s order seeks to identify any “connected software applications that may pose an unacceptable risk to US national security and the American people” including “applications that are owned, controlled, or managed by persons that support foreign adversary military or intelligence activities, or are involved in malicious cyber activities, or involve applications that collect sensitive personal data.”
The new order calls for the US Department of Commerce and other agencies to develop guidelines “to protect sensitive personal data ... including personally identifiable information and genetic information” from misuse.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last