TikTok, WeChat bans by US and India broke WTO rules, China says

Name: Global expansion of TikTok and other Chinese tech companies is likely, only not in the West
Uploaded: 2020-10-05T12:00:11.000Z
Duration: 6 min 2 s
Description: Global expansion of TikTok and other Chinese tech companies is likely, only not in the West

At a meeting of the Council for Trade in Services, China said action taken by the US and India to ban Chinese apps broke World Trade Organization (WTO) rules

Experts warned that if China was to pursue such a case, it would likely be countersued because of its blocks on foreign apps and websites

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Beijing has accused India and the US of flouting WTO rules with their bans on Chinese apps. Photo: AFP

Finbarr Bermingham

Published: 8:00pm, 5 Oct 2020Updated: 2:54pm, 15 Oct 2020

At a closed-door meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has accused the United States and India of breaking global trading rules over bans on Chinese-made apps, including TikTok and WeChat.

China took to the floor at the Council for Trade in Services meeting on Friday to accuse the pair of taking measures that are “clearly inconsistent with WTO rules, restrict cross-border trading services and violate the basic principles and objectives of the multilateral trading system”, according to a Geneva trade official who was privy to the discussions.

US President Donald Trump has targeted the popular apps with a series of orders that aim to ban US entities from doing business with them or downloading them from American app stores. In addition, the Trump administration wants to force the sale of TikTok to a US buyer by November 14.

Washington has claimed the apps collect data that “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information – potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage”.

06:02

Global expansion of TikTok and other Chinese tech companies is likely, only not in the West

In June, India banned TikTok and more than 50 other Chinese-made apps, including WeChat and Baidu Maps, after its military clashed with Chinese soldiers at their disputed border in the Himalayas. New Delhi claimed the apps were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India”.