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Forced TikTok sale in US is compared to ‘robbery’ in China but ByteDance has few options, experts say
- US President Donald Trump has threatened to put TikTok ‘out of business’ in the country if it is not sold by September 15
- Chinese experts slam the move, but say TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance has few other options
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China may not agree with the US government’s forced sale of TikTok, but the short video app’s Beijing-based parent ByteDance does not have many other options, according to experts.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump threatened to put TikTok “out of business” in the country if it is not sold by September 15. He also said that the US government “should get a very large percentage of that price because we're making it possible”.
In response, China's foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday that the move against TikTok was “a blatant act of bullying” and “complete political manipulation”.
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“In the absence of any evidence, the US has generalised the concept of national security, abused state power and unjustifiably suppressed certain non-American enterprise(s),” said Wang.
Chinese experts the Post spoke to also had harsh words for the Trump administration’s move to force ByteDance to divest its US operations.
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