Recently the news broke that the president Joe Biden signed executive order repealing Trump's bans on TikTok and WeChat.
Instead of Trump's order, Joe Biden to instruct the Secretary of Commerce to investigate applications with ties to foreign rivals that may pose a risk to data privacy or the national security of Americans.
Biden's executive order aims to impose a 'criteria-based decision framework' more structured for possible bans. This is the latest in a series of China-related measures taken by Joe Biden ahead of his first trip to Europe, where reducing Beijing's abuses will be a key item on the agenda for meetings with G7 and NATO leaders.
Last year, Donald Trump said that apps owned by Chinese companies "threaten the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States."
TikTok and a group of US-based WeChat users sued Trump over the decision and the courts blocked the bans, and under pressure from the Trump administration, ByteDance tried to sell part of TikTok, but the Biden administration it suspended the sale in February.
The signed executive order replaces a series of executive orders issued by President Trump last year that blocked apps like TikTok, WeChat and Alipay from US app stores.
“The administration is committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable and secure Internet, protecting human rights online and offline, and supporting a vibrant global digital economy. The challenge we face with this decree is that some countries, including China, do not share these commitments or values and instead strive to leverage American data and digital technologies in a way that presents unacceptable risks to national security. " said a senior official in the Biden administration
Joe Biden's new executive order will ask the Commerce Department to review applications related to foreign adversaries and define which you should consider an "unacceptable risk," according to a White House background report.
These will include transactions involving owned or controlled applications by "persons who support the military or intelligence activities of a foreign adversary, who are involved in malicious cyber activities, or who collect confidential data."
While the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, reviews mergers or foreign investment, the executive order cites an earlier Trump measure that defines transactions broadly to include installation or transfer involving a technology service of communications.
The administration Biden goes on to expose how his strict approach to China will be different from Trump's., implementing aggressive policies that officials say are more aligned with American values.
James Lewis, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Biden administration has not been shown to soften the government's tough stance on China. But the new decree establishes much more precise criteria for assessing the risks posed by TikTok and other companies owned by foreign adversaries such as China.
Trump's previous executive orders were primarily aimed at banning the popular video sharing app TikTok and the messaging app WeChat in the United States. These bans were temporarily blocked by the courts because national security concerns raised by the Trump administration were too speculative or too vague.
And the Biden administration is looking to develop a better process to identify and document national security concerns so that potential data transfer bans can withstand legal challenges.
The new order is just the latest move by the Biden administration to address the challenges posed by China. Last week, Joe Biden signed another executive order expanding a Trump-era ban on American investments in Chinese companies with alleged ties to the Chinese military. The decree lists 59 companies that are prohibited from investing, including those that create and deploy surveillance technologies used against Muslim minorities and government dissidents in Hong Kong.
Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/