What does the possible TikTok ban mean for US-China relations?

TikTok has said it will situation caller US authorities requiring its genitor institution to waste it nether threat of a prohibition successful court.

The rule signed this week by US President Joe Biden states that TikTok's Chinese-based genitor institution ByteDance has 270 days pinch a imaginable 90-day hold to divest from nan app aliases look a ban.

"This unconstitutional rule is simply a TikTok ban, and we will situation it successful court. We judge nan facts and nan rule are intelligibly connected our side, and we will yet prevail," TikTok said successful a connection earlier this week.

Should a ineligible situation fail, observers opportunity Chinese authorities are improbable to let a sale, a move that could beryllium seen arsenic surrendering to Washington.

Beijing whitethorn not want nan US action against nan celebrated short-form video level to group a “bad precedent,” said Alex Capri, a elder teacher astatine nan National University of Singapore and investigation chap astatine Hinrich Foundation.

“If Beijing capitulates to nan US, wherever does it end?”

'No scheme to waste TikTok'

ByteDance said connected a Chinese news app it owns that it "doesn't person immoderate scheme to waste TikTok".

Hu Xijin, a erstwhile editor-in-chief for nan Chinese party-run newspaper Global Times and now a governmental commentator, said that pinch 170 cardinal American users, TikTok should "have much courage to conflict to nan very extremity and garbage to surrender".

The conflict complete TikTok has accrued tensions betwixt nan US and China, pinch some vowing to protect their interests.

US lawmakers person said that ByteDance's ownership of TikTok is simply a nationalist information threat, pinch its algorithm manipulating what US users see.

They person said they are trying to forestall "foreign adversary espionage".

The rule followed a drawstring of successes by Washington successful curbing nan power of Chinese companies done bans, export controls and forced divestitures, drafting protests from Beijing that nan US is bent connected suppressing China’s emergence done economical coercion.

The US antecedently forced Beijing Kunlun, a Chinese mobile video crippled company, to waste nan cheery making love app Grindr aft receiving a national order.

But TikTok, which was created for nan overseas market, is simply a lawsuit Beijing does not want to lose.

Financial interests mightiness not prevail

National dignity is astatine liking and could "take precedence complete nan financial interests of ByteDance investors," including world investors who ain 60 per cent of nan company, said Gabriel Wildau, managing head of nan consulting and advisory patient Teneo.

A ineligible situation from nan institution is expected to thin connected First Amendment concerns and could resistance connected for years. Beijing is betting connected a ineligible win, analysts say.

What to do if TikTok doesn't prevail is apt still being debated pinch nan Chinese leadership, said Dominic Chiu, an expert pinch Eurasia Group.

President Xi Jinping, who will person to motion disconnected connected whether to licence aliases prohibit nan sale, astir apt has not made nan last decision, Chiu said.

Luckily for Xi, location is nary urgency for Beijing to decide, said Sun Yun, head of nan China programme astatine nan Washington-based Stimson Center.

“A batch of things could change," she said.

If lawmakers get their wish and a waste does occur, it’s apt to beryllium a challenging and messy process for TikTok, which would person to disentangle its US operations from everything else.