Trump Signs Ban on TikTok, WeChat; U.S. Officials Report Chinese Election Interference

Citing national security concerns, President Trump on August 6th signed twin executive orders prohibiting U.S. businesses or entities subject to U.S. jurisdiction from performing transactions with TikTok and WeChat, two popular Chinese mobile apps, after a 45-day grace period. 

The news comes as Bytedance, the Chinese social media firm that owns TikTok, has entered negotiations with Microsoft and other firms to sell off portions of their business (U.S. operations, among other things) that would likely be affected by the ban. By contrast, Tencent, the Chinese tech titan that owns WeChat, has no plans to divest or sell their app, which has become integral to hundreds of millions of users in China and among the Chinese diaspora. If implemented, the order against WeChat could depress sales in China for U.S. technology firms including Apple, whose products carry the app. Analysts also assess that Beijing may retaliate against the United States by targeting U.S. firms in China.

The President’s executive order on TikTok states that the app, which has been downloaded some 175 million times in the United States, could give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)  “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.” The order also states that the app could be used for “disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” and cites unnamed “conspiracy theories” that spread on the app concerning the origins of the coronavirus.

The President’s executive order made no mention of a longstanding national security probe into TikTok conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the interagency group has investigated the app over data privacy and censorship concerns. But in a letter to employees, Zhang Yiming, founder and CEO of Bytedance, said that CFIUS had determined that the company would need to divest its U.S. assets.

The President’s nearly-identical executive order on WeChat said that the messaging service “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users…[and]…. allow[s] the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.” While WeChat is used widely in China, it has limited market penetration in the United States.

In issuing the orders, the President cited his authority to address national security concerns pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). IEEPA gives the President wide-ranging authority to impose economic restrictions—including blocking trade with certain businesses or countries—after declaring a “national emergency.” In an executive order issued in May of 2019 ahead of U.S. sanctions on Huawei, President Trump had already declared a national emergency based on his finding that “foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services.” He pointed to that same national emergency declaration in issuing his orders concerning WeChat and TikTok.

Under the National Emergencies Act, the President has complete discretion to declare a national emergency, so long as she issues public updates before invoking additional powers authorized by the declared emergency. Analysts have noted that presidents have used their broad authority liberally: at the moment, some 30 national emergencies are concurrently in effect, giving President Trump broad authority under IEEPA and more than 120 other statutes. In August 2019, President Trump threatened to invoke the act to require U.S. businesses to leave China. He has previously invoked the IEEPA in his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and in his campaign to remove Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Maduro from power.

Intelligence Officials Report on China’s Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election

In recent days, American intelligence officials have reported that China is making efforts to sway the U.S. presidential election in November. On July 24, an official at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), an arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, announced that China, Iran and Russia were “expanding” their “influence operations” ahead of the election. The center provided more detail on August 7, reporting that China desires Joe Biden to prevail over President Trump this fall. Just two days later, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien commented that China has launched cyberattacks against U.S. election infrastructure. These remarks went beyond the center’s latest report, which detailed the CCP’s preference for Biden but did not specifically allege Chinese hacking operations.

According to the center’s latest statement, China opposes Trump because it believes that he is “unpredictable,” and that Trump’s reelection could restrict China’s geopolitical goals. The report also indicated that China’s influence strategy has included stepping up public criticism of Trump administration policies—including its COVID-19 response, actions on Hong Kong and stance on the South China Sea. The Chinese government “recognizes,” the report states, that these criticisms “might affect the presidential race.” And according to O’Brien, China is conducting its influence operations by leveraging social media platforms including TikTok and Twitter. However, NCSC officer William Evanina stated that China—as well as Iran and Russia—could not easily interfere with U.S. elections at a large scale.

Most of the details behind these reports remain classified, yet the reports have already attracted a range of responses from U.S. political leaders. Some officials, reportedly, have expressed doubt about O’Brien’s claim that China has engaged in cyberattacks. Others have sought to differentiate China’s operations from Russia’s, which some officials argue are more pervasive and of a different character. Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, has emphasized that the election-interference threat from China is less serious than that from Russia. By contrast, others lawmakers caution that the recent reports downplay the threats from China, Russia, and Iran. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for declassifying the intelligence on all three countries’ election interference, which he described as “chilling.” Republicans, meanwhile, have pressured Trump since last month to investigate potential Chinese election interference conducted through TikTok.

American officials have long criticized China for its cyber operations against the United States. But tensions surrounding Chinese cyberattacks have escalated this year—a trend that these latest intelligence reports will likely exacerbate. In a speech last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray excoriated China for its cyber campaigns aimed at stealing U.S. intellectual property. Last month the United States indicted two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking coronavirus research centers in Texas; the Trump administration also shuttered Houston’s Chinese consulate in response to that incident. Earlier this year, Trump officials also charged members of the Chinese military for a 2017 breach of credit-reporting agency Equifax—an operation that compromised personal data of almost 150 million Americans. The Chinese government has consistently Advertise on IT Security News.