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Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Monday that China opposed US politicians’ accusations on TikTok out of national security reason. He urged the US to correct its mistakes, stop slandering China and unreasonably suppressing non-American companies immediately.

US President Donald Trump on Friday ordered Chinese tech firm ByteDance to divest its interest in US TikTok operations within 90 days. Trump claimed reliable evidence showed the company might threaten America’s national security

“China has explained the affairs on TikTok many times with adequate evidence,” Zhao said. For TikTok’s American business, all the managers and executives, including its president, are Americans. The servers of TikTok are located in the US, while its data centers are in the US and Singapore. TikTok has a fully localized operating team, with 1,500 American employees, and has promised 10,000 jobs. TikTok also opens its audit policy and algorithm source code. Although TikTok satisfies almost all the requirements imposed by the US, some Americans are still attempting to grab the company out of political interests. Some American politicians make up reasons to attack the company.

Zhao pointed out that for some American politicians, national security is a universal excuse to impose charges on other countries and suppress non-American companies. Even a report from the CIA proves there is no evidence to show China’s guilt. An American think tank also said that it is never out of security reasons to ban an app only because it belongs to a Chinese company. It is clear that national security is only an excuse for some American politicians. US bullying negates its so-called market economy and fair competition, which breaks international rules on commerce and harms the interests of other countries. America’s interest will finally be affected by its own actions.

(Compiled by Mei Yibo)