Bill in Congress would make TikTok intel public
China, North Korea protest US naval operations in South China Sea, East Sea
After a contentious five-hour hearing with the CEO of TikTok in the House of Representatives last week, Congress is moving forward with legislation that would declassify US intelligence about Chinese control of the popular video sharing platform.
The bill, which has White House support, would give the Secretary of Commerce new tools to ban or force a sale of TikTok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The intelligence review is necessary because “we have got to make the case,” that TikTok should be banned or sold, Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation show Sunday.
“We need to have a set of tools, rules-based so they can stand up in court. TikTok would still get its day in court,” Warner said.
Warner is a co-sponsor the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act. The proposed legislation seeks to identify threats posed by technologies affiliated with foreign governments by giving the US Commerce Department authority to review or ban. The bill would also cover other popular social apps from China including fashion sales platforms Temu and Shein, and the TikTok-affliated video editor CapCut.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, would give the Biden administration more clear-cut legal authority to deal with TikTok than under present law. The Treasury Department interagency group, Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been conducting a review of the national security concerns around TikTok. But it is not clear the CFIUS process would survive a court challenge.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told House lawmakers last week the company has "never shared, or received a request to share, US user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made."
US officials are concerned about TikTok, which claims 150 million users in the US, because of allegations people in China have used it to spy on Americans and because the popular social channel could be used as a propaganda outlet. There has been little evidence produced publicly to support either claim.
“There is a grave danger here,” Representative Mike Turner, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told the BBC on Sunday. “People don't really understand what they're surrendering. When they're thinking of this as an entertainment app. They're not seeing this as a propaganda app. They're not seeing it as access to their data.”
Moscow-Beijing axis
The Editorial Board of the Washington Post has warned about a new Beijing-Moscow axis.
“With President Xi Jinping’s high-profile three-day visit to Moscow this month, China has shown it is willing to play what might be called the Russia card to counter what Mr. Xi considers to be U.S. attempts to surround China and contain its economic and military rise.
“This growing alliance between America’s two greatest strategic and military challengers has the potential to shift the global order as profoundly as the United States did a half-century ago. America and its democratic allies had better be ready to respond.
“China and Russia share a common apprehension of encirclement by the United States and NATO. Russia sees NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat — that was the main stated justification for its invasion of Ukraine. China, meanwhile, fears the United States is trying to create an “Indo-Pacific NATO” with a string of Asian defense agreements from the Philippines to Australia.”
Russian jets overfly US base in Syria
Armed Russian jets have flown over the US military garrison at Al-Tanf, Syria, violating a deconfliction agreement between the US and Russia to keep their forces separated, according to the US military.
Lt Gen Alexus Grynkewich, who is in charge of the US Air Force in the Middle East, told NBC News last week that nearly every day in March Russian jets have flown “directly overhead” or “within about a mile” of US forces on the ground at Al Tanf.
The US has about 900 troops on the ground in Syria keeping tabs on remnants of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and countering Iranian-backed militant groups.
The Syrian overflights and downing of a US surveillance drone over the Black Sea indicate Russia has been “emboldened” by last week’s visit by China President Xi Jinping to Moscow, according to Ruslan Trad, a security researcher at the Atlantic Council who told The New Arab news outlet Russia is trying to "provoke a reaction" from the US.
On March 23, a US contractor was killed and five US troops were injured when an Iranian-made drone hit a US base near Hasakah in northeastern Syria. The US retaliated with airstrikes against “facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Republican Guard,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
North Korea, China object to US warships
The USS Nimitz carrier strike group is conducting joint drills today with South Korea’s navy in the East Sea, prompting North Korea to launch demonstration missiles.
Early Monday, South Korea’s military said it had detected North Korean launches of two short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea. The missiles flew about 220 miles (370 kms) before splashing into the sea, according to the Yonhap news service.
Last week, a US Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed around the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea last week, drawing a rebuke from Beijing.
The USS Milius, an Arleigh Burke-class vessel sailed near the Paracel Islands on March 24 and then into the South China Sea, according to a press release from the US Navy’s 7th Fleet.
“Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for South China Sea littoral nations,” the statement said.
The Paracel Islands are an archipelago of small islands and reefs in the middle of the South China Sea. China took control of the islands in 1974 in a naval battle with South Vietnam which had tried to push the Chinese out.
The US maintains China’s maritime claims around the Paracel’s are excessive and does not recognize them. China’s Ministry of National Defense protested the USS Milius’s operation.
“The act of the US military seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, severely breached international laws, and is more ironclad evidence of the US pursuing navigation hegemony and militarizing the South China Sea,” ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei said.
Beijing hosts business leaders
The Chinese government convened more than 100 leaders of major multinational companies in Beijing over the weekend for its annual China Development Forum, a vehicle for attracting foreign investment.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, Bridgewater hedge fund founder Ray Dalio and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla were prominent among the few US executives who attended the event.
In a speech to the forum, Cook "it was so wonderful to be back” in China since the COVID pandemic and talked about Apple shifting from a focus on supply to "more and more interactions with Chinese customers" in the future, according to China Daily.
It was the first time the conference had been held in-person since the pandemic started in 2020.
On Friday, Chinese authorities raided the Beijing offices of US-based Mintz Group, detaining all five of the firm’s staff members in mainland China, according to a company statement reported by the Wall Street Journal. The firm does due-diligence work for corporate dealmakers.
“Mintz Group hasn’t received any official legal notice regarding a case against the company and has requested that the authorities release its employees,” the statement said, suggesting the events may stem from a “misunderstanding.”