TikTok enlists army of lobbyists as suspicions over China ties grow

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened to ban the app over surveillance concerns

TikTok, the wildly popular social media app known for its viral dance and lip sync clips, has been embraced by millions of students, celebrities and young adults across the United States. But the company’s ties to China could cripple its existence.

TikTok, which is owned by the China-based ByteDance, has become the latest target in the Trump administration’s long simmering security and economic battle with Beijing. It is now desperately trying to convince lawmakers and administration officials that its allegiance lies with the United States, not China.

The social media company, which one year ago had virtually no lobbying presence in the nation’s capital, has hired a small army of more than 35 lobbyists to work on its behalf, including one with deep ties to President Trump.

Behind that buildup is a growing threat to one of TikTok’s most important markets. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened to ban Chinese apps like TikTok, which are downloaded to mobile phones, over concerns they could be used for surveillance by the Chinese government. Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, called TikTok’s new chief executive an “American puppet” during a Fox Business interview on Sunday and said the administration would take “strong action” against the company and other Chinese social media apps.

A powerful US panel has opened a national security review into Bytedance’s 2018 purchase of Musical.ly, an app that was merged to form TikTok. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US is examining whether the merged companies could give the Chinese government access to vast amounts of American data, including videos useful for training facial recognition software. And the Trump administration is weighing action against Chinese social media services like TikTok under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to regulate international commerce in response to unusual and extraordinary threats, people familiar with the deliberations say.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday evening, the White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said a number of administration officials were “looking at the national security risk as it relates to TikTok, WeChat and other apps.”

“I don’t think there’s any self-imposed deadline for action, but I think we are looking at weeks, not months,” he said.

In the past three months, lobbyists working on behalf of TikTok have held at least 50 meetings with congressional staff and lawmakers, including those on top committees like commerce, judiciary and intelligence. Those meetings have included a slick presentation that includes an organisational chart showing that TikTok does not operate in China and that most of its top leaders reside in the US and are American citizens. For instance, TikTok’s new chief executive, Kevin Mayer, a former executive of Disney, lives in Los Angeles, they say. ByteDance denies it shares data with the Chinese government and is distancing itself from its roots in the communist nation. 

The company stressed TikTok was not available in China — it offers a similar app called Douyin there instead — and said user data was stored in Virginia, with a back-up in Singapore.

©2020 The New York Times News Service