Caught in US-China tussle, middle path is main strategy for TikTok

ByteDance's carefully designed proposal and the shifting views of Mr Trump's advisers indicate how they are more willing to compromise to mitigate an increasingly fractious situation

After more than six weeks, two White House executive orders, new Chinese regulations and multiple bidders, a deal for the social media app TikTok has boiled down to one main strategy: mitigation.

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, said on Monday that it had offered a proposal to the Treasury Department that aimed to address the Trump administration’s concerns that the app could give the Chinese government access to sensitive data.

The proposal is far from an outright sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations, as President Trump suggested in an Aug. 6 executive order. Instead, ByteDance designed a proposal