Washington DC: The Trump administration will remain cautious of TikTok even if Microsoft and other US tech companies acquire it from ByteDance with operations in China, White House adviser Peter Navarro said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, Microsoft had announced its decision to pursue discussions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in a matter of weeks, and in any event, completing these discussions no later than September 15.
“Microsoft through its Bing search engine… now operates in China through Skype calls that effectively are enablers of Chinese censorship surveillance and monitoring. Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco [and] other American companies in the tech land help China build its great firewall, which is used basically… to imprison Chinese citizens,” Navarro told Fox News.
Though Microsoft has said that it is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury, Navarro said, “Can we trust any company that operates in China, has servers [and] software in China, to protect your children? That’s a question I think that needs to be asked.”
Navarro further said that such deals do not eliminate the threat of China’s surveillance on all things American.
He said that as China’s civil and military fusion requires foreign companies operating on Chinese soil to give them their data, is it prudent to sell TikTok to any company with operations in China that might get compromised and thereby “get us into the same problem we have now.”
Earlier, US President Donald Trump had announced that he is planning to ban TikTok. (ANI)
