Robbery of TikTok reveals hegemony

BEIJING－The United States government recently coerced Byte-Dance to sell video-sharing app Tik-Tok's US business to the country's companies, repeating its old trick of seizing high-tech enterprises by abusing state power.

Media and industry experts pointed out that the US used the pretext of national security to carry out coercive transactions, which has seriously undermined market principles and international rules, and exposed its unabashed hegemony, setting a bad precedent in the international community.

In recent months, the US government threatened to shut down Tik-Tok's operations in the United States, and then forced it to sell itself to US companies.

International commentators and scholars have used similar words－robbery, extortion and heisting－to describe the nature of the US coercion over TikTok.

The Australian Financial Review published an article, saying the US acts have politicized the business issue, and mingled national security together with personal political interests.

The analysts said that in the battle over TikTok, the US administration set a precedent of creating an unstable playing field for companies doing business in the country.

Actually, the United States has repeatedly suppressed foreign enterprises that challenged its leading position, even those in allied countries.

In the 1980s, the United States suppressed Japan's semiconductor industry represented by Toshiba by similar means.

'Long-arm jurisdiction'

A few years ago, the United States used "long-arm jurisdiction" to dismember France's manufacturing conglomerate Alstom, which eventually led to the acquisition of its major business by its US rival General Electric Company.

In recent years, the United States has also targeted other leading companies in the fields of communications and the Internet.

Travel site Expedia and digital media group IAC chairman Barry Diller told CNBC that the TikTok deal is a "crock" and has become a "political mishmash."

"Once you start tossing this grenade about protectionism ... it's inevitable that race just keeps going up and up and prevents natural commerce," Diller added.

The United States has been touting the principles of market economy and fair competition, but it can be seen from the TikTok case that its self-interest is the sole US concern and its only one means of competition is robbery.

An optimal deal, from the perspective of the US side, is one that gives the United States control over TikTok's equity, personnel, core technology, with an essentially "unequal treaty" that defies market discipline and features forced transactions.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the deal promoted by the US government exudes the stink of "crony capitalism," which will damage the credibility of the US government and its image as a self-proclaimed supporter of free market rules.

Brazil's Valor Economico newspaper also said the United States is putting its own interests above market principles.

The TikTok case reveals that the essence of "America First" is hegemony and power politics.

Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, director of the Asia Study Center of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said that on the issue of internet security, the US government has used unscrupulous means to steal information from other countries for many years.

From time to time, US technology giants have faced scandals of collecting and selling user information, so the US national security argument has complete double standards.

Xinhua