The American government is trying to protect Americans against the CCP, for most of them are not smart enough to want to do so for themselves.
One of the freedoms in abundance in America is the freedom to be just as selfish and dumb as Americans want to be. This was in evidence during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions of Americans thought only of themselves and not of society at large when deciding not to wear face masks in public. The same is proving true today, when tens of millions of Americans are thinking only of themselves by lobbying members of Congress not to pass the congressional bill regarding a TikTok sale or ban. What is most important to them is their supposed freedom of speech or their belief that only through TikTok can they possibly earn a living.
The authors of the First Amendment to the US Constitution surely never would have imagined, when they crafted the bit about freedom of speech, that social media would spin so hopelessly out of control or that America’s greatest adversary—the Chinese Communist Party—would use a platform like TikTok to surveil America’s citizens and spur them into political action against their own government. Lest there be any doubt about this, the CCP used TikTok to identify Hong Kong protesters and civil rights activists and is presently urging its users in America to contact members of Congress to vote against the upcoming Senate vote to ban or prompt a forced sale of TikTok.
Make no mistake—TikTok is a media platform masquerading as an innocent, ordinary social media app that most of its users merely associate with entertainment and freedom of expression. But it is so much more than that, which is why TikTok’s management is able to so easily manipulate the current debate in America about the wisdom of allowing it to operate in the country.
Consider that China’s 2015 National Intelligence Law requires individuals, organizations, and institutions to assist Public Security and State Security officials in carrying out a wide array of “intelligence” work. Article 7 stipulates that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to law.” Article 14, in turn, grants intelligence agencies authority to insist on this support: “state intelligence work organs, when legally carrying forth intelligence work, may demand that concerned organs, organizations, or citizens provide needed support, assistance, and cooperation.” These clauses do not stipulate that only Chinese organizations are subject to these requirements.
Nowhere does the Law explicitly authorize individuals or other actors whom Chinese intelligence officials question—whether a Chinese citizen or foreigner—to refuse to answer questions or decline access, information, or support related to Chinese national security—and that can pertain to virtually any form of data deemed in the national security interests of China. China’s 2017 Cybersecurity Law goes even further, giving the Chinese government unrestricted access to almost all data held by Chinese companies and individuals.
TikTok is presently owned about 60% by global investors, but 20% is owned by its founder Zhang Yiming, a Chinese national. A year ago, ByteDance’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, said TikTok had not and would never share its US data with the Chinese government. Does anyone really believe that the CCP would not want access to TikTok’s data emanating from America, that it would never ask for such data, or that ByteDance would refuse any Chinese government request to hand it over? And would ByteDance ever truthfully admit that the CCP requested such data? That seems highly unlikely. The House of Representatives and Biden administration are absolutely right to want to restrict TikTok’s accessibility in America for as long as ByteDance is owned by a Chinese individual or company.
Americans are imprisoned by their own freedoms, forever embroiled in endless debates about concepts like freedom of speech, when the real issue at hand is national security. The framers of the US Constitution could never have known what kind of world social media and AI would create or the threat to national security they would pose. TikTok gives the CCP a window into 170 million Americans’ lives and can in theory scrape data each time anyone uses the app. The CCP also uses the app to broadcast misinformation to those millions of unsuspecting users. There is absolutely no net benefit to giving the CCP access to Americans’ lives and data but most of them never even think about that.
Like Covid-19, this is not about what is best for an individual—it is a question of what is best for society as a whole. The American government is trying to protect Americans against the CCP, for most of them are not smart enough to want to do so for themselves. The Senate should pass the bill in its present form and President Biden should sign it. There is no time to waste in getting smarter about how to combat the CCP and all of its nefarious practices around the globe.
Daniel Wagner is CEO of Country Risk Solutions and author of The China Epiphany and three other books about China.