US President announces sanctions against Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat

Washington: US President announced sanctions against the main Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat. President Trump, through an executive order, issued on Thursday night, announced that both these apps have been a timeline of 45 days. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced a ‘Clean Network Program’ to reduce the Chinese influence in the information technology and internet sectors. Following that, President Trump delivered a second blow to China, with this executive order.

Two years ago, President Trump announced a trade war against China. Under the trade war, Trump initiated actions against the domination of the Chinese companies in the information technology, telecommunications and internet sectors in the United States. Trump had accused that the Chinese Communist rulers are trying to carry out espionage, intellectual property theft, the spread of fake information and spread its ideology through these companies. Trump even declared an emergency, raising the issue of national security. The US President seems to have intensified his actions against the background of the coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump, accused in his executive order that the ByteDance and Tencent the Chinese companies that own TikTok and WeChat respectively are passing on the personal information of US citizens to the Chinese government. President Trump said that this information could be used for blackmailing or espionage and this is a national security issue. The US President has also mentioned the ban imposed by India and Australia on these Chinese apps. Against this background, the US President has given these companies a timeline of 45 days, to complete all the transactions in the United States and has clarified that these companies will not be allowed to make any transactions in the United States after that.

The action taken by Trump is considered to be a major jolt to the Chinese communist regime. The company owning TikTok has announced that the action taken against the company is unjust and it will take legal course to fight the ban. The stocks of Tencent company, the owner of WeChat, slumped by 10% and there are indications that the transactions of the US companies with this company are likely to be affected. There is an angry reaction expected from the Chinese government over this action initiated by President Trump and as per media reports, US companies like Microsoft and Apple may have to face the heat.

Before the executive order issued by the US President, on Wednesday, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced the ‘Clean Network Program’. Secretary of State Pompeo informed that this program was being announced to secure the infrastructure in the communications and technology sectors, in the United States, from entities like the Chinese communist regime. Under this, concrete actions will be taken to keep away the Chinese mobile companies and Chinese apps, posing a threat to the United States.