Envoy:

US Should Give Chinese Companies Level Playing Field

TEHRAN (defapress) – The United States should stop making groundless allegations against Chinese companies including TikTok and give them a level playing field, China’s Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said.

News ID: 81774

Date: 10 August 2020 - 14:07

"I don't think there's an evidence that any company is giving such information to the Chinese government. People make these allegations, but they never show any evidence," said Cui in response to the US government's allegations that TikTok might give its data to the Chinese government when he was attending the 2020 Aspen Security Forum on Aug. 4.

"Very often we hear complaints here that we don't give a level playing field to American companies. But more and more, I believe we should complain Chinese companies are not having a level playing field here," he said, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There is such a degree of political intervention, government intervention into the market. There's such a discrimination against Chinese company. These companies are just private companies," the ambassador said.

"It's not fair to make such allegations without giving any evidence and to accuse China of not giving American companies a level playing field while at the same time they themselves are denying Chinese companies such a level playing field. This is extremely unfair," he said.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order banning any US transactions with Chinese tech firm ByteDance, owner of TikTok, starting in 45 days.

TikTok has been downloaded over 175 million times in the United States and over 1 billion times globally, according to the executive order, which claims that the app automatically captures "vast swaths of information" from its users, posing risks to US national security.

A similar executive order has also been issued for WeChat, a messaging and social media app owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent.

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