China says TikTok ban would ‘come back to bite the United States’

China warned on Wednesday that a possible ban on TikTok “will come back to bite the US.”

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Wednesday morning on a bill that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the video-based social media app or face a ban in the United States.

“The United States has never found any evidence that TikTok threatens our national security, but we have not stopped suppressing TikTok,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, according to AFP news agency.

He added: “This type of bullying behavior, which cannot be won through fair competition, disrupts the normal business activities of companies, undermines international investors’ confidence in the investment environment, and undermines the normal international economic and trade order.” said.

“Ultimately, this will inevitably hurt the United States itself,” Wang continued.

Despite former President Trump’s opposition to a potential TikTok ban, House Republicans remained hopeful Tuesday that the bill would pass the House.

The former president, who formally locked up the Republican nomination on Tuesday night, suggested that banning TikTok would give Facebook power.

“Frankly, there’s a lot of people who love TikTok. There’s a lot of young kids on TikTok who would be hooked on it without it. There’s a lot of users,” President Trump said Monday on CNBC. He spoke on “Squawk Box”.

“There’s a lot of good and bad about TikTok. But what I don’t like is that Facebook can be big without TikTok. And I think Facebook, along with the media, is the enemy of the people. “I’m thinking about it,” he added.

Facebook banned President Trump from entering the country in January 2021 following the Capitol riot, during which hundreds of his supporters tried to block the certification of the 2020 election results. He had spent months spreading false claims about the election on social media prior to the riot. His account was restored last year.

Trump’s current position on TikTok marks a significant change from when he took office. In 2020, he vowed to ban the app from operating in the U.S. and issued an order requiring ByteDance to exit TikTok’s U.S. operations. However, this order was later blocked in court.

The former president’s comments came after he acknowledged that he recently met with Jeff Yas, a major Republican donor and investor in TikTok, but President Trump said Yas mentioned TikTok during their conversation. He said he didn’t bring it up.