He has two weeks left in the Oval Office and U.S. President Donald Trump is making sure he makes life difficult for some Chinese companies before he goes. He has signed an executive order that will ban transactions within the U.S for eight Chinese software applications. This is due to the continued stance by U.S. officials that Chinese apps are accessing sensitive data of its American users and using it to spy for the Chinese government. This is of course a charge that China and these companies have vehemently denied.
The Executive Order tasks the Commerce Department to take “aggressive action” against the developers of the Chinese software applications and determine which transactions will be banned. They have 45 days to figure out which transactions from eight Chinese apps will be restricted. It names the following apps: Alipay, WeChat, QQ Wallet, CamScanner, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, and WPS Office. They need to take action to “protect national security”.
Since the apps are able to access smartphones, tablets, computers, etc, they are able to capture user data, which includes sensitive and private information. The U.S. government believes that China will be able to use this information and do things like track the locations of federal employees and contractors and also create files on individuals based on their personal information. However, they have never released any proof on these suspicions.
Reuters reports that the Chinese government will of course try to protect the legitimate rights of the companies, according to foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. None of the companies that own the apps mentioned in the EO, including Alibaba, Tencent, and Ant, have shared any comments regarding this except for Kingsoft which said this will not affect their businesses in the short term.
With the Biden administration already set to take over in a couple of weeks (despite some Republican lawmakers planning to block it), it’s still unknown how they will respond and react to trade issues with China that have been strained the past few years. It is possible that the incoming administration will reverse the order but there has been no statement yet from the transition team.
