Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, criticized that Washington maintains its campaign against this platform without producing evidence on the alleged threats to national security.

He also charged that the White House uses the protection of private data as a pretext to abuse its power and harass foreign firms, instead of guaranteeing them to operate openly and fairly on US soil.

Wang made this statement in response to reports about US plans to ask TikTok’s owner, the Chinese company Bytedance, to sell its shares in the mini-video platform.

However, a spokesperson for the popular social network responded that ‘the best way to address national security concerns is to be transparent with the protection of users’ data and bring in a third party to monitor, verify and veto,’ which is already underway.

The offensive against TikTok began in the last stage of US President Donald Trump’s term, and was now taken up by his successor, Joe Biden, and includes a ban on the use of TikTok on Government phones.

In recent weeks, Canada and the nations of the European Union took similar steps, joining India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Taiwan on the list of territories in the world where the popular platform is banned.

jg/jav/mem/ymr.