The US Congress is preparing to vote on a bill this Wednesday that would give TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, about six months to divest itself of the app used by about 170 million Americans. Otherwise, he would face a veto. If the project receives approval from the Lower House and later the United States Senate, ByteDance would have between 160 and 180 days to sell the application if you don’t want it to end up banned in North American territory.

Everything is based on a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the United States in which it is ensured that The Chinese Government used TikTok accounts to harm candidates from both the Democratic and Republican Parties during the 2022 elections, in which the Democrats did better than expected by retaining the Senate and losing the Lower House by a few seats. Likewise, the report warned that the Chinese Executive could try to influence the November elections, in which the Democratic president, Joe Biden, will face the former Republican president Donald Trump again.

The White House national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, wanted to clarify one day before the vote that goal is to end Chinese ownership, not ban TikTok: “Do we want TikTok, as a platform, to be owned by an American company or a Chinese company? Do we want TikTok data, children’s data, adult data, to be staying here in the United States or going to China?” . At the moment, China’s position on the matter is not clear, although the Asian country has been very critical of the aforementioned bill.

Specifically, China has assured, hours before the vote, that the “repression” against the video application TikTok by the US It is “an intimidating tactic” that will end up “turning against” the North American country. It was the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin who has accused the United States of adopting intimidation tactics instead of “competing fairly” and of “never having found evidence that TikTok threatens its national security.”

Wenbin has also assured that the US behavior on this issue “disrupts normal business operations, “It damages international investors’ confidence in the investment environment and destroys the international economic and trade order.” If ByteDance did not accept the US decision, app stores run by companies like Apple or Google would not be able to legally offer TikTok or provide streaming services. web hosting to applications controlled by ByteDance Already in 2020 Trump sought to ban TikTok and WeChat, also Chinese-owned, although his plan was eventually blocked by the courts.