The White House and Congress are working for reduce the national security risk of various Chinese apps of social networks, beyond the recent high-profile targeting of Washington, TikToksaid the Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo.
Concern for national security “it is not limited to TikTok”he stated in an interview on Thursday. “If what we’re concerned about is Chinese-backed companies being on tens of millions of American phones, including members of the military and privacy concerns, data concerns, misinformation concerns, it doesn’t just apply to TikTok.”
Raimondo, who has declared that she is considering the possibility of traveling to China this year, is one of the senior officials in the Cabinet of the US president, Joe Bidenwhat is promoting initiatives to counter what they consider to be growing economic and strategic threats from beijing
His department established last year Extensive controls on export of chip-making technology to Chinaand is leading the investment of some 52,000 million dollars in the US semiconductor industry, which he sees as a key asset for national security.
“There have been moments in the history of the United States of intense global competition with another superpower that does not share our values,” he said in an interview at the office of Bloomberg in washington. “This is one of those moments”.
Raimondo also said that the administration is working carefully on the scrutiny of outbound investment in certain industries in China, but warned that work would be slow given the risk of broader and unintended consequences, particularly impacts on pension and superannuation funds.
He then stated that a pilot program on investment abroad is “feasible”although it would still have to be designed, and that, in general, the procedures to evaluate investments abroad would take “months, not years” to establish.
“We are on it every day, talking to the industry, talking to stakeholders,” he said.
In the interview, Raimondo stated: “We want trade, we want exchanges, we want global investment. Anything too broad hurts American workers and the economy.”
However, the US authorities “do not want the best minds, knowledge and money of US venture capitalists to advance the semiconductor technology or the artificial intelligence technology that China is going to use in its military”, he said.
There are several proposals in Congress to limit the use of TikTok in the United States, including a bill from the House Foreign Affairs Chairman, Michael McCaulwhich would authorize Biden to ban the app.
The company’s operations in the US are also under scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US -known as cfius-, which heads the Treasury Department.
“There are a number of members in the US Senate who are doing a lot of thinking about what is the right way to protect American national security,” he said.
“We will work with Congress to find the right way to legislate to protect America from these concerns.”
Raimondo said in an interview last month that “passing a law to ban a single company is not the way to address this issue”citing concerns about free speech and its popularity with young voters, and that “the politician in me thinks that you’re going to literally lose every voter under 35forever.”
TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, is enormously popular in the United States, especially among teenagers. But authorities say there is a potential security threat if the application is used to collect user data or as a propaganda tool.
At the national level, Raimondo said that the main concern of American managers is the lack of workers with the necessary qualifications, adding that they have been telling them: “We can’t hire enoughwe can’t hire fast enough, we can’t hire people with the skills we need.”
“Generally, CEOs are optimistic, but nervous and cautious,” he said, citing concern over issues including rising interest rates, China, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and climate change.
(With information from Bloomberg)
Keep reading:
TikTok is a ‘superweapon’ of mass distraction created by China
They urged Apple and Google to remove TikTok from app stores: “China can use it as a weapon”
The US remains alert for the threat that TikTok may pose to national security and the health of young people
Source-www.infobae.com