President Trump signed two executive orders, one reiterating that he wants TikTok banned (unless Microsoft buys it), and another launching a new attack against WeChat. Depending on how the WeChat order is implemented, it could have massive implications for the parent company, Tencent, and the future of the internet.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the U.S. to develop a “Clean fortress” around citizens’ data, with unclean technologies defined as those with Chinese origins. This is essentially an American version of China’s Great Firewall, though its implementation is uncertain.
In one of the most detailed accounts from a Uyghur prisoner in Xinjiang to date, the fashion model Merdan Ghappar leaked video and text describing his detention, including instances of torture that he witnessed. Ghappar’s account shows that even well-integrated Uyghurs are being targeted, and that arbitrary detentions have continued into 2020.
Chinese state media and businesspeople are outraged at Trump’s requirement that TikTok sell its U.S.-based operations. The China Daily called it “tantamount” to “an officially sanctioned ‘steal’ of Chinese technology,” while famous tech investor Kai-Fu Lee called it “inconceivable.”
After a few days of indecision, President Trump has settled on an ultimatum for TikTok: Either sell your U.S. operations to an American company in 45 days, or be banned. Microsoft is in negotiations to buy it, but there are many uncertainties.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said she would postpone the upcoming Legislative Council election from September 6 this year to September 5, 2021. It was the latest blow to the pro-democracy opposition, who had hoped to win big in that election.
Today, a dozen pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from Legislative Council elections in Hong Kong. The government made clear that dissent to the national security law that Beijing imposed on July 1 is now a disqualifying condition.
On the same day that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his company by saying it is “proudly American,” and that it competes against China’s “version of the internet,” TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer slammed Facebook for copycat products and for attacks that are “disguised as patriotism.”
Two universities in Hong Kong have gotten rid of faculty that have links to protests. Benny Tai, the co-founder of the Occupy protest movement, called his firing “the end of academic freedom in Hong Kong.”
China continues to play whack-a-mole with regional flare-ups of COVID-19. But mass testing and targeted lockdowns appear to be containing the virus in the country, while elsewhere in the world it spreads unabated.