This article is part of the 2024 BCLT-BTLJ-CMTL Symposium.
Leo Yu1
The national security concerns surrounding TikTok appear straightforward: it is China. To many policymakers and scholars, the mere connection to China warrants severe measures, including either divestment to an American firm or a complete shutdown. What renders China’s involvement so significant that it prompts a rare bipartisan consensus to override First Amendment protections and market principles? This article posits that while China undeniably plays a crucial role in the TikTok controversy, the underlying driver of the intense reaction is the anxiety over control of the critical means of production in the digital era—data.
Historically, debates concerning Chinese technology have revolved around its legality, particularly allegations of intellectual property theft. However, this narrative has evolved. The current discourse is predominantly centered on the Chinese origins of these technologies, which automatically triggers national security concerns. For instance, the United States has consistently lobbied against Huawei, a leading telecommunications company headquartered in Guangdong, China. The American opposition to Huawei is not predominantly based on the legality of its technology. Despite Huawei’s leadership in 5G technology, the primary objection is rooted in its Chinese affiliation. The rationale follows a simplistic logic: since Huawei is a Chinese firm and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exerts substantial control within China, Huawei is deemed untrustworthy to host and transmit a large amount of data. Similarly, the TikTok debate has largely sidestepped discussions about its algorithm’s origin or whether it was illicitly obtained from the United States. The crux of the issue remains China’s involvement: ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, is based in Beijing. Given the CCP’s pervasive control, many policymakers insist allowing TikTok access to Americans’ data is too risky.
However, this straightforward “China=untrustworthy” formula has not yielded substantial results. No credible reports have substantiated claims that the Chinese government or the CCP has acquired sensitive data through Huawei devices installed in foreign countries. The only reported “national security” TikTok breach involved a ByteDance engineer in Beijing identifying the location of a BuzzFeed journalist. There is no evidence suggesting that this information was leaked to the CCP, and ByteDance itself reported the incident and terminated the engineer involved.
Perhaps the real issue extends beyond national security in its traditional sense. The concept of national security has expanded to encompass concerns about maintaining technological supremacy. It is not merely about whether China could compromise American data security but whether the United States can sustain its technological preeminence. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has articulated this broader interpretation of national security, emphasizing that the United States must “do whatever it takes” to restrict China’s access to advanced technologies. This stance has gained traction and is increasingly viewed as mainstream. Consequently, the idea of a free market, or even legal principles, may be suspended to ensure that only the United States and its allies can access cutting-edge chip technology. The United States is prepared to penalize private entities that resist its anti-China policies, even at the cost of their own interests. For Chinese firms like Huawei and TikTok, which have secured advanced positions in critical technological domains, the American response is to either replace them—regardless of the expense—or compel their sale to American entities.
A deeper doctrinal shift underlies this expanded notion of national security. The current geopolitical climate reflects a New Cold War between the United States and China, occurring at the Fourth Industrial Revolution: the Digital Revolution. In this new revolution, data is the crucial means of production, as newly emerged technology, such as AI, is primarily based on the capacity to analyze and process vast amounts of data. Whoever controls data will dictate the new technology competition, and China is well aware of this. TikTok’s success is particularly alarming to the United States because it indicates that the control of data is shifting to China, the United States’ biggest geopolitical rival. Since World War II, the United States has maintained control over advanced technologies, a cornerstone of its global superpower status. However, China has increasingly challenged this dominance in computing, communication, and navigation in the past two decades. The United States cannot tolerate this trend to continue further.
Additionally, race factors into the equation. China’s technological ascendancy signifies a profound shift in the control of means of production—a shift from a historically Western-dominated paradigm to a non-Western nation. For the past 600 years, Western powers have led technological advancements, underpinning primitive capital accumulation, colonialism, and dominance over the Global South. The prospect of an Eastern power, such as China, emerging as a leader in critical technologies challenges deeply entrenched perspectives and is perceived as a threat by many policymakers. This shift is viewed as foreign and dangerous, prompting efforts to counteract it swiftly.
In this context, the debate over TikTok is emblematic of a larger struggle over controlling critical means of production and the future of global technological leadership. The implications of this struggle extend far beyond individual companies or national borders, reflecting a fundamental shift in the dynamics of global power and influence. Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans, should prepare for challenges. Geopolitical tensions often project impact domestically, and people of color frequently become collateral damages in this process. Mainstream America seems to have accepted the concept that the punishment of China can be achieved by rendering punishment of the Chinese living in the United States. This is not something that can be abated by assimilating. Simply wearing outfits with American flags, as suggested by Andrew Yang, is perhaps not the answer.