China urges US to provide "open and fair" treatment on TikTok deal

China, on Friday, said that it hopes the US would provide “open and fair” treatment for TikTok and other Chinese companies investing in the country, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of securing a deal with ByteDance over the video platform’s sale in the country.

“The Chinese government respects the will of enterprises, and welcomes them to conduct business negotiations on the basis of market rules, reaching a solution that balances interests in compliance with Chinese laws and regulations,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters.

“We hope the US will provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies investing in the United States.”

The deal would allow the video-sharing app to stay online in the US after a law that was passed last year by a bipartisan majority of Congress demanding that its owner, ByteDance, sell the app or have it banned nationwide. Over the years, US federal officials had warned that the Chinese government could use the app to harvest Americans’ data or secretly shape the videos they watch.

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While speaking to the reporters at the Oval Office, the American leader said that the company would be in the hands of “very sophisticated … very smart” Americans and that Chinese President  Xi Jinping had given the deal “the go-ahead.” When asked if the new company could change the video recommendations to be more positive towards the current administration, Trump said that ‘it is not going to happen’.

Oracle to handle security

Oracle will provide security and monitor the video-sharing app’s algorithm, making it more American-friendly to meet PresidentTrump’s needs.

The arrangement aims to give American buyers control over TikTok’s recommendation algorithm within the US after its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests. Under the plan, the US-based TikTok owners would lease a version of the algorithm from ByteDance, which would then be retrained “from the ground up” under Oracle’s supervision, the official said.

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Oracle will store and manage data from US users in a secure cloud server and will ensure that it is out of reach of foreign adversaries, including Beijing. The official said that ByteDance would not have any access to data from US subscribers, nor would it have any control over the algorithm in the US.

Oracle will collaborate with the US government on a broad range of areas, including algorithm retraining, app development, and source code review.