The rivalry between China and the United States encompasses a growing concern from political and ideological perspectives, particularly concerning the competition for power and prestige. Recently, the two global powers have been in intense disagreement over trade, human rights, worldwide influence and territorial disputes. The US plan to ban TikTok, a popular short-video app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, reveals the two nations’ battle for technological dominance.
This paper explores recent US-China tensions and examines the planned ban as well as US apprehensions about other Chinese technology companies in the past amidst their “Tech War”. Issues like precedent-setting, antitrust fears and implications for greater freedoms are discussed. Understanding the complexity of the TikTok ban, given that almost all governments seek information from technology companies, guides the policy recommendations that follow a delineation of potential Chinese countermeasures and what they could mean for the global economy as well as the future of innovation.
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