Unless you happen to live under a rock or on an oil rig, you’re no doubt familiar with TikTok, the Chinese-owned video sharing app that has been accused of being a Trojan horse for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The vast majority of Americans, according to recent Pew findings, now support a ban on TikTok. Some Democrats, however, believe a ban would be “racist.”
In truth, banning TikTok has absolutely nothing to do with racism. It is a matter of national security. Beyond the U.S., countries like France, Norway, and The Netherlands are pushing forward with plans to ban the app. In 2020, India imposed a nationwide ban on TikTok (as well as a number of other Chinese apps), citing privacy and security concerns. More recently, Taiwan imposed a public sector ban on the controversial app.
The Temu threat
As dangerous as TikTok is, it’s not the only Chinese creation that deserves closer attention. Let’s talk about Temu, an online shopping site that sells all kinds of low-priced products to millions of shoppers in the U.S. and beyond.
CNN recently published an extensive report documenting the many ways in which Pinduoduo, China’s most popular shopping app, uses technology to bypass users’ cell phone security settings, monitor activities on other apps, read private messages, and even change settings. Pinduoduo owns Temu, an online marketplace that has big plans for the U.S., as evidenced by the fact that it bought a Super Bowl ad spot in February.
Launched in September of last year, Temu was designed to rival Amazon. It is currently one of the more popular shopping apps in the U.S. Its cheap products are shipped directly from factories and warehouses situated in China. On March 25, Temu launched in the UK. It also has plans to expand into other parts of Europe, as well as Africa and Latin America.
Of course, virtually all apps are in the business of amassing huge amounts of data. But, as most readers familiar with CCP-approved tech know, Chinese apps are a different animal altogether. As concerns grow over Chinese apps gathering vast amounts of data and likely sharing this data with Beijing, governments around the world should view Temu with heightened levels of suspicion.
Pinduoduo, Temu’s overseer, is first and foremost a tech company. As analysts very much in the know have noted, virtually every major Chinese tech company appears to be inextricably linked with the communists in Beijing. The CCP specializes in the dark art of collecting personal data; more specifically, it specializes in the dark art of using popular apps to collect data, especially data on users in the U.S. To date, Beijing has stolen the data of some 264 million Americans. There’s also reason to believe that the CCP has harvested the data of tens of millions of Europeans and Africans.
As Zac Dorfman, a security expert with extensive knowledge of the dangers posed by Chinese tech, has noted, the CCP and major Chinese companies enjoy a symbiotic relationship. They are like conjoined twins. You see, in China, there’s no such thing as a private company. To think otherwise requires a complete suspension of disbelief. A Chinese tech company that launches in the United States, China’s biggest rival, only does so after getting approval from Beijing. The same is true for Chinese tech companies that launch in major European countries. In this game of tech-driven chess, the CCP is a grandmaster.
These companies, as Dorfman warned, work closely with Chinese intelligence services. Why? To “achieve the party’s goals.” Such cooperation benefits China and poses a real threat to western nations.
The CCP’s grand plan, according to author Aynne Kokas, involves the collection of huge amounts of data, very much ‘the new oil.’ As Kokas shows in Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty, a compelling book that paints a clear picture of the CCP’s broader goals, China has a fierce appetite for facts, figures, statistics, from the minute to the more monumental. Chinese tech companies sort through the data, separating the trivial from the truly important, then provide the more intriguing findings to Chinese intelligence services. In short, Chinese tech companies appear to actually be intelligence-gathering companies.
Governments around the world can walk and chew gum at the same time. So, yes, by all means, please ban TikTok. But—and this can’t be stressed enough—don’t forget that other malicious Chinese apps exist. Temu deserves much closer scrutiny.
