Opinion | TikTok ban? App may be the next casualty of breakdown in US-China trust

The Chinese “spy” balloon incident seems to have erased all positive gains from the G20 meeting between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in Bali, with domestic furore spilling over onto TikTok as calls grow for a complete ban on the Chinese app.

Research by my team, led by Dr Nuurrianti Jalli of Northern State University and supported by a grant from a US State Department public policy programme, into TikTok’s impact on young people in Southeast Asia, showed that it can be a highly strategic platform for influencing the consumption of information, with implications for young voters worldwide.

TikTok’s reach is known; US President Biden last year invited TikTok stars to help explain the Inflation Reduction Act and the war in Ukraine to millions of young Americans.

Largely uncontroversial in most countries, Chinese tech success has attracted suspicion and outrage in the US and some of its allies amid geopolitical tensions, with maximum containment often the go-to strategy for the US. Republicans have long voiced concerns over TikTok’s possible role in election interference and called for a complete ban – like with Huawei Technologies.

This is despite US researchers finding that TikTok is not in any way controlled by the Chinese government. The bipartisan US political establishment has long been suspicious of TikTok’s Chinese roots, sensing a threat to Washington’s global leadership in information control, and to US values.