Millions of young Americans were sent into a panic last weekend after President Donald Trump told reporters that he was “banning” TikTok from the United States. White House officials had already been discussing action against the social media platform and other Chinese-owned apps over concerns they pose a risk to national security. But as is typical for Trump, it’s not exactly clear what, if anything, will happen next. On Sunday, Microsoft released a statement saying it had spoken with the president and would continue discussions about buying TikTok from its parent company, ByteDance, by September 15. For now, TikTok is still available in the US.
The episode is just the latest flare-up in the ongoing deterioration of relations between the US and China. Whether TikTok is sold or banned, the underlying security concerns it raises—about privacy, espionage, foreign manipulation and propaganda, human rights and civil liberties—are going to remain. In that respect, the drama unfolding around TikTok risks overshadowing larger questions about the future of the world’s two biggest superpowers. “I just think the notion that TikTok is the big issue in US–China relations is silliness, and I think it distracts from very important issues,” says Graham Webster, the editor in chief of the DigiChina Project, a collaboration between Stanford University and New America.
One of the biggest worries about TikTok is whether the Chinese government could compel ByteDance to hand over user data on Ameri ..
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