TikTok: Chinese newspaper article says Australia would be “unwise” to probe app

A newspaper with links to Beijing has taken a pot shot at Australia saying it would be “unwise” for Canberra to probe Chinese-owned app TikTok.

A media mouthpiece for China’s communist party has said Australia is “shooting itself in the foot” by its increasing wariness of firms reportedly connected to Beijing and is now nothing more than America’s “guard dog” in the Asia Pacific.

The comments came in a blistering article in theGlobal Times, a newspaper that is widely regarded as trumpeting Chinese government thinking.

It follows Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying on Friday that the Government was looking into the “risks” of popular viral video app TikTok which has scores of Australian users.

“If we consider there is a need to take further action than we are taking now (regarding TikTok), then I can tell you we won‘t be shy about it,” Mr Morrison told radio station 3AW.

Owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, TikTok has already been banned in India following clashes between India and China on the pair’s disputed Himalayan border. The Trump administration has said it could even ban TikTok.

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The flag pole of the Australian parliament is seen behind the roofs of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch.

The Global Times spoke to Yu Lei, a chief research fellow at the research centre for Pacific island nations at China’s Liaocheng University. He said an Australian probe into probe into TikTok would be “ridiculous”.

It would be “unwise” to follow the US in investigating TikTok, he added.

“Australia will be shooting itself in the foot in the long run if it pursues such a radical act against China. It could give some politicians short-term gains, and that seems enough for them,” the paper quoted Mr Yu as saying.

Australia was acting like the “’guard dog’ of the US in the Asia-Pacific region, and its political and military status is totally dependent on the US, which has been increasingly involved in domestic Australian politics in recent years”.

The Global Times said Chinese nationals living in Australia “expressed their disappointment and suspicion” over any investigation of the tech giant.

It said it spoke to someone working in Melbourne who said he was considering returning to China because of Australia’s “unfriendly atmosphere”.
“If Australia’s economy and bilateral relations with China keep sinking, I will consider returning to China as an option,” the man reportedly said.

Chinese-Australian relations are at their lowest point for years after Canberra pushed for an international inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which first appeared in China, and its criticism of the new national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing.

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Chinese video app TikTok is wildly popular and that is worrying a whole lot of politicians. Picture: Olivier DOULIERY / AFP.

TIKTOK APP CONCERNS

TikTok is increasingly under the microscope in the West.

Last week, an unnamed federal MP accused it of being a data gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party which, he claimed, had a hold over the app and even had “cells inside the company”.

TikTok Australia’s director of public policy Brent Thomas told news.com.au the reports were fanciful.

“This is a news report based on an unnamed source … so it’s not credible”.

“Consumers love TikTok in Australia, precisely because we focus on providing an experience that is safe as well as fun,” Mr Thomas said.

“We already have multiple safety measures in place for consumers, and we are continuing to invest in making it even safer.”

TikTok has taken out full page ads in Australian newspapers in recent days spruiking the security of its service. It has said the data of Australian users is not held in the US and Singapore, not China.

There are reports ByteDance may spin off TikTok to assuage concerns about the app’s links to Beijing.

– with Jack Gramenz.