[The new order calls for a broader review of a number of foreign-controlled applications that could pose a security risk to Americans and their data.]
By Katie Rogers and Cecilia Kang
The Trump order had not been
carried out “in the soundest fashion,” Biden administration officials said in a
call with reporters, adding that the new directive would establish “clear
intelligible criteria” to evaluate national security risks posed by software
applications connected to foreign governments, particularly China.
Mr. Biden’s order reflects a
growing urgency among American officials, both Republican and Democrat, to
aggressively counter what they see as a growing threat posed by China’s
military and technology sectors. In a rare show of bipartisanship, U.S.
lawmakers have also sought to reduce America’s dependence on China for supply
chain technology like semiconductors, rare minerals and other
equipment. On Tuesday, the Senate approved
a $250 billion spending package to bolster American technology research
and development.
The order is the first significant
step Mr. Biden has taken to approach the saga between TikTok and the Trump
administration, which tried to ban the app over national security concerns but
was immediately challenged in federal court.
Analysts said the new executive
order was meant to create a process that could withstand such a challenge if
the Biden administration chose to ratchet up pressure on individual apps.
“It’s a bit of a troll to the Trump
administration approach,” said Brian J. Fleming, a lawyer who focuses on
national security and international trade matters, “which was exposed in court
as being a bit of a hollow process that was completely outcome driven.”
With Mr. Biden repeatedly
emphasizing that growing Chinese influence has challenged not only the future
of the American economy but democracy
itself, his administration has worked to reassess or strengthen several
directives Mr. Trump made to curb China. In several cases, the president has
taken a more aggressive approach than his predecessor: Last week, Mr.
Biden expanded
a Trump-era order by barring Americans from investing in Chinese firms
linked to the country’s military or engaged in selling surveillance technology.
It is unclear how effective either
order will ultimately be at stopping the spread of Chinese espionage technology,
and the moves do not fully resolve the future of TikTok, a wildly popular app
with 100 million American users. In September, the Trump administration issued
an executive order banning operations of TikTok and WeChat, the popular
messaging service owned by Tencent. A judge granted an injunction of the Trump
order, giving TikTok a lifeline until November.
At the same time, the Trump
administration took on the role of deal maker. It said TikTok could maintain
U.S. operations only if it sold itself to a U.S. company and shed all
Chinese-based infrastructure and ties. After rushed bids and jockeying by tech
giants, Oracle and Walmart won their bid to buy a stake in the company for an
undisclosed amount. Mr. Trump then rejected the deal that his administration
had orchestrated.
TikTok’s woes subsided with Mr.
Trump’s election defeat. Though the company is still under scrutiny with the
Biden administration’s new executive order, analysts say the dramatic ups and
downs for the company will significantly dwindle.
James Lewis, a senior vice
president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Biden
administration had shown no easing of the government’s strong stance against
China. But the new order lays out much more precise criteria for weighing risks
posed by TikTok and other companies owned by foreign adversaries like China.
“They are taking the same direction
as the Trump administration but in some ways tougher, in a more orderly fashion
and implemented in a good way,” Mr. Lewis said. He added that Mr. Biden’s order
was stronger than the Trump-era directive because “it’s coherent, not random.”
Under the new system outlined in
Mr. Biden’s order, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo would be empowered to “use
a criteria-based decision framework and rigorous, evidence-based analysis” to
examine software applications designed, manufactured or developed by a “foreign
adversary,” including China, according to a memo circulated by Commerce
Department officials and obtained by The New York Times.
“The Biden administration is
committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable and secure internet,”
the memo said. “Certain countries,” including China, “do not share these
democratic values.”
On Wednesday, administration
officials would not go into specifics about the future of TikTok’s availability
to American users or say whether the U.S. government would seek to compel
ByteDance, which owns the app, to transfer American user data to a company
based in the United States. Amid a number of successful legal challenges waged
by ByteDance, a deal to transfer the data to Oracle fell through this year
shortly after Mr. Biden took office.
Administration officials said a
review of TikTok by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States,
the body that considers the national security implications of foreign
investments in U.S. companies, was still continuing and separate from the
order.
TikTok and Ant Group, the parent
company of Alipay, which was also swept up in the Trump executive order,
declined to comment. WeChat did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Christoph Hebeisen, the director of
security intelligence research at the mobile security firm Lookout, noted in an
interview that TikTok does not vacuum up the same amount of data from its users
that an American-owned behemoth like Facebook does, but could still be used to
construct a fuller picture of a person’s activities and social contacts.
“It’s not the big classified
secrets that people would be after,” Mr. Hebeisen said. “It could really be
that mass collection and making something out of that data for interesting
information on people of interest, or even connected to people of interest.”
The order issued on Wednesday was
also meant to broaden one
issued in 2019 by the Trump administration, which banned American
telecommunications companies from installing foreign-made equipment that could
pose a threat to national security. That order did not name specific companies,
nor did the one Mr. Biden issued.
The new directive also does not
mention specific retaliatory measures that could be taken if an application is
found to be a threat to national security.
