‘Carry Water for Beijing’: Rubio Sounds Alarm on JP Morgan’s Partnership With TikTok’s Chinese Owner

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 10, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has raised “strong concern” over banking giant JP Morgan Chase’s decision to partner with China-based ByteDance to develop its next-generation payment systems.

ByteDance is the parent company of social media giant TikTok, and has drawn heightened scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state.

Both JP Morgan and ByteDance have previously refused to comment on the partnership or when it began, but a payment system jointly deployed by the companies reportedly “allows real-time exchange of data between ByteDance and J.P. Morgan” so that ByteDance can “see and monitor payments.”

Such a project raises numerous red flags concerning national security, as CCP laws require that China-based companies make all data in their possession available to the Party upon request. This means that any American banking information in ByteDance’s possession can effectively be controlled by the CCP.

Rubio criticized the deal in a letter issued to JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, demanding the company’s reasoning for a move that could imperil U.S. consumers’ security.

“Assisting online companies to build out real-time payments systems, centralize banking structures, and streamline access to millions of users’ financial information is no doubt lucrative,” Rubio wrote in the Jan. 11 letter.

“However, by partnering with ByteDance to develop a treasure trove of private data, including that of millions of Americans, JPMorgan Chase has effectively handed the combination to the vault to the CCP, as well.”

A Known National Security Threat

Dimon, who has served as CEO of the bank since 2005, has long dedicated himself to further entrenching the economic entanglement of the United States and China.

During a Jan. 10 interview with Fox News, Dimon said that the United States should not curb business relations with communist China and downplayed the threat posed by the CCP.

“Yes, there are a lot of challenges in a lot of countries [we] do business in,” Dimon said.

“Leaving the country isn’t really the best thing for the future of America.”

His comments came amid escalating concern over the national security risks passed by ByteDance and TikTok.

In December, ByteDance admitted that its employees had actively stalked U.S. journalists who were covering the company in a bid to track internal sources who may have leaked information to the reporters. This effort was carried out by illicitly accessing user IP data sent to the company from TikTok, and cross-referencing that data with the known locations of ByteDance employees who might serve as sources for the journalists.

“The team that oversaw the surveillance campaign was ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department, a Beijing-based unit primarily responsible for conducting investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees,” a Buzzfeed report said of the incident.

Citing the CCP’s data laws, CIA Director William Burns has warned that TikTok was a national security threat specifically because of its ties to ByteDance, which ensured that any data collected from the app could be used in CCP influence operations.

“Because the parent company of TikTok is a Chinese company, the Chinese government is able to insist upon extracting the private data of a lot of TikTok users in this country, and also to shape the content of what goes on to TikTok as well to suit the interests of the Chinese leadership,” Burns said during a December interview with PBS.

“I think those are real challenges and a source of real concern.”

Rubio said that JP Morgan’s decision to select ByteDance to develop the payment system was a blow to national security, as it would likely allow the CCP to dramatically increase its access to Americans’ most vital private information.

“It is concerning enough for JPMorgan Chase to carry water for Beijing and falsely characterize ByteDance’s ‘mission [as] to inspire creativity and enrich life,’ rather than disseminate CCP propaganda and censor references to the Uyghur genocide,” Rubio said.

“Even more alarming, however, is that JPMorgan Chase is now actively working with ByteDance to enlarge its capacity for ‘real-time data exchange, track and trace’ and to ‘see and monitor payments’ in light of its repeated gross abuses of user information.”

The Epoch Times has requested comment from ByteDance and JP Morgan Chase.