White House on TikTok CEO Testimony: US Has ‘Legitimate Concerns’ About App on National Security

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, on March 22, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States has “legitimate national security concerns” over TikTok, said National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby.

“The president has been very clear. We have legitimate national security concerns over this particular application, and we’re banning it,” Kirby told The Epoch Times’s sister media NTD. “It is banned on government devices, that’s not going to change.”

He added that Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the interagency panel tasked with reviewing foreign transactions, is in the process of reviewing the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform.

“We need to let that process complete and finish before we make any more decisions,” he said.

Concerns for the app’s ties with the Chinese Communist Party and its data-handling practices were on full display during the company CEO’s hearing before House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Singapore-born Chew, who served as a chief financial officer for Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and then TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance before leading TikTok, appeared eager to downplay the app’s Chinese connections.

He would not acknowledge whether ByteDance is a Chinese company when asked during the hearing, instead describing as a “global” firm “founded by Chinese entrepreneurs,” causing the California Democrat, Rep. Antonio Cárdenas, to remark that Chew was “verbally dancing around” his question.

TikTok has confirmed that CFIUS has demanded its Chinese parent company to divest its ownership or face a ban in the United States, a request TikTok claims doesn’t resolve the national security issue.

But while Chew repeatedly tried to dismiss concerns that his company was beholden to the Chinese Communist Party during the hearing, China’s authorities has indicated it wants a say in the app’s future.

On Thursday, the Chinese commerce ministry spokeswoman told a news conference that Beijing would “firmly oppose” a potential sale of the app, saying that any sale involving export of technology can only take place “in accordance with Chinese laws.”

Chew conceded that “there is still some data that we need to delete” from overseas servers and promised to “get it done this year.”