The US TikTok “Ban”: Larger Yards and Higher Fences?

033 – 22 March 2024 The authors' views are their own and do not represent the official position of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies of the S. [...] 033/2024 dated 22 March 2024 The US TikTok “Ban”: Larger Yards and Higher Fences? Adrian Ang U-Jin SYNOPSIS The US House bill forcing Bytedance’s divestiture of the US assets of TikTok on national security grounds is the latest front in the ongoing and expanding technology competition between Washington and Beijing. [...] The House bill is the latest attempt to “ban” TikTok in the United States, dating back to the Trump administration’s attempts to force a sale of the app in 2020. [...] Larger Yard and Higher Fences The attempt to force Bytedance to divest its US TikTok assets is merely one front of the ongoing and expanding technology competition that is at the core of the geopolitical struggle between the United States and China. [...] However, the logic of the restrictions, especially the abandonment of the old “sliding scale” policy of staying a couple of generations ahead of China in favour of maintaining an absolute advantage, means that the yard will inevitably get larger to encompass ever more technologies and the fence will be raised higher in response to China’s attempts to circumvent the restrictions and pursue its own.