Trump deals a fresh blow to Chinese American activists with WeChat order

The messaging app faces a ban from operating in the U.S. if it is not sold by its Chinese parent company

By Shawna Chen, Andrew Huang, Cheyenne Cheng, and Andrew Peng

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WASHINGTON — President Trump barred Americans and U.S. companies from conducting “financial transactions” with WeChat, TikTok, and the apps’ Chinese owners on Thursday evening, issuing a pair of executive orders that take effect in 45 days. The announcement from the White House sent the Chinese tech industry scrambling to figure out who might become the Trump administration’s next target.

• The details: The orders — which cite national security concerns —effectively set a 45-day deadline for American companies to acquire at least a portion of the two apps’ operations, though a sale of WeChat by its Chinese parent company Tencent is extremely unlikely. In a letter to congressional leaders, Trump said that WeChat may “be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party” and cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify the move.
• Why this matters: Though the executive order is almost certain to face legal challenges, a successful ban on WeChat in the U.S. would immediately impact first-generation Chinese American business networks and remove a critical means of communication between Chinese diaspora and their relatives. The move would also deal a devastating blow to a vocal bloc of conservative activists, who have historically used the app as a key communications and organizing tool in battles against affirmative action.
• Political influence: WeChat is viewed as key to generating awareness and enthusiasm for political campaigns run by Chinese American candidates across all levels of government, from school boards to the federal level. AAPI advocacy groups have been eyeing the app for years, and at least one Asian American political action committee was planning to craft in-language advertisements targeting users in swing states ahead of the November election.
• Context: The U.S. weighed action against WeChat for weeks in retaliation against China over its handling of the coronavirus and the recent crackdown in Hong Kong. Though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo floated the idea of banning the Chinese-owned social media app yesterday, it is TikTok, not WeChat, that has stood in the center of the stage in discourse about banned Chinese operations. Shares of Tencent slumped as much as ten percent following Thursday’s news.
• While it has a small U.S. market, WeChat links communities within and outside China and remains one of the most popular social media platforms around the world. The app counts over one billion active monthly users, with some estimates numbering international non-Chinese accounts between 100 and 200 million. Rumors of a looming ban sent many users scrambling to find a replacement earlier this week, according to messages reviewed by The Yappie.
• Security concerns: WeChat has received flak from independent watchdogs. The Citizen Lab, a branch of the University of Toronto, published a study in May that described “pervasive content surveillance” among communications between non-China-registered accounts. Files are analyzed for content that is politically sensitive in China and ultimately serve to “invisibly train and build up WeChat’s Chinese political censorship system,” according to the report.
• And let’s not forget TikTok: The video-sharing app has made headlines repeatedly in the last week as President Trump went back and forth on banning it outright or allowing a U.S. company to acquire its American operations. Microsoft had been in talks with ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, though Trump has said a deal would only occur if the U.S. received a cut of the sale. TikTok has been banned on all government-issued devices for the U.S. Army and Navy since December 2019.
• This is a breaking story and will be updated.

Previous coverage:

Trump plans to ban TikTok from operating in the U.S.

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