Is the clock ticking down on Chinese companies overseas?
International suspicion of Chinese businesses is nothing new. Remember energy giant CNOOC’s scuttled bid for Unocal 15 years ago? But there was still a sense the free market should largely prevail, that bringing Chinese companies (state-owned or private) into the global economic architecture would help make Beijing a better player.
Now it seems any Chinese firm can find itself in the cross hairs.
TikTok parent company ByteDance is in trouble with the White House. President Donald Trump says he plans to ban TikTok, and the company is under pressure to sell its U.S. operations, fast. U.S. officials are concerned about the potential for Beijing to use the TikTok video app — wildly popular among teens — to accumulate data on U.S. citizens.
TikTok is just the latest casualty of tensions between the U.S. and China, as Trump looks to hit back at Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its crackdown on Hong Kong. It comes weeks after reports TikTok users tried to sabotage a Trump campaign rally and coordinated a push to flood his 2020 app with negative reviews.
The company has hired nearly a thousand staff in the U.S. and appointed Walt Disney veteran Kevin Mayer as TikTok CEO. It says no data is stored on servers in China.
But as was the case with Huawei, the damage is already done. Like it or not, if you’re a Chinese company abroad you are seen in some fashion as representing the state.
The more TikTok seeks to distance itself, the more it looks like it’s trying too hard.
Tell us how we’re doing or what we’re missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.
Global Headlines
Covid-19’s march | Global cases surpassed 18 million as deaths near 690,000, with the pandemic adding a million infections every four days. Australia’s Victoria state tightened restrictions after declaring a state of disaster, while the Philippines reimposed a lockdown in Manila.
- Fatalities in Iran may have been almost three times larger than official counts, the BBC reported, which would put the toll as high as 42,000.
- Hong Kong denied it plans to harvest residents’ DNA as part of a China-backed virus-testing blitz, as political mistrust complicates the city’s efforts to curb an outbreak.
- Singapore will require some incoming travelers who are serving their 14-day stay-home notices outside of dedicated facilities to wear an electronic monitoring device.
Planning for Biden | Wall Street is starting to envision Washington under Joe Biden — a scenario that many executives say they welcome, given Biden’s pro-business inner circle, significant campaign contributions from the financial industry and longtime support of credit card companies located in his home state of Delaware. But, as Robert Schmidt and Jesse Hamilton explain, that upbeat view could underestimate the influence of progressive Democrats who are demanding a clampdown on banks, hedge funds and private-equity firms.
- Representative Karen Bass, who’s among Biden’s potential running mates, said yesterday she’s not a “Castro sympathizer” after coming under attack from Republicans for her past support for Cuba.
Challenging Putin | Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing the biggest anti-government protests in years. Despite heavy rain, thousands of residents of the Far East city of Khabarovsk marched Saturday for the 22nd straight day of demonstrations over the arrest of their popular local governor. The Kremlin has refrained from a crackdown so far, even amid signs that public anger is evolving into broader demands for Putin to step down.
Stalled negotiations | Talks in Washington to break a stalemate over a new virus relief package become increasingly urgent this week with millions of jobless Americans left without additional aid and the Senate scheduled to leave Friday for an extended break. Republicans and Democrats remain far apart on some of the biggest sticking points, including extending supplemental unemployment insurance.
Sick aide | Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, a close aide to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has tested positive for coronavirus as the number of cases in the South Asian nation climbed above 1.7 million. Two chief ministers and one state governor also have been hospitalized with Covid-19. India has the most infections after the U.S. and Brazil — and one of the world’s fastest growing epidemics, adding more than 50,000 cases each day.
What to Watch This Week
- Sri Lanka votes to choose a new parliament Wednesday as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seeks to consolidate power and mitigate the economic fallout from the pandemic.
- Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko is due to address the nation tomorrow amid an unprecedented challenge to his 26-year rule, as opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya draws huge crowds to rallies ahead of Sunday’s presidential elections.
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Guyana’s electoral authorities declared opposition candidate Irfaan Ali president, ending a five-month impasse over who will control the South American economy and its massive offshore oil resources.
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Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti resigned less than seven months into the job, warning that conflicting interests threatened to turn the country, suffering its worst financial crisis in decades, into “a failed state.”
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Bondholders in Argentina face a deadline tomorrow to accept a government debt-restructuring proposal. Economy Minister Martin Guzman has floated the idea of putting the negotiation on hold, though the most likely scenario is another extension.
Thanks to all who responded to our pop quiz Friday and congratulations to Virgile Salmon, who correctly named Belarus as the nation that accused a Kremlin-linked military contractor of plotting to destabilize the country ahead of presidential elections.
And finally … Security forces captured one of Mexico’s most wanted men after he threatened President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Jose Yepez, known as “El Marro,” leads the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, known for stealing fuel and helping plunge the state of Guanajuato into violence that killed 47 police officers last year. Authorities seized members of Yepez’s family in June, leading him to threaten retaliation in a video on social media. “This arrest is a big step toward recovering peace,” Guanajuato governor Diego Rodriguez wrote on Twitter.
— With assistance by Anthony Halpin, and Ruth Pollard
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China's Companies Can Hear a Ticking Sound - Bloomberg
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