The Chinese government has protested to the United States of America regarding a bill to give the president the power to ban the social network TikTok and other apps. This is what the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC Mao Ning commented on the approval of the bill by a committee of the House of Representatives of the US Congress at a regular briefing on Thursday.

“China strongly opposes the fact that the US is again abusing the concept of national security and state power to put undue pressure on companies of other states,” she pointed out. 

She said China calls on the US to respect market principles and form a proper and open environment for foreign investors and businesses, and to stop oppressing individual companies.

On Wednesday, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of the US Congress backed a bill giving the US president the power to ban the TikTok app as well as any other apps. The bill, which would allow the administration in Washington to ban the app of the Beijing-based ByteDance company, used by more than 100 million Americans, was authored by committee chairman Michael McCaul (Republican from Texas).