Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell this week urged the chamber to take up the bipartisan bill the House overwhelmingly passed last month requiring Chinese company ByteDance to sell off its interest in popular social-media app TikTok or face a ban on TikTok operations in the United States.
This is an important first step to address TikTok’s known surveillance risk, yet it leaves the vast bulk of China’s intelligence-gathering apparatus untouched.
As the Senate begins to consider the bill, it has an opportunity to address the widespread threat China’s weaponization of its high-tech private sector poses.
Chinese law, specifically its National Intelligence Law, requires that all private Chinese companies and persons turn over any data they collect to the government upon demand.
As the law states, “All organizations and citizens shall support, assist,…
