Eight more Chinese apps including Alipay banned following Trump’s executive order
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Roshan Amiri
- . January 6, 2021
- . Update: January 8, 2021 11:21 pm
US President Donald Trump continuing his crackdown on Chinese apps has signed an executive order banning eight China-based apps. These include Alipay, WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet. The reason for ban is cited as threat to national security.The officials believe that these apps were being used to track and prepare dossiers on Americans. The order will come into force after Trump leaves the White House. The ban is scheduled to come into effect in 45 days.
The order which will also ban Tencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate and WPS Office, says, “The United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security.” Order passed by President Trump elaborates, “By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information.”
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During his last days in office President Trump isn’t shying away from targeting Chinese companies and applications based on argument that they are capable of sharing data of US customers with the Chinese government.The biggest casualty of Trump administration’s crackdown have been social media app TikTok and Huawei, the telecom giant.Last week, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced that it would de-list China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom in accordance with another Trump’s executive order.
The latest order by Trump comes in as the administration pushes NYSE to take a second U-turn on its decision of delisting the three China-based telecom giants. But on Monday, NYSE reversed its decision and announced that it won’t be delisting the three companies after discussion with US regulators.The move of NYSE was criticized by Republican Senator and China critic Marco Rubio. He said that NYSE’s decision of not delisting companies was “an outrageous effort” to undermine executive order given by President Trump.
