“These companies cannot claim that they are not following the party’s orders, that is not credible,” said Derek Scissors, a resident academic at the American Enterprise Institute who tracks Chinese investments around the world. “Chinese companies have no other choice.”
TikTok and the venture funds it counts as its top investors have tried to reassure the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is in charge of the national security review panel, that it has blocked its operations in China from Other global activities, people familiar with the talks said. The firm recently withdrew its operations from Hong Kong after the city imposed new national security laws that would bring Chinese-style censorship to residents. Authorities have also raised possible changes to its corporate structure that could include moving its global headquarters during talks with US officials, these people said.
The company has added well-connected lobbyists, including Mr. Beckerman, the former president of the Internet Association and a longtime Republican congressional assistant, and David J. Urban, who led Mr. Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania and He has been described by the President as “One of my good friends”. He is also a classmate at West Point for Mr. Pompeo and Mark T. Esper, the secretary of defense.
Beckerman has hired 15 lobbyists and communications staff for ByteDance, including assistants to Paul Ryan, the former Wisconsin lawmaker and Speaker of the House, and Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democratic whip.
ByteDance has also reached out to its prominent investors for help. General Atlantic, whose CEO William E. Ford sits on the ByteDance board, has been advising TikTok on the lobbying strategy, and SoftBank, which invested in ByteDance in 2018, suggested new hires in Washington in the past, Two people familiar with importing said.
During the first three months of 2020, ByteDance spent $ 300,000 on lobbying, double what it spent in the previous quarter and the equivalent of its two quarters of lobbying in 2019. TikTok’s lobbying strength is not as great as that of Other tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google, but the company has deployed a defensive army with astonishing speed.
Efforts to influence lawmakers have not always been easy. The company scheduled meetings last December between then-TikTok chief Alex Zhu and the company’s critical lawmakers. He then canceled the meetings, which irritated lawmakers, who quickly shared news of the canceled meetings on Twitter. (TikTok told reporters at the time that the meetings were postponed until after the holidays.)
