08/09/2020 - 7:01
- Clarín.com
- Technology
In China, WeChat does more than any app should - people use it to talk, shop, share photos, pay bills, get news, and send money.
With much of the Chinese Internet locked behind a "wall" of filters and censorship , the country's "everything app" is also one of the few digital bridges connecting China to the rest of the world .
It's the way exchange students talk to their families, immigrants keep up with their families, and much of the Chinese diaspora swaps memes, gossip, and videos.
Now that bridge threatens to collapse.
On Thursday night, the Trump administration issued an executive order that could remove China's largest app from Apple and Google stores around the world and prevent US companies from doing business with its parent company, Tencent . Light on the details, the decree could turn out to be cosmetic, crushing, or something in between.
If implemented when it takes effect in 45 days, the order will target China's most innovative Internet product, which 1.2 billion people use every month .
An effective application ban in the United States would shorten millions of conversations between investors, business partners, family and friends. The threat alone is likely to start a new chapter in the growing confrontation between China and the United States over the future of technology.
Along with Thursday's twin order against Chinese-owned video app TikTok, the move against WeChat marks a shift in America's approach to the "great firewall, " which for years has prevented companies such as Facebook and Google from operating in China. Restricting WeChat and TikTok could be the first steps in tit-for- tat retaliation.
WeChat is much more important than TikTok
TikTok was this week at the center of the controversy. (Bloomberg)
While TikTok may be the fad of the moment in the United States, WeChat is much more important in China . WeChat, one of the digital foundations of daily life, emerged as a tool for Chinese authorities to impose social controls. Within China, the app is heavily controlled and monitored by a recently empowered Internet police force.
Outside the borders of China, the app has become a key conduit for the dissemination of Beijing propaganda. Chinese security forces have also used WeChat regularly to intimidate and silence members of the Chinese diaspora, including representatives of the minority Uyghur ethnic group seeking to raise awareness of harsh repressions in their western China homeland.
"The downside to this executive order is that it is addressing these concerns with measures that also make it difficult to communicate directly with ordinary people in China," said Sheena Greitens, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
"It puts the policy of this administration in conflict with another of its stated goals: maintaining openness and friendly connections with the Chinese people ," he added.
While WeChat and its owner have long grappled with the awkward divisions that separate China's internet from the world, they have rarely come under such direct scrutiny from the United States.
Originally created as a knockoff by Tencent engineer Allen Zhang, WeChat failed to catch on in foreign markets, even as the company spent hundreds of millions in marketing dollars to compete with WhatsApp .
The app's reliance on other Chinese apps on the isolated Chinese internet ecosystem likely hurt their chances, even as their usage innovations transformed life within China.
Outside of China, it has primarily been a tie for the Chinese diaspora to their homeland.
The impact of Wechat on everyday life
In China, many use WeChat as a payment system. In stores there are QR codes to scan with your cell phone. Reuters photo.
May Han , an American born in China, moved to the United States with her family when she was 9 years old. When she was alone when she arrived, Han's parents encouraged her to use another Tencent chat service, QQ, to keep up with her friends from elementary school in China. They also hoped it would help her remember Chinese.
Eventually, he made the leap to WeChat, where he still spends his days online chatting with some 350 friends and family, many of them in China. Han, who now specializes in environmental science at the University of California, San Diego, said WeChat had become the "cultural glue" that holds much of its Chinese community together.
" If we cannot use WeChat, our connections with China will decrease or even disappear, " he said. “Most of us have gotten used to using WeChat, especially the older generations. Changing an application is not easy for them; it means changing your lifestyle. "
Some of his friends, he said, had already started posting links to Line, a popular messaging app in Japan, in case they were forced to switch. To Han, the order seemed anti-American.
“ Trump is violating our right to connect with our families and friends . If WeChat is really banned, the executive order seems pretty unconstitutional; violates the First Amendment, ”he said. "It may seem like a stretch here, but I hope WeChat doesn't crash."
The order could end up restricting a variety of deals between the Americans and Tencent.
WeChat: the app is much more than a messaging service. (Getty Images)
American businesses could, for example, be banned from posting ads on WeChat, isolating them from a key channel to reach China's vast consumer market. Tencent may be banned from distributing WeChat through the Apple and Google app stores, which could leave users unable to receive software updates or fully utilize the app.
Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Washington vs. China, new chapter
Trump's administration had a very tough week against China. (Bloomberg)
The White House order could even prevent Tencent from purchasing US equipment for the servers from which WeChat operates. If the company uses those same servers to run other Internet products and services, then a broader swath of its business could be affected, according to David Dai, a Hong Kong analyst at investment research firm Sanford C. Bernstein.
This would be the "worst case scenario" for Tencent , Dai wrote in a research note on Friday.
Tencent, which has a market capitalization well above $ 600 billion , said on Friday that it was reviewing the executive order "to get a full understanding . " The company's shares fell nearly 6% in Friday's trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
TikTok said it was "shocked" by the White House order, which it said had been issued "without any due process."
At a daily press conference on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called the order a "purely hegemonic act" and said that "under the pretext of national security, the United States frequently abuses the national power and unjustifiably represses relevant companies ".
Tencent's own products may have struggled to find their way into Western countries. But it has built a wide-ranging, albeit low-key, American presence through investments and partnerships , all of which could be hurt if the White House order results in a broad ban on working with Tencent.
Some of the company's biggest overseas forays have been video games, which account for much of its worldwide revenue. Tencent owns Riot Games , the developer behind League of Legends , and a large part of Epic Games, which makes Fortnite. The company's motion picture unit, Tencent Pictures, has been involved in Hollywood blockbusters such as "Wonder Woman" and the most recent film "Terminator."
Tencent has also taken stakes in companies with less direct connections to their own businesses, including electric car maker Tesla and social media company Snap. He has even invested in the Chinese operations of Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee chain, to help the company expand in China.
By Paul Mozur and Raymond Zhong
c. 2020 The New York Times Company
