U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday (Jan. 5) that bans the developers or controllers of eight China-related applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay, from conducting transactions.
The executive order is titled “Addressing Threats Posed by Applications and Other Software Developed or Controlled by Chinese Companies. President Trump requires that, beginning 45 days after the order is signed, any person or property under U.S. jurisdiction be prohibited from “transacting with persons and their subsidiaries that develop or control the following China-related applications and their subsidiaries. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce will define exactly what transactions are prohibited.
In addition to Alipay and WeChat Pay, the ban also includes CamScanner, qq Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate and WPS Office.
The executive order says: “The ongoing activities of the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Party of China to obtain data on U.S. persons by theft or otherwise clearly demonstrate an intent to use bulk data to advance China’s economic and national security agenda.”
The executive order says, “The United States must take proactive action against those who develop or control China-related applications in order to protect our national security.”
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