In the wake of President Trump’s trade bans on TikTok and WeChat, another Chinese social media communications software has been targeted by members of Congress, calling on the White House to include it in a previous executive order.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), currently acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to the White House on Monday (Sept. 14) urging President Trump to include Chinese social media messaging app QQ in his earlier executive order on WeChat.
On August 6, citing national security concerns, President Trump issued two executive orders imposing sweeping restrictions on two popular Chinese social media outlets, TikTok and WeChat. The bans will prohibit U.S. companies and individuals from conducting transactions involving TikTok and WeChat, and the orders are expected to take effect on August 20.
In the letter, Rubio, a Republican federal senator from Florida, called on Trump to also ban QQ, also owned by Tencent, from social media.
“The connection between the Chinese government and the Communist Party with this high-risk software is clear, and Tencent CEO Ma Huateng is a member of the National People’s Congress, China’s national legislature,” Rubio said in the letter.
Rubio continued, “The identical ownership and similar functionality of these two (WeChat and QQ) applications underscore the common threats they pose, including data privacy risks, as well as espionage and censorship under the Chinese government and the Communist Party.”
“Therefore, I urge you to include QQ in the executive order addressing the WeChat threat,” Rubio said in the letter.
Rubio also highlighted a report released in May by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Civic Lab, which found that Tencent had monitored and censored private information on its app.
Rubio had published a pitch late last month welcoming Trump’s executive orders on TikTok and WeChat. However, Rubio stressed that these decisions are still not enough to address the risks that will arise in the future.
“This is another (example), this is another company (other than TikTok) that I think will expose (our) weaknesses, and they have deep ties to some financial services companies under the control of the Chinese Communist Party,” Rubio told VOA on Monday.
Rubio added, “Anything that would allow the collection of data on Americans and send it to the Chinese Communist Party is quite troubling.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), a Democratic federal senator from Oregon, also stressed to VOA that any software that would collect data on the American people would have to be looked at very carefully.
“We’re going to look at the data issue very carefully, and it’s a very important discussion that will take place with experts,” Merkley said.
QQ and WeChat are both Tencent’s social networking products. QQ was created during the rise of the Internet in China for the purpose of communicating and socializing, but using a computer as the terminal; WeChat was created against the backdrop of the rapid development of the mobile Internet in China, and although also a social media, WeChat uses mainly smartphones as the terminal.
In today’s mobile-driven environment, the use of QQ is declining and many Chinese people are using WeChat as their primary social communication software.
Senator Rubio is concerned that when the WeChat ban goes into effect, QQ may become a loophole to circumvent the ban. “With the 45-day deadline of the executive order approaching, QQ downloads in the United States have increased dramatically,” Rubio said in the letter.
In a letter written last month, Rubio previewed his plans to introduce legislation in the near future that would establish a “framework of standards” for comprehensive regulation of high-risk foreign applications operating in the U.S., with the goal of protecting U.S. user data and national security.
The proposed “framework of standards” would require applications to have a “digital warning label” and an opt-out option, according to Rubio’s essay. Applications would have to provide information about who operates and owns the system, what privacy risks they pose, and whether there is a risk that user information could reach foreign law enforcement or security agencies.
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