US House bill on TikTok draws strong criticism

China on Thursday slammed the passage of a bill that could see TikTok banned in the United States by the House of Representatives, saying the move "puts the US on the opposite side of the principle of fair competition and international trade rules".

The bill, approved on Wednesday by a vote of 352 to 65, calls for TikTok's parent company ByteDance, based in Beijing, to divest itself or the platform will be banned from app stores and web-hosting services in the US.

It would preclude the popular social media app from operating in the US under its current ownership. The legislation will next head to the Senate, where its passage is less certain. ByteDance would have a little more than five months to comply from the enactment of the bill.

"If the so-called national security can be cited at will to bring down other countries' competitive companies, there will be no fairness or justice to speak of," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily news conference on Thursday.

Wang called the passage of the bill an attempt to "try every means to snatch from others all things that are good".

"How the US has handled the TikTok incident allows the world to see clearly whether the US' so-called rules and order serve the whole world or the US itself," he said.

Also on Thursday, China's Ministry of Commerce stressed that it will take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.

"We have taken note of this move," He Yadong, a spokesman for the ministry, told a weekly news conference in Beijing.

The spokesman said the US should adhere to the principles of a market economy and fair competition, cease the unwarranted suppression of foreign companies, and ensure an open, fair, just and nondiscriminatory environment for companies from all countries to invest and operate in the US.

Additionally, relevant parties must rigorously abide by Chinese laws and regulations, he said.

The TikTok move has also drawn criticism from the US.

"I hope that the Senate will refuse to pass parallel legislation," Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute of International Economics, said. "The main result of banning TikTok would be to create more business for its US competitors."

Yifan Xu in Washington contributed to this story.