Tag: Xi Jinping

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TikTok owner signs deal to avoid US ban

TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance has signed binding agreements with US and global investors to operate its business in America, TikTok’s boss told employees on Thursday.

Half of the joint venture will be owned by a group of investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX, according to a memo sent by chief executive Shou Zi Chew.

The deal, which is set to close on 22 January, would end years of efforts by Washington to force ByteDance to sell its US operations over national security concerns.

It is in ​line with a deal unveiled in September, when US President Donald Trump delayed the enforcement of a law that would ban the app unless it was sold.

In the memo, TikTok said the deal will enable “over 170 million Americans to continue discovering a world of endless possibilities as part of a vital global community”.

Under the agreement, ByteDance will retain 19.9% of the business, while Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will hold 15% each.

Another 30.1% will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, according to the memo.

The White House previously said that Oracle, which was co-founded by Trump supporter Larry Ellison, will license TikTok’s recommendation algorithm as part of the deal.

The deal comes after a series of delays.

In April 2024, during President Joe Biden’s administration, the US Congress passed a law to ban the app over national security concerns, unless it was sold.

The law was set to go into effect on 20 January 2025 but was pushed back multiple times by Trump, while his administration worked out a deal to transfer ownership.

Trump said in September that he had spoken on the phone to China’s President Xi Jinping, who he said had given the deal the go ahead.

The platform’s future remained unclear after the leaders met face to face in October.

The app’s fate was clouded by ongoing tensions between the two nations on trade and other matters.

“TikTok has become a bargaining chip in the wider US-China relationship,” said Alvin Graylin, a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“With recent softening tensions, Beijing’s sign off on the structure and algorithm licensing now looks less like capitulation and more like calibrated de-escalation, letting both capitals claim a win at home.”

he White House referred the BBC to TikTok when contacted for comment.

Oracle and Silver Lake declined to comment. The BBC has contacted MGX for comment.

The deal drew critiques from Senate Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, who said it wouldn’t do “a thing to protect the privacy of American user”.

Under the terms, TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is set to be retrained on American user data to ensure feeds are free from outside manipulation.

“It’s unclear that it will even put TikTok’s algorithm in safer hands,” said Sen Wyden.

He opposed the 2024 law, and was among the US lawmakers who lobbied to extend the TikTok deadline in January in a bid to give Congress more time to mitigate threats from China. (BBC)

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U.S., China talks sketch out rare earths deal, tariff pause for Trump and Xi to consider

Top Chinese and U.S. economic officials on Sunday hashed out the framework of a trade deal for U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to decide on later this week that would pause steeper American tariffs and Chinese rare earths export controls, U.S. officials said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur had eliminated the threat of Trump’s 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1. Bessent also said he expects China to delay implementation of its rare earth minerals and magnets licensing regime by a year while the policy is reconsidered.

Chinese officials were more circumspect about the talks and offered no details about the outcome of the meetings.

Trump and Xi are due to meet on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, to sign off on the terms. While the White House has officially announced the highly anticipated Trump-Xi talks, China has yet to confirm that the two leaders will meet.

“I think we have a very successful framework for the leaders to discuss on Thursday,” Bessent told reporters after he and the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and top trade negotiator Li Chenggang for their fifth round of in-person discussions since May.

Bessent said he anticipates that a tariff truce with China will be extended beyond its November 10 expiration date, and that China will revive substantial purchases of U.S. soybeans after buying none in September while favouring soybeans from Brazil and Argentina.

U.S. soybean farmers “will feel very good about what’s going on both for this season and the coming seasons for several years” once the deal’s terms are announced, Bessent told the ABC program “This Week.”

Greer told the “Fox News Sunday” program that both sides agreed to pause some punitive actions and found “a path forward where we can have more access to rare earths from China, we can try to balance out our trade deficit with sales from the United States.”

China’s Li Chenggang said the two sides reached a “preliminary consensus” and will next go through their respective internal approval processes.

“The U.S. position has been tough, whereas China has been firm in defending its own interests and rights,” Li said through an interpreter. “We have experienced very intense consultations and engaged in constructive exchanges in exploring solutions and arrangements to address these concerns.”

Trump arrived in Malaysia on Sunday for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, his first stop in a five-day Asia tour that is expected to culminate in Thursday’s face-to-face with Xi in South Korea.

After the weekend talks, Trump struck a positive tone, saying: “I think we’re going to have a deal with China”.

Trump had threatened new 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1, in retaliation for China’s expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals.

China controls more than 90% of the world’s supply for the materials, which are essential for high-tech manufacturing from electric vehicles to semiconductors and missiles. The export controls and Trump’s threatened retaliation would disrupt a delicate six-month truce under which China and the U.S. reduced tariffs that had quickly escalated to triple-digit rates on each side.

The U.S. and Chinese officials said that, in addition to rare earths, they discussed trade expansion, the U.S. fentanyl crisis, U.S. port entrance fees and the transfer of TikTok to U.S. ownership control.

Bessent told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program that the two sides have to iron out details of the TikTok deal, allowing Trump and Xi to “consummate the transaction” in South Korea.

On the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit, Trump hinted at possible meetings with Xi in China and the United States.

“We’ve agreed to meet. We’re going to meet them later in China, and we’re going to meet in the U.S., in either Washington or at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said.

Among Trump’s talking points with Xi are Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans, concerns around democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, and the release of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

The detention of the founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily has become the most high-profile example of China’s crackdown on rights in Hong Kong.

Trump also said he will seek China’s help in U.S. dealings with Moscow, as Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on.

Tensions between the world’s two largest economies flared in the past few weeks as a delicate trade truce, reached after a first round of trade talks in Geneva in May and extended in August, failed to prevent the United States and China from hitting each other with more sanctions, export curbs and threats of stronger retaliatory measures.

China’s expanded controls of rare earths exports have caused a global shortage. That has prompted the United States to consider a block on software-powered exports to China, from laptops to jet engines, according to a Reuters report. (JapanToday)

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Putin, Modi, Erdogan to attend Tianjin Summit as Xi welcomes world leaders

Chinese President Xi Jinping began welcoming dignitaries including United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and Egyptian Premier Moustafa Madbouly on Saturday before a summit attended by leaders from more than 20 countries.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gathering will be held in the northern port city of Tianjin on Sunday and Monday, days before a massive military parade in nearby Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will be among some 26 world leaders slated to attend the parade.

The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Sixteen more countries are affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also due to arrive in Tianjin ahead of the summit.

China and Russia have used the organisation — sometimes touted as a counter to the Western-dominated NATO military alliance — to deepen ties with Central Asian states.

Other leaders including Iranian and Turkish presidents Masoud Pezeshkian and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also attend the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.

Multiple bilateral meetings are expected to be held on the sidelines of the summit.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin will discuss the Ukraine conflict with Erdogan on Monday.

Turkey has hosted three rounds of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine this year that have failed to break the deadlock over how to end the conflict, triggered when Moscow launched its invasion of its pro-European neighbour in February 2022.

Putin will also talk about Tehran’s nuclear programme on Monday with his Iranian counterpart Pezeshkian, a meeting that comes as Iran faces fresh Western pressure.

Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, triggered a “snapback” mechanism on Thursday to reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran for failing to comply with commitments made in a 2015 deal over its nuclear programme.

Russia’s foreign ministry warned that the reimposition of sanctions against Iran risked “irreparable consequences”.

Tehran and Moscow have been bolstering political, military and economic ties over the past decade as Russia drifted away from the West.

Relations between them grew even closer after Moscow launched its offensive against Ukraine.

Modi’s visit comes after a trip to Japan, and is his first to China since 2018.

The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.

A thaw began last October when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia. (Punch)

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Kenyan president visits China as country pivots away from the US

Kenyan President William Ruto has begun a five-day state visit to China, signalling a deepening of strategic and economic ties between the nations. Ruto’s first state visit to China since taking office in 2022 is being viewed by some as a strategic shift amid evolving geopolitical dynamics.

Ruto is expected to seek funding for key infrastructure projects, including the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to Malaba and a major highway project.

Deals worth €750 million have already been secured from seven Chinese companies, aimed at boosting Kenya’s manufacturing, agriculture and tourism sectors, according to Kenyan newspaper The Standard. 

Trade between China and Kenya is on the rise, with a reported 11.9 percent increase in the first quarter of 2025. China is Kenya’s largest trading partner and top import source, while Kenya is China’s biggest trade partner in East Africa.

President Xi Jinping is scheduled to host a welcome ceremony and banquet for Ruto, with discussions focused on strengthening cooperation within the Global South. Ruto has also expressed Kenya’s interest in joining the BRICS intergovernmental group of emerging economies.

Faced with stalled funding from the United States and trade friction, Kenya has turned to China, according to analysts.

Adhere Cavince, a Nairobi-based international relations researcher, quoted by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, says that US tariffs and reduced aid have pushed Ruto to seek new markets and investment from China.

Cavince sees Ruto’s visit as a “symbolic” win for Beijing. “Beijing’s hosting of Ruto amid escalating geopolitical and trade tensions with the US is a win for China in terms of optics,” he said. “Nairobi is not just an option [for China], it is also a strong gateway to the rest of Africa.”

The Chinese foreign ministry said the visit will “contribute to deepening China’s relations with Kenya” and promote “solidarity and cooperation” within the Global South.

On 8 April, US President Donald Trump imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on Kenya, as part of a wide range of import tax measures.

Six days later, Beijing’s embassy in Nairobi took to X (formerly Twitter) to post an image of Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong and his 1946 remark that: “The US intimidates certain countries, stopping them from doing business with us. But America is just a paper tiger. Don’t believe it’s bluff. One poke, and it’ll burst.”

Meanwhile, Kenya is also pivoting away from European investors. On 11 April, Reuters reportedthat Nairobi will terminate a €1.3 billion highway expansion deal with a consortium led by France’s Vinci SA, with the project expected to go to a Chinese contractor instead.

The deal to turn 140km of single-lane road into a multilane highway linking the capital Nairobi to the Rift Valley city of Nakuru was signed in Paris in 2020, during a visit by then-President Uhuru Kenyatta. (RFI)