Trump admin announces initiative to ban Chinese apps, cloud platforms

The initiative may also stop U.S. companies from offering their apps on Chinese companies’ marketplaces.

What you need to know

• The Trump administration today launched another salvo in its ongoing soft war against China.
• An expansion of the Clean Network program may see Chinese apps banned from the Play Store and iOS App Store.
• U.S. companies may also be prohibited from using cloud services from the likes of Tencent and Baidu.

In a move that is likely to further increase hostilities between the two nations, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today announced an expansion of the Trump’s administration’s Clean Network program against “malign actors,” though the target of these measures is clear: China.

Referring to the Chinese Community Party as a “malign actor” and Chinese carriers as “untrusted,” the announcement outlines a plan to “clean” various aspects of the IT infrastructure in the U.S. Most notable among these may be the Clean Store and Clean Apps initiatives, which may see Chinese apps being banned in the U.S. and American companies being prevented from making their apps available on Chinese app stores, respectively.

Though President Trump has already talked of banning TikTok in the country if parts of its operation are not sold to an American company by September 15, these initiatives may target a much wider range of Chinese apps found on both the Play Store and the iOS App Store.

India, too, has launched a wide-ranging campaign against Chinese apps, banning the likes of TikTok, WeChat, and more in reaction to the ongoing tensions between the two nations.

Chinese cloud companies may also lose American’s companies’ business with the Clean Cloud initiative aiming to “prevent U.S. citizens’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property, including COVID-19 vaccine research, from being stored and processed on cloud-based systems accessible to our foreign adversaries through companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent.”

Alongside these, the Clean Carrier and Clean Cable efforts will aim at ensuring the United States’ telecommunications networks and undersea internet cables are free of Chinese influence.

The proclamation did cite any specific measures or timelines for when new regulations might go into effect, so the extent and impact of any changes resulting from it are unclear at the moment.

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