The TikTok Hearing and Xiang Zhuang's Sword Dance as Viewed by Two CICIR Analysts

"If incidents like TikTok were to occur repeatedly, the [world’s] digital future would indeed be a worrying one. In this sense, the TikTok saga cannot be given enough strategic scrutiny and attention"

Dear Everyone,

Today’s edition of Sinification focuses on one of the many reactions in China to the US Congress’s recent hearing on the popular video-sharing app TikTok. The piece presented below is co-authored by two analysts from the influential China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) and offers a somewhat more moderate appraisal of TikTok’s recent scrutiny in the US than others (for a more hawkish and propagandistic commentary, see for example Tian Feilong’s recent opinion piece for Guancha.cn). Their article is entitled “Xiang Zhuang's Sword Dance: What is he after? — The Prismatic Effect of the TikTok Incident”, which refers to a famous plot by warlord Xiang Yu (项羽) to kill the future founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty Liu Bang (刘邦) in 206 BC. In TikTok’s case, the one performing this deceptive sword dance is, of course, the United States. The authors base most of their commentary on arguments made by Western analysts, another reminder perhaps o…