China’s state-backed English language newspaper China Daily, said on Wednesday, that China has no reason to approve the “dirty and unfair” deal that Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc. struck with ByteDance. According to the newspaper, this deal was based on “bullying and extortion.”
The English daily said in an editorial, “What the United States has done to TikTok is almost the same as a gangster forcing an unreasonable and unfair business deal on a legitimate company.”
Since the deal, however, three companies are issuing various conflicting statements over the terms of the agreement. Although they hope, this deal will eventually allow the short-format video app from ByteDance to operate in the U.S, where the government planned to ban it on security grounds.
ByteDance on one hand has said that it will establish a U.S subsidiary named TikTok Global, and it will own 80% of that. But on the other hand, Oracle and Walmart have said that complying with the executive order by U.S president Donald Trump, the majority of ownership will be on American hands.
The editorial also added, “National security has become the weapon of choice for … Washington when it wants to curb the rise of any companies from foreign countries that are out-performing their U.S. peers.”
According to the editorial piece, “ByteDance…. Stands to lose not only control of the company but also its core technology that it has created and owns.” It also added, “China has no reason to give the green light to such a deal.”
Previously, another state-backed Chinese newspaper published a report by saying that “nor Microsoft, nor Oracle gets to buy TikTok.” Later there was speculation regarding a public offering from TikTok Global. However, after a sudden change of events, Oracle and Walmart struck a deal with the Chinese company.
And soon after the deal, Oracle said in a statement, “Upon creation of TikTok Global, Oracle/Walmart will make their investment and the TikTok Global shares will be distributed to their owners, Americans will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global.”
This statement, on the other hand, differs from earlier reports, where Oracle and Wallmart had only a 20% stake in this new venture, while ByteDance had the control of 80%.
Another Global Times editorial characterized this deal as “extortion.”
