China says TikTok sale shows US ‘economic bullying’

A senior Chinese official accused the US, which forced the sale of TikTok on national security grounds, of “economic bullying,” while lambasting European Union restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., in comments highlighting Beijing’s increasing assertiveness against what it sees as unfair treatment from Western governments.

“What has happened with TikTok in the United States is a typical act of coercive possession,” the head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, Zhang Ming, said. “Some American politicians are trying to build a so-called clean network under the cover of fairness and reciprocity and blah, blah, blah,” Ambassador Zhang said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “This is nothing but economic bullying.”