TikTok deal in US exposes a security gap, and a missing China strategy

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has declared victory in his latest confrontation with China, saying that he headed off a looming national security threat by forcing the sale of the social media app sensation TikTok to a consortium of American, European and — although he does not say so — Chinese owners.

But it is far from clear from the details released so far that Trump’s deal resolves the deeper TikTok security problem — which has less to do with who owns the company and more with who writes the code and algorithms. The code and algorithms are the magic sauce that Beijing now says, citing its own national security concerns, may not be exported to a foreign adversary.