U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps, including WeChat Pay and AliPay (via Reuters).
The order prohibits all U.S. transactions with the companies behind the apps, the full list of which includes Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay, and WPS Office.
The order tasks the Commerce Department with defining which transactions will be banned under the directive within 45 days, but a U.S. official told Reuters that the Commerce Department plans to act before January 20, when Trump leaves office.
"By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information," the executive order states.
Such data collection "would permit China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information," the document adds.
The named apps are extremely popular with Chinese mobile device users, and if the order was successful, the bans would be a significant blow to Chinese Americans who use apps like WeChat to communicate.
The new orders are in addition to two earlier ones signed by Trump in August that attempted to ban transactions with WeChat and TikTok's parent company, ByteDance. The first order was blocked by a judge in September and then again in October, while a preliminary injunction granted by another judge in December prevented the TikTok ban from going ahead.
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Top Rated Comments
It's ridiculous to just throw out stories and attach the word "evidence" with nothing to back that up.
I could say "there was substantial evidence that scientists from USA setup a lab in Wuhan to engineer this virus so that the world would blame China for the virus". It doesn't make it anymore false or true than your assertion unless you provide some link.
"Just in case you don't know. Dr Montagnier has been rolling downhill incredibly fast in the last few years. From baselessly defending homeopathy to becoming an antivaxxer. Whatever he says, just don't believe him,"
Did some googling, turns out, it's true. He's gone off to the deep end:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/05/27/nobel-laureate-joins-anti-vaccination-crowd-at-autism-one/?sh=33d13c2c5c53
"Montagnier is promoting wild theories with little scientific basis, and now he is taking advantage of vulnerable parents (see his appeal here) to push a therapy of long-term antibiotic treatment for autistic children."
"Montagnier hasn't been able to publish this in a proper journal, for a very good reason: it's nonsense. He claims that quantum field theory - an area of physics in which he has no qualifications - explains how electromagnetic waves emanating from DNA can explain not only autism, but also Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease, and rheumatoid arthritis"
I can't find any info of the doctor in the second link.
I'm going to file this under "BS" until someone more credible says otherwise.
In all honesty, the way China are behaving, especially over the whole COVID-19 situation is disgraceful, the more that is done round the world to curb their influence, and power the better - the problem you have at the moment is there are all these entities, BLM, ANTIFA, CCP, the EU etc that all have one goal in the world, to be the rulers - and they will stop at nothing.
China are dangerous, they want to rule the world and they will stop at nothing, we still don't know if the whole CCP-Virus was man-made, there is substantial evidence to suggest that it was, but it's just hearsay until you get concrete evidence.
In my personal view, the world should be focused on China, they should be holding them to account, and the less finances that head in their direction, at the moment....the better.