China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Thursday that the Chinese government will work with the U.S. government to “appropriately resolve” the issues surrounding the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations, according to a translation by CNBC.
The ministry did not provide a deadline or details. The comments followed a tense meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier in the day, the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders since Trump took office in January.
Trump did not mention TikTok in his remarks to reporters after his meeting with President Xi. Instead, he outlined how the U.S. could reduce some tariffs on Chinese goods while Beijing postpones the latest rare earth regulations.
“What definitely increases the risk of policy miscalculation is the lack of specificity,” Louise Lu, head of Asian economics at Oxford Economics, said in an email. “I don’t think there’s enough time yet to believe that the Chinese government’s interests in the TikTok controversy truly align with President Trump’s motives for separating TikTok’s U.S. operations.”
ByteDance and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Under U.S. national security law, Beijing-based ByteDance must sell TikTok’s U.S. operations or be effectively banned in the country. China has not yet approved terms of deal that would allow new joint venture to oversee TikTok in the US
