Source: Skynews    Published: 2021-07-05

China's government has put three more Chinese internet platforms in its "cybersecurity crosshairs" citing the growing risk of cyber security coercion by the United States.

According to Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times, the action focuses on three firms that recently launched IPOs in the US market and is part of an effort to protect the "digital economy" from US interference.

Referencing ‘experts’ the Global Times said the US government has a "track record of stopping at nothing to force businesses to surrender".

The Chinese cybersecurity review office said on Monday (local time) it was conducting reviews into the job recruiting platform Boss Zhipin and two ‘truck-booking platforms’, Yunmanman, and Huochebang.

Kanzhun, the owner of Boss Zhipin floated on the NASDAQ on June 11 while the Full Truck Alliance which owns the two truck booking platforms debuted its US IPO on June 22.

The investigations come three days after China’s top ride-hailing platform Didi Chuxing was put under review in order  to "clamp down on data breaches and misuse".

As with the other Chinese firms, Didi started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in June.

In evidence of a rising tit-for-tat over cyber security issues between China and the United States, Foreign spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the US ‘forces companies to open ‘back doors’ and illegally obtain user data".

He also attacked US authorities' access to its citizens' user data, and linked this to concerns that Chinese firms could be subject to the same issues.

Mr Wang was referencing Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt’s claim during a US congressional hearing on June 30 that US law enforcement agencies had issued 2,400 to 3,500 secrecy orders per year to gain access to users’ data.

Dong Shaopeng, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, pointed out that if these interventions happened in the case of Chinese firms such as Didi the US might use the information gathered to "mount attacks against major Chinese government departments."

The crackdowns come amid the Chinese government’s increasing concern over the influence of China’s tech companies as their services become ever more ubiquitous in the lives of millions of Chinese citizens.

E-commerce company Allibaba was fined US$2.8billion for violating antitrust rules, while food delivery firm Meituan is also currently subject to antitrust probes.

The Chinese government response must also be seen in the context of increasing American attempts to control Chinese tech for "national security reasons".

In August 2020, former President Donald Trump published an executive order targeting the viral video app TikTok and messaging app WeChat, although the order was not actually introduced due to being shut down by US courts.

New President Joe Biden signed his own executive order early last month reversing Mr Trump’s nominal executive order banning TikTok in the US.

However, in a sign that the crackdown on Chinese tech would continue, President Biden included in the order a call that all apps with ties to a ‘foreign adversary’ be reviewed.

What this means is that companies such as TikTok could face more restrictions going forward if they’re found to prove a risk to the US’s economy or national security.

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