CCP mouthpiece labels Australia's TikTok ban 'racist'

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• By Avi Yemini

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A former Chinese diplomat, Victor Gao, has accused Australia of "racism" after the country banned the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok from all government devices. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Gao emphasized the potential consequences of making an enemy out of 1.4 billion people.

Gao expressed his views on the ban, stating, “Probably it’s racism, probably it’s racial discrimination, probably it’s banning Chinese again, which was a disaster many years ago. Now you want to do that again? It will not be a success.”

Australia's ban follows similar measures implemented by numerous other countries due to security concerns.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher earlier this month justified the decision, saying, “This has been informed by security agencies’ advice on work that’s been done and provided to the government, so that’s the decision we’ve taken is around government-issued devices.”

World governments fear that China may be exploiting the social media app to spy on their citizens, given TikTok's extensive data collection and its parent company ByteDance’s alleged ties to the communist regime. Robert Potter, a cybersecurity expert, informed 60 Minutes that TikTok gathers significantly more data than other social media platforms.

“It can collect your keystroke patterns, body language, face and body features. It can access photos or passwords that are stored in your phone over time. There’s a super location field that allows them to collect which direction you’re facing, how fast you’re moving, how high off the ground you are, your latitude and longitude,” Potter said.

Despite these concerns, Gao argued that Australia should not perceive TikTok as a threat. “Australians need to be really confident about their own system, rather than being threatened by TikTok. Banning it is not a sign of strength. It’s not a sign of superiority, it’s not a sign of confidence. It’s just the opposite,” he said.

Gao also cautioned that the ban could exacerbate already tense relations between Australia and China. “I would urge the Australian Government to really treat China as an equal, because you do not want to have an enemy with 1.4 billion people,” he said.

Lee Hunter, TikTok Australia and New Zealand's general manager, claims the ban is politically driven and insists there is "no evidence" to suggest people's data is at risk. He told 60 Minutes that TikTok Australia would not share personal information with the CCP, adding, “We need to be careful about how we work with China, but at the end of the day TikTok is not China. We’re an entertainment platform. We’re about giving people interesting videos in their day.”