'Open & non-discriminatory': China on TikTok deal with US; urges fair business environment

China on Saturday said that its position on the TikTok issue in the US is clear and hoped that America will provide an open, fair, just, and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies.

The commerce ministry highlighted that the country "welcomes companies to conduct business negotiations in line with market rules to reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and balance the interests of all parties," as per ANI citing Xinhua.The ministry stated, as quoted by Xinhua, that China "hopes the US will move in the same direction and fully honour its commitments, provide an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies, including Tik Tok, to continue operating in the United States, and promote stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-US economic and trade relations." US President Donald Trump spent a great chunk of this week touting a Tik Tok "deal" with China, but experts say it is far from finalised after both sides shared details of his phone call with President Xi Jinping. The two leaders spoke by phone on Friday, their first call in three months, but there was no announcement of the sale of the popular social media app that has 170 million US users, as per Al Jazeera. Despite the lack of any specific developments from Friday's call, experts agree that the leaders talking is in itself a sign of a thaw, especially as Xi had previously refused to get on the phone with Trump, despite the multiple meetings in Geneva, London and most recently in Madrid, Al Jazeera reported.

The call was days after Trump extended, for the fourth time, a deadline for China's ByteDance to divest its ownership of Tik Tok or face a ban in the US under a law passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support and one that was later upheld by the Supreme Court. Any hammering out of a bigger trade deal on the multiple other issues, including US access to rare earth metals and China's purchase of Russian oil and access to US semiconductor chips, will have to wait for the two leaders to meet, experts say, Al Jazeera reported.