TikTok Gets a Reprieve

A rundown of the news making headlines in and around China over the past week:

TikTok ban delayed: TikTok’s fate now lies largely with U.S. President Donald Trump. The new leader signed an executive order Monday, the day of his inauguration, to delay the app’s ban for 75 days. Officially this was done to allow his administration “to determine the appropriate course forward.” But speaking from the Oval Office Trump was more candid: if the U.S. proposes a deal with TikTok but Beijing did not approve, “then that's a certain hostility and we'll put tariffs of 25%, 30%, 40%, 50%, even 100%.” Trump recently suggested a “joint venture” in which the U.S. would have a 50% ownership to keep the ByteDance Co. Ltd.-owned app running. The president was once an adversary who threatened to ban TikTok, but his intervention meant that the app spent only about 14 hours offline over the weekend to comply with the ban passed during the Biden administration.