The TikTok saga gives us a glimpse into a techno-nationalist future

The Tik Tok Saga is a fascinating Chinese business opera. It tells the story of a young Chinese entrepreneur, Chen Yi, who flees from the United States to start his own business in Japan. The novel centers on Chen's interactions with two American businessmen - Huang Zhen, who has been previously studying business in Japan, and Kwok Keung, a businessman who had previously worked for the Japanese. The two men become friends and have a strong sense of camaraderie as they strive to achieve their business objectives. The friendship blossoms, however, when the two businessmen fall out of love and find themselves falling out of business together.

 

As the plot of the novel unfolds, it becomes apparent that The Tik Tok Saga was inspired by China's rapid growth as an economic power. The growth has affected every aspect of the Chinese economy: from transportation to technology to communications to even business licensing. As these changes have occurred at such a rapid pace, many Chinese businessmen have looked to foreign tech companies for help.

 

One of those businessmen was Dong Feng, founder of the Wechat application. He had previously built Wechat for the iOS but had realized that it lacked several important features, especially for Chinese users. Dong and a group of Chinese hackers spent months working on Wechat, revamping the application so it could better serve its Chinese users. The result was We chat: a fully-functional instant messaging system that is free to download, thanks to Wechat forks that allow people to freely distribute We chat among themselves. The fork was released in September, and the beta version of the app was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times in the following weeks.

 

In the course of development, Dong and his group of Chinese hackers discovered two major problems with the app. One issue concerned the lack of support for the Chinese language. Because We chat is primarily Chinese, it created a number of problems for those who wanted to use We chat as their mode of communication, since the app did not support any Chinese input, and provided no way to change this. This issue was subsequently resolved by the developers of We chat. The second major concern concerned the use of the term "cancer" in the application.

 

The United States Department of State views the term "cancer" as being inappropriate for a non-profit company that helps people get out of poverty. Therefore, We chat had to modify the application to remove the word from the name. However, the Chinese government saw fit to ban all mentions of the word cancer in We chat. This created an uproar in the United States, and Wechtaek Entertainment was forced to remove the word from all forms of marketing, including We chat.

 

The Trump Administration has issued an executive order that bars any federal agency from using federal funds to do advertisements or promotions for a foreign government, except in cases where the country's government is requesting one. In this case, the Japanese government requested We Chat to advertise We Chat for its earthquake relief effort. The Executive Order was immediately withdrawn by the Secretary of State, after We Chat promptly removed the phrase from all We chat channels. Secretary Rice stated that the move "wasn't meant to single out China", and that she had directed her aides to look into We Chat's policy on funding recipients. The original move is being viewed by some as a signal that the United States might pull out of its economic engagement with Japan, in light of the recent developments in China.

 

The removal of the term from the We Chat application was viewed as a direct violation of the executive orders and prompted We Chat to issue an apology to all customers, and remove all links to the English versions of its We Chat newsroom and product information. The apology also included a clause stating that the company would review all applications for inclusion in the program in future to ensure, "Appropriate terminology is used to reference a particular issue". The new We Chat Terms of Service also indicates that any revenue sharing or grants awarded through We Chat shall only be granted to companies which employ the specific language in their advertising campaigns. Any changes to the company's policy on revenue sharing and grants shall be published in the company's newsletter, and any updates made to the program shall be noted and announced in the company's website.

 

The latest development has raised questions as to the ownership and control of the Chinese e-commerce giant. The Chinese government has stepped in to protect We Chat, and indicated that it will take control of the company if necessary. Additionally, Taiwan's commerce department has issued a statement that they are considering We Chat as a possible candidate in a future trade agreement with China. The main concern is that the Chinese government could hijack We Chat and use it to manipulate the Taiwanese economy, especially since the majority of Taiwan's population uses We Chat to speak with friends and family. As of this writing, the Taiwanese government has not responded to the Chinese government's threat to take control of We Chat.