TikTok holdup, unprincipled power play

Former US president Joe Biden signed a law last year that required TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance to divest the app in the United States or be banned, ostensibly over "national security" concerns. The law was set to go into effect in January, but his successor said he would delay its enforcement in hopes of reaching a deal to keep the app "alive".

This delay was due to end on Saturday if ByteDance hadn't divested the platform's US operations to a US company. But in the latest chapter of the long-running saga, the US leader claims to be doing China a favor by "working very hard on a deal to save TikTok", which is used by about 170 million Americans, half the country's total population.

The deal would reportedly see a new company owned by a majority of US investors operate TikTok in the US, with ByteDance, the Chinese developer and owner of the popular short video app, maintaining a minority position of around 19 percent.