It was clear that Donald Trump was not going to simply leave his seat in the Oval Office. His policy of confrontation with China has been almost perennial in the four years in which he has been in command and a few days before taking over he has signed a new executive order against the apps of this country.
Transactions with Wechat, Alipay, QQ …
As reported by the White House itself, the president has signed an order by which transactions with Chinese applications are prohibited. Eight in particular:
- Alipay
- CamScanner
- QQ Wallet
- SHAREit
- Tencent QQ
- VMate
- WeChat Pay
- WPS Office
This order is a kind of annex to the one that gave rise to Huawei’s veto in the American country.
The fourth worldwide messaging application openly gives up all your dataWeChat, regarded as the “Chinese WhatsApp”, admits that it shares with governments all information collected from users.
The reason for blocking these applications is the same as that of Huawei, namely that they can be “used to threaten national security, foreign policy and the US economy.” According to the Trump administration, these applications have the ability to be used as spy tools by the Chinese Communist Party.
Affecting Android… and the iPhone
This decision would mean, in theory at least, that these apps cannot be used in the United States, so they should disappear from stores like the Google Play Store. However, they are also available on iOS so, at least from the United States, they should not be able to be downloaded.
If the reasoning is the same as with Huawei, we should also see them disappear from stores in other countries, so users will have to look for other options to download them if they want to continue using them.
The order stipulates that the limit to carry out the measures thereof is 45 days, so in mid-February these apps would no longer be available.
The entry United States prohibits transactions with AliPay, WeChat and other Chinese apps appears first in The Free Android.
