纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英美国TikTok法案为何未在中国引发激烈反弹

This is not the first time that China has seen a frenzy over TikTok consume Washington.

这不是中国第一次看到华盛顿把精力消耗在有关TikTok的疯狂上。

In 2020, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order that would have forced TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the popular app. But Beijing foiled a takeover bid by American buyers by slapping curbs on technology exports. Last year, Montana lawmakers enacted a ban on TikTok in the state, but a federal judge blocked the law before it could take effect.

前总统特朗普曾在2020年发布行政命令，试图迫使TikTok的中国所有者出售这款大受欢迎的应用程序。但中国政府通过限制技术出口挫败了美国买家的收购。去年，蒙大拿州的立法者通过了在该州禁止TikTok的立法，但一名联邦法官在法律生效前阻止了该法。

Now, U.S. lawmakers are again trying to force ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, to give up control of the app. On Wednesday, the House passed a bill, by a 352-to-65 vote, that would force ByteDance to either sell the app or see it banned in the United States.

现在，美国的立法者们正再次试图迫使TikTok的中国所有者字节跳动放弃对这款应用的控制权。上周三，众议院以352票支持、65票反对的投票通过了一项法案，要求字节跳动要么出售该应用程序，要么在美国被禁止使用。

But the fervor has not yet triggered a high-alert response from China’s leaders or prompted retaliatory threats against American companies. Instead, officials in Beijing have blasted the bill but largely reiterated common criticisms of U.S. policy as unfair to China.

但这次狂热尚未引起中国领导人作出高度戒备的反应，也没有引发针对美国公司的报复威胁。中国政府官员基本上只是重申了美国政策对中国不公平的通常批评，对该法案进行了猛烈抨击。

There are several reasons for their restraint, experts said. Despite the bill’s bipartisan support in the House, it faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. Mr. Trump, the expected Republican presidential nominee, has said he opposes the bill despite his 2020 executive order against TikTok. And China has legal tools it could use to try to block any sale.

专家们说，他们的克制有几个原因。尽管该法案在众议院获得了两党支持，但在参议院仍面临不确定的命运。共和党的预期总统候选人特朗普已表示反对该法案，尽管他曾在2020年发布过针对TikTok的行政命令。而且，中国有能用来阻止TikTok出售的法律工具。

“China is not ready to pull the trigger outright for a full-scale retaliation against what the United States is doing,” said Scott Kennedy, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“在针对美国做法进行全面报复上，中国还没有准备马上采取行动，”华盛顿战略与国际研究中心的中国问题专家甘思德(Scott Kennedy)说。

TikTok wields wide influence in the United States, particularly among younger people. It has an estimated 170 million users in the United States, up from 100 million in 2020. It has an even bigger global footprint, with an estimated one billion users across 140 countries. ByteDance’s Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, had more than 600 million daily active users by mid-2020, the last time it reported those statistics.

TikTok在美国拥有广泛的影响力，尤其是在年轻人中。据估计，它在美国有1.7亿用户，高于2020年时的1亿用户。它在全球的用户就更多了，估计在140个国家有10亿用户。字节跳动的中国版TikTok叫抖音，根据它报告的最新统计数据，抖音在2020年中期的日活用户已超过6亿。

In Washington, lawmakers say that Beijing could use TikTok to spread Chinese Communist Party messages or gain access to sensitive data about TikTok’s American users.

华盛顿的立法者们说，中国政府可以利用TikTok来传播中共信息，或获取美国用户的敏感数据。

President Biden has said he would sign the House bill if it came to his desk. But Mr. Trump’s opposition to the legislation has signaled to Beijing that it can keep its powder dry.

拜登总统已表示，如果这项众议院已通过的法案送到他的办公桌上的话，他会签署为法律。但特朗普对这项立法的反对已向北京发出信号，让其能枕戈待旦。

“Trump’s opposing view took the wind out of this bill’s sails, so there is reason for Beijing and ByteDance to believe this issue will eventually wither away,” said Kevin Xu, the U.S.-based founder of Interconnected Capital, a hedge fund that invests in artificial intelligence technologies.

“特朗普的反对态度出其不意地打击了该法案成为法律的可能性，让中国政府和字节跳动有理由相信这个问题最终会消失，”投资人工智能技术的美国对冲基金互联资本的创始人凯文·徐（音）说。

TikTok says it has taken steps to protect American users’ data and privacy. It has proposed an arrangement to store U.S. user data on domestic servers controlled by Oracle. But that effort to address lawmakers’ security concerns has not come together, leaving “absolutely zero trust between TikTok and Washington at this point,” said Mr. Xu.

TikTok表示，它已在保护美国用户的数据和隐私方面采取了措施。它提出了一个方案，把美国用户的数据存放在由甲骨文控制的美国国内服务器上。但这个解决立法者安全担忧的努力尚未达成协议，导致“TikTok与华盛顿之间目前完全没有信任的状态”，徐先生说。

Despite years of scrutiny, a Chinese company still owns TikTok. And even if lawmakers in Washington agree to force a sale, officials in Beijing have warned in the past that such a transaction would require their approval.

尽管美国政府已对TikTok进行了多年审查，但这款应用仍由一家中国公司拥有。即使华盛顿的立法者们同意强迫其所有者出售这款应用，但中国官员过去就曾警告，这种交易需要得到他们的批准。

In 2020, when a sale of TikTok to American investors, including Oracle and Microsoft, appeared to be close, the Chinese government asserted its authority over exports it considered sensitive; experts believe those rules encompass technology like the algorithm that powers TikTok. The move effectively scuttled attempts to put TikTok in the hands of American owners.

2020年，把TikTok出售给包括甲骨文和微软在内的美国投资者的交易看起来快要做成时，中国政府明确了被它视为敏感出口物品的管辖权；专家们认为，中国的技术出口新规覆盖了如TikTok背后的算法等技术。该新规有效地挫败了把TikTok交给美国所有者的尝试。

The export controls mean China could block the sale of the very thing that makes TikTok so addictive — its powerful algorithm that divines users’ interests to serve them video after video.

中国的出口管制意味着它能阻止销售让TikTok如此令人上瘾的技术，也就是该应用能预测用户兴趣的强大算法，这个算法让其能一条接一条地向用户提供视频。

Inside China, the belief among academics and commentators is that Beijing would not allow ByteDance to sell this technology to a foreign company.

中国国内的学者和评论人士普遍认为，政府不会允许字节跳动将这项技术出售给外国公司。

Any sale of TikTok without its core algorithm would leave a potential buyer with a much less appealing product, Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said on the Chinese social media platform Weibo in a post on Thursday that drew 184,000 views.

任何不包扩核心算法的TikTok出售对其潜在买家来说将大大降低产品的吸引力，北京人民大学国际关系学院的教授金灿荣上周四在中国社交媒体平台微博上发贴说，该贴吸引了18.4万次点击。

China’s state-controlled media circulated a statement on Thursday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that cited the treatment of TikTok as evidence of the United States’ “double standards” in protecting freedom of speech. On China’s social media platforms, which are censored, the push in Washington has stoked outrage over the treatment of Chinese companies.

中国官媒上周四转载了外交部的一份声明，声明称美国打压TikTok的做法是美国在保护言论自由上实行“双重标准”的证据。在受审查的中国社交媒体平台上，美国政府禁止TikTok的努力激起了网民们对中国公司在美国受到不公待遇的愤怒。

On Weibo this week, “TikTok fights back” became a trending topic after the platform urged its users to mobilize against the House bill. Many commenters characterized the bill as theft and questioned Washington’s commitment to free-market competition. They also worried the bill could be a template for Washington to use against other Chinese-owned technology companies.

TikTok在其平台上呼吁用户行动起来反对众议院法案后，“TikTok反击”上周在微博成为热门话题。许多评论者将该法案描述为盗窃，对华盛顿致力于自由市场竞争的承诺表示怀疑。他们还担心该法案会成为华盛顿用来对付其他中资技术公司的样板。

“Can we really do business like this?” asked Shen Yi, a scholar of cyberspace governance at Fudan University in Shanghai. Washington wielded the concept of national security as a gun “to the head of any company from any country, saying: ‘Sell it or find other companies to work with. It’s for your own good,’” Mr. Shen said.

“我们真能这样做生意吗？”上海复旦大学研究网络空间治理的学者沈逸问道。华盛顿把国家安全概念当枪使，“指向任何国家任何公司的脑袋说：‘卖掉它，或找到其他的合作公司。这是为了你自身的好处，”沈逸说。

At a news briefing on Friday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, demurred when asked about the latest developments in the TikTok furor in Washington. “We answered questions about TikTok yesterday,” he said.

在周五的例行记者会上，当被问及美国政府在TikTok问题上群情激愤的最新进展时，中国外交部发言人汪文斌拒绝回答。他说，“昨天我们已经阐明了相关立场。”