🎉 ITIF celebrated its 20th anniversary last night by toasting founder Rob Atkinson's remarkable career and looking forward to the next chapter as incoming president Daniel Castro carries the mantle forward with our fantastic team of analysts and staff.
Here’s to many more years ahead!
Bottom line: The TikTok deal shows structural safeguards can manage risk better than blanket bans — but uneven enforcement and lack of reciprocity remain unresolved.
More details in my latest: itif.org/publications...
5️⃣ The EU’s China blind spot is growing.
Brussels has aggressively regulated U.S. firms, but largely gave Chinese apps a pass — despite laws granting Beijing broad data access.
4️⃣ Digital market access remains one-sided.
Chinese apps operate freely in the West, while U.S. services like Google, Netflix, and WhatsApp remain blocked in China. That imbalance still isn’t addressed.
3️⃣ Countries can now use China’s playbook against China.
Forced joint ventures have long been required by Beijing. TikTok flips that model — limiting access unless ownership and control change.
Policymakers rejected Project Texas in 2022 — yet the final deal largely mirrors it.
Lesson: regulatory indecision delayed protections that were likely sufficient all along.
2️⃣ TikTok created a workable security blueprint.
Project Texas showed how legal, technical, and operational safeguards can protect user data — encryption, audits, U.S. governance, and cloud isolation.
1️⃣ China’s cyber laws still put foreign data at risk.
The deal removes TikTok’s data and algorithm from CCP authority — but similar risks remain for other Chinese apps like Temu and Shein.
TikTok’s new U.S. joint venture ends a years-long standoff — but it also offers a roadmap for how governments may handle other Chinese apps going forward.
Here are 5 takeaways 🧵