Chinese Journal of Communication

ISSN: 1754-4750 (Print) 1754-4769 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rcjc20

Whose head servant? TikTok’s conundrum

between digital capitalism and states

Min Tang & Lin Song

To cite this article: Min Tang & Lin Song (15 Jul 2025): Whose head servant? TikTok’s
conundrum between digital capitalism and states, Chinese Journal of Communication, DOI:
10.1080/17544750.2025.2528825

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Chinese Journal of Communication
https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2025.2528825

Whose head servant? TikTok’s conundrum between

digital capitalism and states
Min Tanga and Lin Songb
School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, University of Washington Bothell, Bothell, Washington , USA;
a

School of Political and Social Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

b

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Drawing on a case study of TikTok’s operations in the United Received 29 November
States, this paper examines state-capital relations in an era of glo- 2024
balized digital platforms. Specifically, it analyzes how ByteDance, Accepted 7 June 2025
TikTok’s parent company, grapples with being a global digital plat- KEYWORDS
form while navigating intensifying entanglements between state TikTok; digital platform;
interests and capitalist expansion. This study reveals that despite globalization;
ByteDance’s attempts to downplay Chinese state connections and state-capital relations;
align with U.S. market and political practices, TikTok’s identity transnational capitalism
remains contested due to its failure to integrate fully into the U.S.
military-digital complex. It argues that the core of TikTok’s predica-
ment lies in evolving state-capital dynamics, in which the tradi-
tional Silicon Valley model’s reliance on venture capital and
neoliberal operations is being tested against rising geopolitical
rivalries and the resurgence of state influence in digital
capitalism.

Introduction
TikTok’s future in the United States is volatile and rapidly evolving. In early 2024, a
congressional bill was passed that set a ban or a possible forced sale in motion,
which TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer, Shou Zi Chew, responded to loud and clear:
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere” (Ingram, 2024). Whereas the Trump admin-
istration put the forced sale on hold in January 2025, the fate of this popular
video-sharing mobile application remains unclear amid increasing geopolitical tensions.
The TikTok controversy has taken place against the backdrop of what scholars have
called “the Second Cold War” (Schindler, 2023). A continuation of the geopolitical dynam-
ics that unfolded post-World War II, but on a more technological level, the Second Cold
War is marked by “network-based competition” (1085), in which digital platforms become
more entangled in states’ quest for control over data flows, technical standards, and
knowledge in global digital networks. Qiu (2023) argued that evolving Sino-US com-
petition requires a conceptual shift from neoliberalism to neorealism to understand the

CONTACT Lin Song [email protected]

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository
by the author(s) or with their consent.
2 M. TANG AND L. SONG

state’s role in directing technology flows (p. 197). Rolf and Schindler (2023) distinguished
between two platform development models: 1. The United States adopts relatively
lenient regulations and incentivizes state-platform cooperation, bolstered by significant
private venture capital (p. 1261); China, on the other hand, combines stringent domestic
regulations for platforms with state-backed financing (p. 1260).
While these state-oriented approaches have enriched our understanding of the
relationship between geopolitics and platforms, a more nuanced framework is needed
to account for the state’s participation in today’s global landscape of platform gov-
ernance. Researchers have highlighted that the resurgence of nationalism in nations
such as India (Song & Ray, 2023), China (Plantin & De Seta, 2019), and the United
States (Napoli, 2021) has positioned the state as a central axis of power and the site
of negotiations in shaping how platforms develop. In analyzing state-capital relations,
it is also important to recognize technology companies’ agency in their efforts to
expand globally (Li, 2024). TikTok offers an interesting case in point. ByteDance, TikTok’s
parent company, has expanded amid Beijing’s ambition to project digital soft power
globally. However, unlike other national market leaders—such as Alibaba and Tencent—
that maintain close cooperative ties with the Chinese government (Su & Flew, 2021),
ByteDance has sought from the beginning to present itself as a “global,” rather than
a strictly “Chinese,” company (Zhang, 2016), a stance that has drawn domestic scrutiny
over its national loyalty (Sohu.com, 2020). Taking a different globalization path from
its Chinese counterparts, ByteDance has invested significant efforts to manage rela-
tionships with various nation-states to achieve its goal of providing “globalized prod-
ucts with localized content” (Kaye et al., 2021; Li, 2024). In this paper, we offer a
meso-level analysis of ByteDance’s path to globalization, with an emphasis on
state-capital relations, or how capital navigates the increasingly nationalized global
marketspace. We ask: What is state and capital actors’ role in ByteDance’s develop-
ment? How have they contributed to the dilemma that ByteDance and TikTok have
encountered in the United States? Addressing these questions would clarify the nature
of TikTok’s challenges in the United States, as well as state-capital dynamics during
an era of globalized tech competition.

State-capital relations during the “Second Cold War”

The notion of the “Second Cold War” emerged) when issues concerning cyber-policies
and national security gained momentum in U.S. politics (Hong & Chen, 2022; Schindler,
2023). Against this backdrop, communication scholars have examined how relations
between states play out in respect to information technologies and network infra-
structure (Schiller, 2011; Schindler et al., 2024). Since the 2008–2009 global financial
crisis, scholars have noted the “return of the state,” with “a continued deepening of
the process of capitalist transnationalization and globalization” (van Apeldoorn & de
Graaff, 2012, p. 473). With this shift, the state is playing a more prominent role in
managing the contradictions of capital accumulation on a global scale (van Apeldoorn
& de Graaff, 2012).
The U.S.-led tech war on China reflects its longstanding aim to dominate the lucra-
tive and strategic tech sector (Hong & Chen, 2022; Lei, 2023). During World Wars I
and II, the U.S. built global communication networks to rival Britain and Germany
 Chinese Journal of Communication 3

(Schiller, 2011), and telecom and satellite tech were key during the subsequent Cold
War. In the 1980s, it launched a semiconductor trade war with Japan (Baldwin, 1994)
and later targeted China’s tech firms, such as Huawei and ZTE (Tang, 2020). Digital
platforms’ rise has tightened state-capital relations further. Globally, U.S.-based platforms
such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and the Apple App Store wield immense
reach and influence. Jin (2017) linked platform dominance to state power via “platform
imperialism,” noting barriers that hinder non-Western platforms in Western markets.
Even in a market-driven sphere, platforms propagate U.S. ideological hegemony.
This market-driven sphere’s landscape has become more complicated by the rise
of Chinese platforms backed by more explicit state-capital interactions. Unlike U.S.
platforms, Chinese platforms’ growth is viewed as a state-directed endeavor (Creemers,
2024). State initiatives such as the Digital Silk Road (DSR) are believed to have played
a central role in the development of Chinese digital platforms, particularly in extending
their influence in the Global South (Creemers, 2024; Mirrlees, 2024). Rolf and Schindler
(2023) proposed the notion of “state platform capitalism” (SPC) to highlight how both
Beijing and Washington are instrumentalizing and mobilizing domestic platforms in
the pursuit of geopolitical-economic objectives (1267). The rise of SPC has diminished
ideological resistance to active state involvement in the economy, leading to complex
interactions between state and private capital across borders (1271).
Several existing studies have highlighted a capital-centric perspective that deviates
from those that focus on the state. Cheng and Zeng (2024) argued that viewing the DSR
as a top-down geopolitical strategy is misleading, as it mainly serves as a broad slogan
under which Chinese digital companies pursue their own interests (p. 837). Oreglia and
Zheng (2025) noted that Chinese companies generally maintain an “ambiguous” stance
toward the DSR, with little evidence suggesting that the DSR significantly influences their
market decisions or internationalization strategies (p. 11). Given these circumstances, Li
(2024) has suggested that using a strictly geopolitical framework in analyzing Chinese
tech industries risks overestimating the state’s influence while underestimating the will-
ingness and capacity of capital to pursue goals that diverge from state interests.
While this framework may overshadow other civil society stakeholders’ agency in
shaping platform politics, the “Second Cold War” directs attention to both old and
new forms of state-capital relations, which is helpful in clarifying how tech giants
operate in current global geopolitics. As historical patterns have indicated, concerning
the state’s role in controlling communication technologies, recent analyses have
revealed the complex interplay among state-capital relations by highlighting digital
companies’ agency. U.S. and Chinese platform companies adopt different strategies
to navigate unique challenges. By focusing on how digital companies like ByteDance
develop and globalize, our study unpacks their intricate relationships with states,
shedding light on their strategic maneuvers amid geopolitical tensions. This nuanced
understanding is crucial for comprehending the evolving landscape of global digital
platforms amid tightening state-capital relations.

Methods
Foregrounding a meso-level institutional approach, we examined ByteDance’s
self-positioning and globalization strategy, as well as its ownership structure and
4 M. TANG AND L. SONG

inter-capital relations. We primarily used documentary research and political economy

analysis. Documentary research involves analyzing existing written materials—such as
texts, files, and records—to study a specific phenomenon (Ahmed, 2010). It provides
detailed information that is not influenced by the data collection process, thereby
offering a comprehensive perspective on the subject (Ahmed, 2010). To understand
ByteDance’s globalization practices, we gathered news and trade reports from 2020–
2023 on the company’s growth and expansion. We critically analyzed these documents
to ensure that only representative data were presented.
The political economy approach concerns power relations—both inside and outside
of media institutions—that have shaped, informed, and challenged media production
and distribution. Critical scholars, who view media institutions as being integral to
capitalism, historically have examined media companies to understand the interplay
between ownership and control, business strategies and capital composition, and
public relations tactics and capital-state relations (Downing, 2011; Murdock & Golding,
1973). Researchers rely heavily on documents and official archives that include both
primary sources, such as corporate financial releases and annual reports, and secondary
sources, including news reports and financial and trading reports. As a privately owned
entity, ByteDance is not obligated to publish reports on annual performance and
board information. We utilized the limited, yet important, official corporate information
published through its website, as well as various secondary sources, such as the
Financial Times, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, and CrunchBase. While acknowledging
potential biases within these sources, we did not base our analysis on any single
piece, but instead compared and verified these sources against each other to draw
our conclusions.
We began our analysis with ByteDance’s self-positioning as a global company and
its dilemma of being caught between states, highlighting the need to unpack
state-capital relations amid geopolitical tension. We then examined ByteDance’s polit-
ical economics, underscoring transnationalization through a financialization approach
to align with the U.S. Silicon Valley model and build its global identity. Finally, we
examined how ByteDance navigates relations with the U.S. state, revealing how
state-capital relations reshape digital platform companies’ globalization path.

Born to be global? ByteDance caught between states

Founded in 2012 in Beijing, ByteDance began as a content aggregator utilizing arti-
ficial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Successful products include
Toutiao, a news aggregator that soon became one of the most popular apps in China;
Douyin, a short video app released in 2016; and its well-known global version, TikTok.
Instead of being “just another company with an overseas branch,” ByteDance’s main
co-founder Zhang Yiming envisioned a “globalized, unified platform for creation and
exchange” (Wan, 2020). However, growing geopolitical tensions have hampered this
ambition. Miao et al. (2023) noted a shift from de-politicization to re-politicization in
the global development of TikTok, arguing that while TikTok largely was viewed as a
de-politicized business miracle before 2020, it has since become “a state-centered
security issue” (97) amid geopolitical disputes. Building on their insight, in this section,
we highlight how ByteDance’s global identity has become caught between states.
 Chinese Journal of Communication 5

ByteDance’s globalization strategy has been described as “parallel platformization,”

i.e. offering similar features across various markets while adjusting platform infrastruc-
tures and governance to meet local policy requirements (Kaye et al., 2021). Whereas
this strategy has given ByteDance flexibility in coping with cultural and political
differences globally (Li, 2024), heightened attention being paid to ByteDance’s plat-
forms, most notably TikTok, has led to scrutiny regarding the company’s perceived
national identity. For example, in India, once TikTok’s second-largest market, ByteDance
sought to integrate locally by hiring over 2,000 local employees and establishing a
local data storage center (Eastmoney.com, 2020) in response to government concerns.
Despite these efforts, TikTok increasingly was viewed, through a techno-nationalist
lens, as a threatening and dangerous technology from a rival nation, resulting in the
Indian government permanently banning the platform (Song & Ray, 2023).
TikTok’s perceived identity—as “Chinese” instead of “global”—also has played a
central role in the recent U.S. controversy. Acting against TikTok became a bipartisan
consensus because “nobody wants to be cast as being soft on China,” particularly
when it comes to technology (Yilek, 2023). A Pew Research Center survey found a
strong link between unfavorable views of China and support for a TikTok ban (Silver
& Clancy, 2023). Notably, while only about a third of Americans could name Google’s
parent company, Alphabet, 64% correctly identified TikTok as Chinese (Silver & Clancy,
2023), highlighting TikTok’s prominent Chinese identity in the public’s perception.
One could only fully grasp the role of TikTok’s emphasized Chinese-ness in moti-
vating a proposed U.S. ban while considering that complete data privacy is largely
illusory. As Su and Tang (2023, p. 60) have demonstrated, data privacy always involves
extensive entanglements and negotiations between corporate control and state inter-
vention in platform governance. For example, Facebook has failed to provide sufficient
clarity about storage and use of its user data, even after the Cambridge Analytica
scandal (Boatwright & White, 2020). While TikTok and Facebook share similar storage
approaches with data centers in the United States and Singapore, TikTok “tends to
be more transparent about how data are being collected and shared” than Facebook
(Su & Tang, 2023, p. 67). As Jie (2020) noted, U.S. skepticism about TikTok stems from
an “ideological security dilemma” amid the U.S.-China strategic rivalry, which compli-
cates the distinction between defensive and offensive actions, as each side seeks to
bolster its security at the expense of the other’s (p. 184). The TikTok case vividly
illustrates this situation, in which the line between safeguarding user data and under-
mining the free market—a central rhetorical tenet of neoliberal capitalism—is dialec-
tically blurred, as data collection and commodification become pivotal to digital
businesses (see Horowitz & Check, 2022).
More broadly, the global push against TikTok’s legitimacy signifies an increasingly
entangled relationship between states and platforms as they become “inter-dependent”
on each other (Rolf & Schindler, 2023, p. 1256). Closer state-capital relations have
re-territorialized the global digital landscape extensively, requiring platforms to choose
a single headmaster. ByteDance has faced an identity crisis even within China. In
2020, it relocated global decision-making and R&D abroad, prompting criticism that
it sought “de-Sinification” (Chu, 2020; Liu, 2023). In August 2020, backlash followed
rumors of a U.S.-TikTok divestment deal under Trump-era pressure. In a leaked internal
letter, then-CEO Zhang Yiming reaffirmed the company’s vision of being a global
6 M. TANG AND L. SONG

platform and urged employees to adopt a “Martian perspective,” i.e. a non-Chinese

perspective, which ignited widespread anger on Chinese social media, where netizens
mocked Zhang for being “soft-kneed” for not standing up to the U.S. government
(Sohu.com, 2020).
As a company embracing a global identity, ByteDance nevertheless has been caught
between the two states: Amid escalating geopolitical tensions, the company paradox-
ically is viewed as “too Chinese” in places like the United States and India, and “not
Chinese enough” in China. This situation poses a challenge to existing literature on
the digital company’s globalization. Chen (2022) illustrated, using Zoom as a case
study, that boundary work strategies such as geofencing, corporate restructuring, and
emphasizing American identity can help maintain legitimacy and trustworthiness.
However, the ByteDance case raises questions about these strategies’ effectiveness
and limitations as digital platforms and states become more intertwined. As Qiu (2023)
argued, neoliberal models focusing on corporate interests gradually are taken over
by an offensive realism in which states pursue hegemony and constantly battle with
each other. Therefore, to understand ByteDance’s globalization conundrum fully, we
need to examine critically how it navigates relations with various states, an endeavor
that we undertake in the following sections.

Embracing the Silicon Valley model: ByteDance’s political economy

To understand how ByteDance positions itself nationally and globally, it is critical to
unpack the company’s political economy—including product development, investor
profile, corporate structure, and governance—which clarifies the “multifaceted ways
that power can be exercised” (Birkinbine et al., 2017, p. 6). In doing so, we echo the
aforementioned argument that ByteDance purposely has shaped itself as a global,
rather than national, company along its growth path by embracing the Silicon Valley
model, i.e. a model epitomized by enormous venture capital investments and mergers
and acquisitions (M&A) (Klingler-Vidra, 2018; Wu, 2024). This is reflected in its patterns
of product development, funding series, investor profiles and board composition.
ByteDance, following the commonly recognized Silicon Valley model, has engaged
actively with diverse venture capital firms, investment banks, commercial banks, and
public relations and lobbying agencies—all important actors in the complex networks
of global information technology industries (Ferrary & Granovetter, 2009; Kushida, 2024).
Upon reaching maturity in the Chinese market, ByteDance adopted a diversification
strategy through M&A to stretch its business coverage—typical with the rise of digital
giants. The company launched an aggressive global expansion in 2016 when it acquired
a primary stake in Babe, an Indonesian news app. In 2017, ByteDance formed a strategic
alliance with Cheetah Mobile and acquired Flipagram, an Instagram-like visual storytelling
app, and Musical.ly, a video social networking company (Cheetah Mobile, 2017). However,
the most significant development was the launch and expansion of TikTok. According
to TikTok Creator Marketplace (TikTok, 2023a), the app currently is available in over 150
countries, with more than 50 language choices. Aside from TikTok, ByteDance launched
several products for overseas markets, including social media apps in India, workplace
collaboration platform Feishu in Singapore and Japan, and an e-commerce platform in
Europe (ByteDance, 2023; Sayers, 2022; Yadav, 2020).
 Chinese Journal of Communication 7

For a company expanding so rapidly within a decade, ByteDance had to secure

sufficient funding to be sustainable. Since the infant stage, it has attracted global—
notably U.S.—investors, modelling its practices on those of leading transnational
digital giants, as venture capital is one of the most important drivers for growing
technology companies (Ferrary & Granovetter, 2009; Kushida, 2024; Tang, 2023). Table
1 lists the 12 funding rounds ByteDance has gone through so far, raising an estimated
$9.5 billion altogether.
While major tech companies routinely have depended on a global network of
venture capital and investment banks, the table reveals that ByteDance has a more
diverse range of investors than other top-tiered Chinese Internet companies, such as
Tencent and Alibaba. Compared with them, ByteDance has gone through more funding
rounds with many more investors from locations outside of China. Specifically, lead
investors in ByteDance include a mix of well-established venture investors in the
technology industry, primarily from the United States and China, many of whom have
made successful investments in other digital startups or unicorns. This has exemplified
the growth trajectory of Silicon Valley-based U.S. companies with “the river of capital
flowing into the tech industry” (O’Mara, 2020, p. 179). Notably, one of ByteDance’s
earliest and biggest investors, Jeff Yass—co-founder of the Susquehanna International
Group (SIG)—with an estimated 15% stake in ByteDance, is a well-known supporter
of and megadonor to the Republican Party. This brings the company closer to the
U.S. politico-economic system, another common practice among U.S. tech giants
(McMorrow et al., 2024). During ByteDance’s 12 funding rounds, the lead investors
shifted from being primarily Chinese during the first four rounds to more U.S.-based
and global during later rounds. This reflects ByteDance’s efforts to brand itself as a
global, rather than Chinese, company.
In terms of corporate governance, Zhang Yiming, stepped down from his lead-
ership position in 2021 (Wang, 2023). Currently, the company has five board

Table 1. ByteDance’s total funding rounds (Source: adapted from Crunchbase, 2023).
Funding round Year Lead investors and country of origin Amount raised in USD
Series A 2012 SIG China, wholly owned subsidiary of Susquehanna $5 million
International Group (SIG), U.S.
Series B 2013 SIG China, wholly owned subsidiary of Susquehanna (undisclosed)
International Group (SIG), U.S.
Source Code Capital, China.
Series C 2014 Sequoia Capital China, China $100 million
Series D 2017 CCB International, the international investment arm of $1 billion
China Construction Bank, China
Sequoia Capital China, China
Private equity 2017 General Atlantic, U.S. $2 billion
Venture 2018 New Enterprise Associates, U.S. (undisclosed)
Series E 2018 General Atlantic, U.S. $3 billion
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, U.S.
Primavera Capital Group, Hong Kong
SoftBank Vision Fund, U.K.
Debt financing 2019 Goldman Sachs, U.S. $1.3 billion
Morgan Stanley, U.S.
Venture 2019 (undisclosed) (undisclosed)
Secondary market 2020 Tiger Global Management, U.S. (undisclosed)
Private equity 2020 Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Japan, Japan $2 billion
Sequoia Capital, U.S.
Secondary market 2023 G42, UAE $100 million
8 M. TANG AND L. SONG

members, who, with extensive institutional experience and corporate connections,

represent a transnational capitalist class adept in the U.S.-led neoliberal order. There
are two Chinese board members: Rubo Liang, who represents ByteDance, and Neil
Shen, founder of Sequoia China and a long-established Chinese billionaire venture
capitalist with prominent investments in several Chinese and global tech companies
who recently has been reported to have acquired permanent residency in Singapore
(Ruehl, 2024). The remaining three board seats are held by Americans who represent
the primary interests of U.S. investors who helped finance the company and provide
connections to complex Silicon Valley networks (Ferrary & Granovetter, 2009)
(Table 2).
From a news-aggregating platform in China to a digital conglomerate worldwide
known for TikTok, its short-video app, ByteDance’s development exemplifies trans-
nationalization through financialization, an approach synthesized by political econ-
omy scholars as a common practice by non-U.S companies that actively embrace
global financial capital and aggressively diversify and capitalize cross-platform
services (Tang, 2023). In doing so, ByteDance followed the U.S.-based Silicon Valley
model through its large-scale M&A activities, as well as its diverse investor profiles
and board member selection. The notion of ByteDance being a “Chinese company”
is challenged and complicated by its corporate structure, investor portfolio, and
board profiles, which are substantially global and particularly American. ByteDance’s
links to transnational, (particularly U.S.) financial and technological sectors—typical
of the nature of and trends in digital capitalism—required the company to be
responsible, first and foremost, to the interests of its investors and board of
directors, who belong to a transnational capitalist class, rather than a particular
state’s interests.

Table 2. ByteDance board members and corporate interlocks (ByteDance, 2023).

Name and position Corporate interlocks Net worth Residence
Rubo Liang, Chairman of Co-founder of the company; tech lead $2 billion Beijing, China
the board of Jinri Toutiao and Douyin
Arthur Dantchik, Board Co-founder and managing director of $7.3 billion Pennsylvania, U.S.
member SIG; co-founder and director of the
Claws Foundation, a U.S.
philanthropic organization for
fundraising and donations
William E. Ford, Board CEO of General Atlantic; board member NA New York, U.S. (only office
member of Sierra Space; board member of location is available)
BlackRock; chair of Rockefeller
University
Philippe Laffont, Board Founder and portfolio manager of $6.1 billion New York, U.S.
member Coatue Management; previous
significant investments include Snap,
Spotify and Zoom; worked previously
at McKinsey & Co. and Tiger
Management LLC
Neil Shen, Board member Founding and managing partner of $3.8 billion Hong Kong, China
Sequoia Capital China; co-founder of
Ctrip.com and Homeinns Hotel
Group; previous significant
investments include Alibaba,
Meituan, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Qihoo
360 and DJI
 Chinese Journal of Communication 9

Navigating relations with the (U.S.) state

In the previous sections, we examined ByteDance’s aspirations to become a global
platform company discursively, structurally, and political economically. Now we dive
into its dealings with nation-states, aiming to clarify further the nature of its identity
challenges. Many would recognize the Chinese and U.S. states as two distinct models
when it comes to the technology sector’s governance, with the former commonly
viewed as employing state-directed digital capitalism with tightening political control
over multinational platform companies (Lei, 2023; Qiu, 2023) and the latter perceived
as a “neoliberal small government and corporate-led model” (Qiu, 2023, p. 205).
However, in the case of TikTok, its relationship with both the state-directed Chinese
model and the capital-driven U.S. system is more complicated and dynamic. On one
hand, in line with its effort to globalize itself, the company has tried hard to prove
that it has no ties to the Chinese government under the otherwise well-known regime
of state capitalism. On the other hand, as it actively has embraced the U.S. venture
capital-driven Silicon Valley path for growth, TikTok has attempted to integrate polit-
ically into corporate America’s ecosystem and play by U.S. rules by Americanizing itself
in terms of corporate organization, personnel and hiring practices, and lobbying efforts.
TikTok Ltd. is registered in the Cayman Islands as the umbrella entity for TikTok’s
global businesses, effectively separating the company’s international business from
domestic operations in China (Spangler, 2020; Li, 2024). ByteDance released this
information in February 2023, ahead of a U.S. congressional hearing to demonstrate
the company’s global nature (Oreskovic, 2023). Under TikTok Ltd. (Cayman), four major
subsidiary branches oversee the businesses in the United Kingdom, United States,
Singapore, and other international markets. The primary body for the U.S. operation
is TikTok Inc. (US), which has been based in Culver City, California, since 2020 and
has office locations nationwide (TikTok, 2023b).
TikTok Inc. (US) employs managerial personnel who are well-connected to corporate
America. The first known move in this vein was the hiring of Vanessa Pappas, a former
YouTube head of audience development who joined ByteDance as a strategic advisor
in 2018 and became the Chief Operations Officer (COO) for TikTok in May 2021 (Radloff,
2021). Another high-profile appointment took place in May 2020, when Kevin Mayer,
a top executive at Disney, announced his new position as the Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) of TikTok and COO of ByteDance (Barnes & Nicas, 2020). Mayer resigned in
August that same year amid the turbulence over a proposed ban. His successor as
CEO was Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean with a transnational education and work
experience that included various positions in world-leading venture investment firms
(Yong, 2023). Other top executives’ profiles (see Table 3) demonstrate TikTok’s deter-
mination to function like a U.S. company via well-connected Americans.
In response to the U.S. government’s mounting concerns over data security due
to TikTok’s presumed connections with the Chinese state, TikTok Inc. established a
new subsidiary, TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. (“USDS” for short), in May 2022, dedicated
to localizing U.S. user data and securing platform integrity (TikTok USDS, 2024). The
company established an independent entity following negotiations with the U.S.
government, specifically the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
(CFIUS), to resolve the committee’s probe into ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly
and to address Trump’Sohu.com, Sohu.com, s 2020 executive orders to ban the app
10 M. TANG AND L. SONG

and force TikTok to divest its U.S. operations (Kang et al., 2023). To resolve the three
major risks raised by CFIUS—“unauthorized access to data, state influence over content
and untrustworthy software and systems” (Perault & Sacks, 2023)—TikTok proposed
Project Texas to ensure secure storage of and access to U.S. user data in domestic
servers through a partnership with Oracle. TikTok USDS was created as the functioning
body to implement Project Texas, with an independent board of directors reporting
to CFIUS (Perault & Sacks, 2023). Upon its launch, TikTok USDS announced that 100%
of U.S. user traffic had been routed to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (TikTok USDS,
2024). Oracle also has been reviewing TikTok’s recommendation and moderation source
code since August 2022.
Another key aspect of the company’s political engagement in the United States is
its lobbying and public relations efforts to shift the contentious narrative around the
company. According to a United States Senate Lobbying Disclosure (2024), TikTok Inc.
spent $420,000 in lobbying in 2020. Since then, the company has increased its lob-
bying expenditures and activity. In 2021 and 2022, eight lobbying reports were filed
by the Washington D.C.-based Mehlman Consulting and Crossroads Strategies LLC, in
which TikTok Inc. was listed as the client (United States Senate Lobbying Disclosure,
2024). In 2023, three other strategic communication firms—Dentons US LLP, And
Partners LLC, and Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies—were registered to represent the
company (United States Senate Lobbying Disclosure, 2024). According to their disclo-
sures, in 2021 and 2022, TikTok spent $760,000 on lobbying, a number that grew to
$980,000 in 2023. In 2024, TikTok Inc. made $1.99 million in contributions to different
parties (United States Senate Lobbying Disclosure, 2024). While it is still too early to
tell whether TikTok’s lobbying money will pay off, these moves certainly signal a
strategy shift in what a New York Times report described as the company “going on
the offense” (Kang et al., 2023).
These actions demonstrated that ByteDance and TikTok have been learning the
U.S. model actively to facilitate the platform’s growth. However, when put through a
comparative lens, ByteDance’s U.S. counterparts dwarf it in terms of lobbying efforts
and state ties. For one thing, all the major U.S. digital giants either have spent mul-
tiple millions on lobbying or donated tremendously to politicians. Microsoft, according
to Birkinbine et al. (2017, p. 393), spent more than $8 million in 2014 alone on lob-
bying to influence legislation tied to taxes, immigration, and copyright, patent, and
trademark policy issues. Google, while vocally supporting and donating to the

Table 3. TikTok leadership profile.

Name Position at TikTok Year Joined Previous Experiences
Blake Chandlee President of global 2019 VP of Global Partnerships at Facebook
business solutions
Katie Riccio Puris Head of global brand and 2020 Global director of internal creative strategy
creative team Creative Shop at Facebook; prior
senior leadership roles at BBDO, Google and
Meta
Michael Beckerman Head of U.S. public policy 2020 President and CEO of Internet Association;
deputy work director and chief policy
advisor to the chairman of the U.S. House
Committee on Energy and Commerce;
Zenia Mucha Chief brand and 2023 Disney’s head of public relations
communications officer
 Chinese Journal of Communication 11

Democratic Party, spent $18 million on lobbying in 2017, one of the largest U.S.
government lobbyists that year (Lee, 2019). Similarly, Amazon and Facebook (now
Meta) spent $16 million and $17 million, respectively, on lobbying in 2019 (Brevini
& Swiatek, 2020, p. 34). Amazon and former CEO Jeff Bezos have made political con-
tributions to both the Republican and Democratic Parties through Amazon’s Political
Action Committee (Amazon PAC) and other Super PACs (Brevini & Swiatek, 2020, p. 35).
Furthermore, while these U.S. companies do not claim to have direct ties to the
U.S. government, they are not shy about their collaborations and contracts with state
entities. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a $9 billion cloud
contract for its IT modernization project jointly to four U.S. companies: Alphabet Inc.’s
Google; Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS); Microsoft; and Oracle (Reuters, 2022).
In early 2024, Google announced collaborations with the U.S. Air Force and DoD to
allow them to use its generative AI technologies and cloud computing applications
(Brown, 2024; Hannah & Najmi, 2024). Meta announced in November 2024 that it
opened its open-source AI model, Llama, to U.S. national security agencies and defense
contractors (Bhuiyan, 2024). Beyond the military realm, Apple has a dedicated Apple
Store for government institutions at different levels with customized purchase agree-
ments (Apple, 2024). All of these not only have consolidated the U.S. digital giants’
dominance in the capitalist marketplace further, but also served as an endorsement
by their government. Such relational ecology between U.S. technology companies
and the government may work differently than the Chinese state-directed model, but
it still demonstrates a state-approved U.S. tech ecosystem under the guise of
market-driven neoliberalism.
Such intimate relations with the U.S. state are something TikTok and ByteDance
can only dream of. Whereas the company managed to keep its U.S. businesses oper-
ating by carefully following the U.S. government’s orders, closely collaborating with
U.S. political and economic institutions, and learning to play by their rules, ByteDance
and TikTok have not integrated fully into the Silicon Valley model, of which a critical
element is built on the U.S. tech giants’ alliance with their home state. ByteDance’s
efforts to play by U.S. rules unfortunately remain superficial and are not sufficient to
tie itself to the core national interests of the U.S. state, as all the major U.S.-based
tech giants can secure some kind of government contracts in support of their state
military or national security info systems. Thus, as long as ByteDance cannot convince
U.S. politicians that TikTok Inc. (U.S.) is serving the interests of the U.S. state, and not
those of others, there is no solution to its conundrum.

Discussion
Unpacking ByteDance’s discursive and political economic efforts on its globalization
path clarifies the root of TikTok’s dilemma, as well as theoretically reconceptualizes
the state-tech relationship in the United States. Although TikTok responded to its U.S.
challenges by way of Americanizing itself in terms of corporate management—through
hiring practices, lobbying and public relations campaigns—such efforts’ effects have
proved limited. Despite being a “product” primarily of U.S.-led transnational digital
capitalism, TikTok cannot escape from its Chinese origin when capital and state inter-
ests clash. The ongoing controversy around TikTok in the United States poses the
12 M. TANG AND L. SONG

question of whether transnational capitalism trumps or serves the state. While TikTok
tries hard to play by the American rules like a Silicon Valley company, its political
economy and discursive efforts so far have not been sufficient to convince the U.S.
state that it is serving and prioritizing U.S. interests over other states’ interests. Only
when it has done so successfully can U.S.-approved digital capitalism embrace it fully.
For now, despite all of its endeavors to globalize and Americanize itself, it remains
an outsider in the U.S. state’s eyes.
Theoretically, this adds another dimension to the existing political economy anal-
ysis of media organizations in the political profile. Current scholarship tends to focus
more on ownership and control, as well as board member profiles and lobbying
efforts. When examining a company’s political aspects in the broad political economy
system, as this case reminds us, it is equally important to investigate its ties to state
entities. As an aspect easily overlooked in the presumed capital-led neoliberal system
in the United States, technology companies’ ties to the U.S. state, particularly to the
“military-digital complex,” shed greater light on the substantial connections that U.S.
digital giants share with the U.S. government (McChesney, 2013). This is a crucial,
yet understudied, element of the Silicon Valley model, on which venture capital’s
central role is highlighted (Ferrary & Granovetter, 2009; Klingler-Vidra, 2018). In a
detailed record of Silicon Valley history, O’Mara (2020) demonstrated that government
funding and sponsorship always have been key drivers of technological innovation.
Critical political economist McChesney also pointed out the “central role that military
spending has played in bankrolling technology in the United States since the 1940s,”
a phenomenon he termed the digital-military complex (McChesney, 2013, pp. 100–
101). As Kushida (2024, p. 13) insightfuly wrote, “the Department of Defense became
critical to the Silicon Valley ecosystem’s industrial foundation” since the 1950s, i.e.
U.S. digital capitalism ultimately is shepherded and approved by the U.S. state.
To compare what ByteDance has done on both the Chinese and U.S. fronts, it down-
plays its connections to state entities on the Chinese front while simultaneously embrac-
ing what it perceives as the Silicon Valley model, which prioritizes venture capital links
and neoliberal organizational operations, attempting to integrate itself into the U.S.
techno-state ecosystem. ByteDance’s dilemma reflects the challenge of transnational
digital capitalism as the world shifts from a neoliberal to a neorealist order. With states
asserting greater control over digital infrastructure and data governance, transnational
capital finds itself navigating a fragmented landscape in which market logic alone is
no longer sufficient. On the surface, TikTok is caught between China and the United
States in a Second Cold War. However, in reality, TikTok’s conundrum illustrates how
growing entanglements between capital and the state are reshaping platform global-
ization through major state actors’ geopolitical interests and security agendas.

Conclusion
The dilemma faced by ByteDance highlights the need to think beyond dichotomous
“models” and focus on state-capital relationships to fully account for the broader
challenges confronting digital platforms as they strive to balance global expansion
with states’ increasingly assertive role in the digital realm. As ByteDance and TikTok
continue to grapple with their identity and allegiances, their future serves as a
 Chinese Journal of Communication 13

bellwether for understanding global digital platforms’ evolving landscape and the
intensifying state-capital nexus.
The TikTok case also demonstrates the intricacies of global platform governance,
in which state and private power become increasingly intertwined, with states pres-
suring online platforms and intermediaries to implement and enforce public policies
(Bloch-Wehba, 2019, p. 30). Focusing on macro-level state-capital interactions from a
political economy perspective, this study has demonstrated how both U.S. and Chinese
states’ techno-nationalist orientations have become fundamental in shaping digital
platforms’ global development and identity. Future research could delve into how the
intensifying state-capital nexus identified in this article impacts digital platforms’
algorithm and user data policies, as well as how other stakeholders, such as nongov-
ernmental and civil society organizations, participate in this evolving digital capitalism.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors
Min Tang is an Associate Teaching Professor in media and communication studies at the
University of Washington Bothell. Her research examines information communication technol-
ogies (ICTs) as dynamic sites of capitalist reproduction, power negotiations, policy debates, and
geopolitical rivalries. Email: [email protected]
Lin Song is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Melbourne. His research
examines the interplay among gender, sexual, and cultural identities in and beyond Chinese
mediascapes. Email: [email protected]

ORCID
Lin Song http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5517-7810

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