By Ben Jiang

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ByteDance will proceed with a deal to keep TikTok’s operations in the US in line with “the requirements of Chinese laws”, the social media giant said in a Chinese-language post on WeChat early on Saturday, hours after a call between President Xi Jinping and American counterpart Donald Trump.
But in a subsequent English-language post on X, which is barred in China, the Beijing-based tech unicorn – owner of short video platforms TikTok and Douyin – thanked both Xi and Trump “for their efforts to preserve TikTok in the United States”, adding that the company would “work in accordance with applicable laws to ensure TikTok remains available to American users”.
Replacing “Chinese laws” with “applicable laws” in the English statement reflects the delicate balance ByteDance must maintain between the US and China to ensure that the TikTok deal proceeds.
Still, the company did not specify in the two versions of its statement whether that deal would involve selling a part of TikTok’s operations in the US to American investors.
After his Friday call with Xi, Trump suggested a TikTok deal was sealed, but when pressed later, he stopped short of confirming that US investors would have full control of the app’s Chinese algorithm.
“It’s all being worked out. We’re going to have very good control,” Trump said when asked if he would accept a deal where China controls the algorithm. He added that American investors, who were “very famous people”, would be in charge.

In an executive order issued on Tuesday, Trump extended the deadline for TikTok’s US shutdown for the fourth time in his second term to December 16.
Trump in March said that he was negotiating with four different possible buyers for TikTok’s operations in America.
Meanwhile, a readout from state-run news agency Xinhua that was published to the Chinese central government’s website on Friday evening did not signal that a deal was imminent.
It reiterated the Chinese government’s stance of respecting “the wishes of companies” and that firms conduct “business negotiations in line with market rules to reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations”.
Beijing also called on the US to provide an “open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment” for Chinese firms in its readout, adding that it will “support team from both sides to negotiate and properly resolve the TikTok issue”.
The call between Xi and Trump crystallised the most critical aspects of a potential TikTok arrangement, which is that China would claim jurisdiction on any TikTok deal in the US, according to Winston Ma, an adjunct professor on the digital economy at New York University.
“China is poised to exercise such regulatory review to have the final say,” Ma – author of The Digital War, a book on China’s rising tech power – told the South China Morning Post on Saturday.
Earlier this year, the Post reported that Chinese authorities seem to be easing their stance on a potential TikTok deal, paving the way for ByteDance to start talks with US investors.