China has signed off on the long-awaited transfer agreement for TikTok, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday, clearing a major hurdle in the effort to separate the app’s US operations from its Chinese parent, ByteDance.
“In Kuala Lumpur, we finalised the TikTok agreement in terms of getting Chinese approval, and I would expect that would go forward in the coming weeks and months, and we’ll finally see a resolution to that,” Bessent told Fox Business following President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
China’s Commerce Ministry confirmed earlier Thursday that it would “properly handle TikTok-related issues with the US,” adding that Beijing would work “to properly address issues related to TikTok.”
TikTok, which counts about 170 million users in the US, has not yet commented.
The app’s future has been uncertain since Congress passed a 2024 law ordering ByteDance to sell its US assets by January 2025 or face a nationwide ban. Last month, Trump approved a plan for a consortium of American and global investors to acquire TikTok’s US operations, saying the deal met national security standards.
Under Trump’s order, ByteDance would retain less than a 20 percent stake in TikTok US, with Americans holding the remaining shares. The new company’s seven-member board would include one ByteDance-appointed director and six American members. The app’s recommendation algorithm will be retrained and monitored by US security partners, operating under the control of the new joint venture.
Trump also delayed enforcement of the 2024 law until January 20, 2026, to give the companies time to finalise the transition.
US Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, has warned that any licensing deal allowing TikTok to continue using ByteDance’s algorithm “raises serious concerns.”
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