TikTok Photo: VCG

China's Foreign Ministry (FM) said on Monday that it hoped the US would respect the market economy and fair play, rebuking the US government's bullying tactics in cracking down on Chinese firms for baseless national security pretense.

"We hope the US could comply with international trade rules, providing an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for all foreign firms operating in the US," Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the FM, told a regular news briefing on Monday.

The remarks follow a US federal judge's ruling on Friday that Trump, who cited a threat to national security as the reason for his attack on TikTok, had exceeded his authority in invoking his emergency powers to impose sanctions against the Chinese video-sharing platform.

"The government's own descriptions of the national security threat posed by the TikTok app are phrased in the hypothetical," US District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania said in her opinion.

Wang said the foreign ministry has noticed the US judge's opinion.

This is not the first time that the US government has met a setback in its assault against TikTok.

US District Judge Carl Nichols temporarily blocked the Trump administration's ban on downloads of TikTok on September 27. The US federal government lodged an appeal in October that is scheduled to be heard on Wednesday, the day after the US presidential election on November 3. 

Global Times