US wants to have Chinese apps removed from App Store and Play Store

The United States government has presented a plan to ban apps from Chinese parent companies from the App Store for iOS and the Play Store for Android. In addition, there are more far-reaching measures regarding tech from China.

The US government, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, says Chinese-made apps are a threat. “Those apps threaten our privacy and spread viruses, propaganda and disinformation.”

The removal of Chinese apps is part of the Clean Network initiative to ban Chinese companies from the American tech industry. Pompeo announced five initiatives. In addition to banning Chinese apps, American companies must remove their apps from the Huawei App Gallery. Pompeo calls Huawei “an arm of the surveillance state of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The program also mentions that the US government wants Huawei to no longer be involved in the construction of submarine internet cables, in order to provide the possibility to tap connections. The American watchdog FCC should also revoke the permission of Chinese companies to facilitate mobile traffic between the US and other countries.

The points in the plan are not yet laws. Pompeo does call on other countries to also adopt and implement these rules, in order to build a ‘clean network’. It is unknown how other countries react to this. China has not yet responded to the presentation of the plan either.

The points build on a line that the US government has been drawing for some time. For example, the US wants to ban TikTok from mid-September, American companies are not allowed to do business with Huawei and American providers are not allowed to buy network equipment from Chinese companies.