The China lobby: TikTok parent boosts K-street spending tenfold

Alibaba and Tencent accelerated expenditures while Huawei cut 80%

Faced with the threat of being banned in the U.S., ByteDance, the parent of video app TikTok, significantly increased lobby spending. © Reuters

KAZUYUKI OKUDAIRA and TAKASHI KAWAKAMI, Nikkei staff writers

January 31, 2021 08:11 JST

PALO ALTO, U.S./GUANGZHOU -- Chinese tech companies spent more on U.S. lobby firms last year amid political and regulatory uncertainty, available data shows.

ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent of wildly popular video app TikTok, spent $2.61 million in 2020, a tenfold increase from the year before. Eager to push back against former President Donald Trump's intent to ban the app, the company hired 47 lobbyists to influence Congress, some 30 people more than 2019.