As far as seating arrangements go, the inauguration’s was pretty telling.
‘Is that really the CEO of TikTok sitting next to the next Director of National Intelligence — Tulsi Gabbard — at President Trump’s inauguration? Evidently, yes,’ observed Rush Doshi, Director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations.

As one of Trump’s personally invited guests at the slimmed-down ceremony — freezing weather required it be held indoors — Shou Zi Chew was slated to attend no less than three victory functions.
The TikTok CEO has much to celebrate and plenty of reasons to feel grateful for Trump's political rebirth, propelled by the app’s young users.
As President Trump sat down at his desk in the Oval Office, he signed a trove of Executive Orders, including one that reprieves Apple and Google from imposing the TikTok ban under the law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court.
Trump thinks he can broker a deal to water down Chinese ownership.
‘Essentially with TikTok I have the right to sell it or close it,’ Trump said.
‘I could see making a deal where the US gets 50 per cent of TikTok, polices it a little bit, or a lot — depends on them.
‘There’s so many different products made in China and nobody every complained, the only one they complained about is TikTok.
‘I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok that I didn’t have orginally.’
Trump banned TikTok in his first iteration as President but since losing, and finding electoral success on the application in the lead-up to last November’s presidential election, as well as a donor in a major TikTok investor, he has a convert’s zeal.
‘As of today TikTok is back,’ Trump told a rapturous rally in Washington DC ahead of his inauguration.
‘Can you believe what I'll do to win an election?
‘We went on TikTok and Republicans have never won the young vote, the youth vote – they win a lot of votes but they never won the youth vote – we won the youth vote by 36 points.
‘So I like TikTok. I like it. I like it.
‘I had a slightly good experience. Wouldn’t you say?’
TikTok was equally grateful.
‘As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US,’ read the message that greeted users after the app was rebooted.
Hours earlier it had staged a stunt in ‘going dark’ in the US.
ByteDance did not have to render TikTok offline to comply with the new law that ordered the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to part ways with the social media platform or face a gradual shutdown from January 19 that would begin with Apple and Google not providing updates to the app over time.
Congress’s intent was not for a TikTok ban but for it to be operated by an American company and not one linked to the CCP, which could harvest the data and use it for hostile purposes against its superpower rival, as well as promote misinformation and narratives that deliberately sow division and further polarisation.
TikTok is forbidden in China, along with US social media sites X, YouTube, and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.
So rather than sell and expose its algorithm to an American owner, something ByteDance had 270 days to do before the inauguration-eve deadline, the company chose to turn off the addictive short-form video app to the outrage of influencers, presumably in the knowledge that Trump would be their saviour.
This became true on inauguration day when Trump decided that one of his first actions back in office would be to keep a Chinese-owned viral video app running despite Congress and the Supreme Court saying it was a national security risk. Trump argued that he did not believe that of all the military equipment China produces TikTok was not the biggest problem as he said it was harvesting the data of primarily young users.
He did not impose the long-threatened 60 per cent tariffs on China and said he would be holding meetings and calls with Xi. By contrast, he said he was thinking of imposing 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feburary 1.
For a President who won on the back of bread-and-butter issues of inflation, migration and decay in law and order, the priority given on his first day in power to saving a Chinese social media platform – given it was he who in 2016 established the political faultline on unfair Chinese competition and dominance – is puzzling.
And it raises the question, is Trump 2.0 the great China hawk after all?
This is what worries those working behind the scenes in allied and partner governments around the world, who struggle to convince politicians, colleagues, businesses and voters that they need to pay a price to help the US constrain the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) dominance over vital manufacturing and next-generation industries, as well as upholding the ‘rules-based order’ that China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are intent on upending.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Latika Takes to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.