Liz Truss Photo: Xinhua

UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss is reportedly making a last-ditch attempt to torpedo Prime Minister Boris Johnson's earlier decision welcoming China's digital information giant ByteDance to set up TikTok's global headquarters in London. 

As is known to all, the UK economy swooned amid the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic, contracting by a jaw-dropping 20 percent from April to June compared with a year earlier. Coupled with the Brexit blunder, the country is seeing thousands of businesses being shut down and the jobless rate skyrocketing to historic highs. 

The Johnson government has every reason to feel elated that ByteDance chooses London to set up its global office for TikTok, a massively popular short-video sharing platform with more than 2 billion subscribers worldwide, which will create thousands crucially needed jobs in the city.  

However, China hawks like Truss in Johnson's cabinet are unhappy, just because TikTok is owned by a Chinese internet company. Those hawks wouldn't blink if TikTok was from America, belonging to US technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google or Apple. 

The Johnson government has already drawn the wrath of the Chinese people, by reversing its previous stance on Huawei's 5G equipment. Under the coercion of the Trump administration, the British government gave in, deciding that British telecom operators should stop using Huawei's 5G gear starting January 1, 2021, and all Huawei's 5G equipment would be excluded from UK telecom networks from 2027. 

That policy change, discriminatory as it is, will hamstring Huawei, as the leading Chinese technology company has made tens of millions of pounds investment in the British market. Another reversal of stance on TikTok by Johnson's cabinet will upset and anger many in China, battering the already frayed bilateral relationship. 

We used to think Great Britain was a nation of principle, reason and integrity, not one heeding each domineering instruction from the White House, which has shamelessly ordered TikTok's US operations to be sold to an American company within 90 days. 

If the UK authorities this time turn their back on TikTok or even oust it, Beijing should voice China's strong displeasure, by discouraging Chinese companies and Chinese tourists from entering the UK, or by moving to postpone indefinitely bilateral trade and investment talks.