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China The Almighty Buck

US Bans WeChat Pay, Alipay and Six More Chinese Payment Apps (appleinsider.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD from the cease-and-desist dept.
The Trump administration says that Chinese payment apps, including WeChat Pay, are a threat to national security. By Executive Order, all US transactions with these apps must cease within 45 days. AppleInsider reports: President Trump has issued an Executive Order banning US transactions with a range of Chinese payment platform apps from February 18, 2021. The order says this "aggressive action" must be taken because the apps have access to the data of a large number of users. "[The] pace and pervasiveness of the spread in the United States of certain connected mobile and desktop applications," says the Executive Order, "and other software developed or controlled by persons in the People's Republic of China, to include Hong Kong and Macau (China), continue to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States." "At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by these Chinese connected software applications," it continues.

The most prominent apps named are WeChat Pay and Alipay. The order also lists the lesser-known payment systems QQ Wallet, Tencent QQ, CamScanner, SHAREit, VMate, and WPS Office. US firms have 45 days from the date of the order to comply. However, the specifics of precisely which types of transactions are to be banned is yet to be announced. "The following actions shall be prohibited beginning 45 days after the date of this order, to the extent permitted under applicable law," says the order. "[Any] transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with persons that develop or control the following Chinese connected software applications, or with their subsidiaries."
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US Bans WeChat Pay, Alipay and Six More Chinese Payment Apps More

US Bans WeChat Pay, Alipay and Six More Chinese Payment Apps

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  • I'm okay with this (Score:5, Informative)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @06:32PM (#60904550)
    China doesn't hesitate to ban anything they don't like. I would never use any chinese payment service.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      These are used by Chinese tourists visiting the United States. By banning them the main loss will be American companies losing sales to tourists.

      I expect most will ignore it for now and wait to see what Biden does.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        Really? I've never seen businesses in the US that accept them as payment methods. Are they popular on the West Coast?

        The only time I've seen them used is by Chinese in the US paying for stuff for back in China, or sending money home.

      • Really? Someone from China comes to the USA and is looking to buy a snack, some batteries, a bottle of Tylenol, but don't because the retailer doesn't support some payment app or another? Don't they have cash? A credit card? Will people cancel their trip over it?

        Is this what people do in the USA? I'll see people use Apple Pay or whatever but if it doesn't work then they sigh or shrug, then they pull out some cash or a credit card. They don't walk away empty handed.

        • How exactly do these apps work? Do they have a US domiciled company and all the transactions go through the US banking system to process all the transactions? My guess is that they don't, and there are a lot of realistic concerns and issues if Chinese payment processor is letting US shops bypass the domestic financial system.
        • Chances are, most Chinese people don't have a credit card. If they do, chances are it is a UnionPay (a Chinese brand), and not a Visa or MasterCard that is widely accepted in the states. It is very hard to get a Visa or MasterCard in China. Yes, they'd have cash, but tourists may only be comfortable with carrying so much cash on hand; they may save the cash for necessary purchases that only accept cash, while purchases with Alipay and WeChat come straight out of their Chinese bank account, so they will be

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Tourists will bring some cash and cards of course, but if you make it really easy for them to pay using the same mobile apps that they use at home they are likely to spend more.

          It's basic economics. Any barrier, no matter how slight, to trade will inevitably reduce trade. Stuff like foreign currency conversion fees or the hassle of getting foreign cash are both barriers when compared to just using your phone exactly like you do at home.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wolfier ( 94144 )

        > main loss will be American companies

        Ween yourselves from easy Chinese money. Everything carries a cost. Ask the Australians who just recently learnt their lessons and the Canadians who just start to realise the same.

      • My business is in a tourist town in california so I have some personal experience.

        While I have taken payments thru these apps in the past, a ban is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on shopkeepers.

        The chinese tourists usually arrive by the tour bus load, with a tour guide/handler who shepherds them from store to store, and translates for them if needed, as well as helping them pay for their souvenirs. (They almost all have US dollars and freshly issued payment cards, but don't necessarily know the diffe

    • Who exactly gives a shit what you are OK with?

    • Why? Because I don't use them, but I do have a friend who is an insurance investigator. The scammers have moved to using those services for scamming (aka fleecing the rubes) because the Chinese don't appear to care as long as they get their cut.

  • How do they know (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2021 @06:36PM (#60904558)

    How will the US government know if I'm paying someone with WeChat Pay? If I'm using WeChat, the connection is encrypted. The US government doesn't know what I'm doing in the WeChat App. I could be playing a game or paying someone 50k USD. Are they banning WeChat?
    What if I'm an American in China and I use WeChat Pay?

    • I imagine it will affect bank payments, credit card payments to and from. I haven't used aliexpress in a while, but when I did a couple of years ago you could get some "free" money if you signed up to alipay (I didn't, but I assume some did).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        None of the buyer protections on Aliexpress are available unless you actually pay using Alipay. I expect this will see a lot of American customers exposed to more scams with no recompense available to them.
    • I'm not entirely sure how payments are reconciled within WeChat pay. If it involves any US bank I think that the payment could be stopped by order of the President.

  • the "orange man evil" trope has already beat out the "collecting personal data and shipping it overseas is bad" trope.

  • "A threat to national security"
    Since when does the government employ any of those apps?

    • There are threats to national security other than some foreign adversary getting some government secrets.

      If a nation can't provide it's onw food, fuel, clothing, or any of a number of critical commodities and is reliant on other nations for this then that is a threat to national security. A nation could be starved to death, at least economically, by a trade embargo.

      If a nation is seeing a foreign adversary suck up a bunch of bank account numbers then that can be used to mess with the economy. Or at least

  • "recent versions of the app shipped with an advertising library containing a malicious module. (...) the module extracts and runs another malicious module from an encrypted file included in the appâ(TM)s resources. This âoedroppedâ malware, in turn, is a Trojan downloader that downloads more malicious modules" https://www.kaspersky.com/blog... [kaspersky.com]

  • Some people (myself included) fear that President-elect Biden will follow the playbook of President "those jobs are gone" Obama and restart the upper-class pilfering of the lower and middle-class by sending their jobs to China and pocketing the difference. I think I understand President Trump's strategy here. Now that it's pretty sure he's on the way out he's playing cards he intended to use later, achieving a posture that he intended to arrive at if China didn't comply with our fair demands. Now the gam

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      All evidence points to Trump being Russian backed and Biden being China backed. Trump is not handing Biden a gift. Biden HAS to back off these else funding for 2022 midterm elections will dry up. Trump is leaving booby traps for Biden. Its very similar to Obama adding sanctions on Russia after his party lost the election and leaving booby traps for incoming Trump administration. If by chance a Biden official meets the Chinese ambassador and asks them to hold off on retaliation till Biden gets a chance to ba
  • I won't be surprised one bit that judges will be blocking that ban...

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @03:13AM (#60905916)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • This order of the Tangerine Shitgibbon will be nullified by Trump's impending arrest and impeachment for treasonable sedition, won't it?
  • That's sucks to hear that. Wish we could do something about it. There are a bunch of angular developers that idling around, but I've heard that this framework could be very profitable for both sides. Here is a link for you if you would like to learn more about it https://www.appfutura.com/blog... [appfutura.com]

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