According to CBS News, TikTok is currently fighting the ban in court, having lost a bid to block the ban last week is appealing the case to the Supreme Court…reports Asian Lite News
Chinese President Xi Jinping is not likely to attend US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20, despite receiving an invitation from him, according to two sources familiar with the planning, CBS News reported.
However, China’s ambassador to the US and his spouse are expected to attend the event, following standard diplomatic protocol, it reported, adding that other officials from Beijing may also join them.
According to CBS News, inauguration officials have designated staff to handle diplomatic protocol at the festivities.
However, the Chinese embassy in Washington has declined to comment on the matter, and also the Trump transition did not reply to a request for comment, a per CBS News.
Meanwhile, Trump said on Thursday morning (local time), “We have a good relationship with China. I have a good relationship. We’ve been talking and discussing with President Xi some things.”
He declined to go into detail and was not asked specifically about Xi and the inauguration.
The invitation comes at an already tense time in the US-China relationship.The US intelligence community recently disclosed a far-reaching hack of eight US telecom companies, assessing that Chinese actors had accessed the metadata of potentially millions of Americans, including high-ranking officials like Vice President-elect JD Vance.
The president-elect’s team is gearing up to host several world leaders at the Capitol in January.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has a warm relationship with Trump and visited him at Mar-a-Lago this week, is “still considering” whether to attend, as per CBS News.
“World leaders are lining up to meet with President Trump because they know he will soon return to power and restore peace through American strength around the globe,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.
Recently, Trump has threatened to increase tariffs on goods imported from China, adding that the US government has set a deadline of January 19, the eve of Trump’s inauguration, for TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the social media app or face a ban in the US.
According to CBS News, TikTok is currently fighting the ban in court, having lost a bid to block the ban last week is appealing the case to the Supreme Court.
Notably, in a historic political comeback, Trump won a second term as President of the United States after securing 295 electoral votes in the 2024 presidential election, defeating Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, who garnered 226 votes.
Trump’s return to the White House marks only the second time in US history that a president has served two non-consecutive terms. The first such instance was Grover Cleveland, who served as president in 1884 and 1892. Trump had earlier served as US President from 2016 to 2020.
Trump taps election denier to head Voice of America
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday appointed election denier Kari Lake to be the new director of Voice of America, the state-funded international media organization.
VOA has reach around the world, with programming in a slew of African, Asian and European languages, including Somali, Dari and French.
It receives US funding but is generally considered a reliable, independent media operation, covering global and US news for international audiences.
However, previous leadership under Trump’s first administration came under fire for politicizing the outlet.
Lake, a former television news anchor, is a hardline conservative who ran in 2022 as the Republican candidate for governor of the southwestern state of Arizona and for US Senate in 2024, losing both times.
She has repeatedly refused to accept her past election defeats, as well as Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
As he prepares to take office in January, Trump’s staffing announcements have consisted of close allies.
“I am pleased to announce that Kari Lake will serve as our next Director of the Voice of America,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social website.
“She will be appointed by, and work closely with, our next head of the US Agency for Global Media… to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media.”
In his first term, Michael Pack, Trump’s head of the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, raised concerns when he moved in 2020 to strip an internal firewall at the organization meant to insulate the newsroom from political interference.
A VOA White House reporter was also investigated for supposed anti-Trump biases during Trump’s first administration.
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