Fifteen days after the end of his term, US President Donald Trump stepped up the offensive against Chinese technology by signing a decree against eight requests in the name of “national security.”
The decree signed on Tuesday prohibits any transaction with these applications “from anyone dependent on the jurisdiction of the United States” within 45 days.
It is a new front in the technological rivalry with China, whose innovative applications now have global ambitions.
Beijing keeps a close eye on the internet and blocks sites considered politically sensitive. Nicknamed “the big computer wall”, this system enabled him to become digital champions, in the absence of US competitors – such as Google, Facebook or Twitter – blocked in their territory.
While some of the eight apps are popular abroad, others are mainly used by Chinese.
WeChat Pay, as simple as a scanner
It is an essential payment service in China, increasingly replacing the use of cash. This electronic wallet is integrated into WeChat (Tencent group), the email most used by the Chinese.
Even in the most remote corners, even in the markets to pay small amounts, the Chinese use WeChat Pay.
Transactions are made by scanning a QR code with your mobile phone, and money can also be transferred to your contacts.
WeChat has 1.2 billion active users. Although the application, mainly Chinese, is also available in about twenty languages.
QQ, more than Chinese MSN
Like WeChat, QQ belongs to the giant Tencent. Launched in 1999, this application was the first successful email in the country.
The program was largely based on MSN Messenger from the American Microsoft. QQ is in a way the predecessor of WeChat, later developed specifically for smartphones.
QQ, which also has an email service, has since adapted to the mobile era (video conferencing, QQ Wallet payment platform).
The application remains popular in China in the professional field, claiming more than 768 million active users, mostly Chinese.
Alipay, stronger than PayPal
Owned by online trading giant Alibaba, founded by billionaire Jack Ma, Alipay is the world’s largest payments platform.
Like WeChat Pay, the main competitor in China, Alipay allows you to pay for your purchases through a mobile application with QR codes.
This system is present in more than 80 million stores and is used by more than 700 million people every month, according to the company’s figures.
Alipay reports an annual transaction volume of more than 118 trillion yuan (about 17.7 trillion dollars, 14.4 trillion euros), that is, five times more than the US giant PayPal.
CamScanner, digitization specialist
Scan documents with your mobile phone, convert photo elements to text or “debug” scanned documents into high resolution files. CamScanner offers a number of scanning tools and solutions for saving and sharing files.
CamScanner was developed by the Chinese INTSIG, specializing in recognition technologies (face, speech and identity documents), which claims more than 300 million users worldwide.
In 2019, Russian computer antivirus publisher Kaspersky discovered a malicious program in CamScanner. India, for its part, banned the app in the name of security last year, along with more than 200 other Chinese apps.
VMate, a clone of TikTok
Played dances or songs, filmed challenges, the application allows, just like TikTok, which conquered teens all over the world before it was also in the crosshairs of the United States, to create and share short videos.
Launched in 2017 with the support of Alibaba, targeting the massive Indian market, VMate is very popular in India but is now also on the list of banned Chinese apps in the country.
SHAREit, sharing without limits
Movies, photos, music and even text documents. SHAREit is a shared content application that accepts files of all sizes.
It allows you to quickly share large files on all types of devices (smartphones, computers or tablets) without using an internet connection and keep the original quality.
Main advantage of the application: the confidentiality of the exchanges, which in principle cannot be intercepted by a third party.
Available in 45 languages, SHAREit has 1.8 billion users in 200 countries and regions.
WPS Office, alternative to Microsoft
It is the Chinese alternative to the popular Microsoft Office program (Word, Excel). Founded in 1989, the company with approximately 2,000 employees claims more than 1 billion users worldwide and has subsidiaries in the United States and Singapore.