BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. federal judge on Sunday blocked the Trump administration's ban on downloading TikTok, delivering a blow to Washington's ill-founded national security accusations against the popular video-sharing app.

In recent weeks, Washington's heavy-handed cracking down on TikTok has laid bare the recklessness and hypocrisy of America's blatant modern-day piracy against outperforming foreign enterprises.

Be it a forced sale or an unreasonable download ban, the White House has scrambled to justify its witch-hunt against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance by resorting to the flimsy fig leaf of national security.

However, according to The New York Times, even the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that there is no evidence showing China has intercepted TikTok's data, or used the app to intrude on users' mobile phones.

By unscrupulously abusing state power to oppress the Chinese company on some trumped-up charges, some U.S. politicians have openly discarded the principles of market economy and fair competition, which they have always flaunted.

For Washington, fair competition is favored only if the United States is leading or winning. When a competent rival appears on the horizon, the U.S. state machine will ruthlessly intervene to ensure the edges of American firms and the inferiority of those potential non-U.S. challengers. And when Washington takes aim at a target, no matter how despicable it may seem, no measure is off limits.

In fact, it is nothing new for Washington to use its state power to suppress foreign companies by means of coercion and intimidation, to which Japan's semiconductor giant Toshiba and the French conglomerate Alstom both fell prey.

In recent years, other Chinese high-tech enterprises, including Huawei and ZTE, have also become victims of U.S. state-sponsored persecution that seeks to bend free market rules at U.S. will.

The White House has threatened to shut down TikTok's operations in the United States, and then forced it to sell itself to American companies. However, any TikTok deal reached under U.S. coercion is by no means a rules-based commercial transaction.

Beijing has urged Washington to foster an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for foreign companies. The U.S. side should not underestimate Beijing's determination to continue taking all necessary measures to firmly safeguard Chinese companies' rights and interests.

The age of the law of the jungle where the strong bully the weak has long gone. In this era of globalization, no one can develop itself by suppressing the development of others. Any attempt by Washington to pursue technological hegemony is doomed to failure. Its state-sponsored piracy will only lead the United States to a dead end. Enditem

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