Drawing boundaries of pursuit and response of digital rise: TikTok as a friction space of techplomacy

Sino-U.S. tech rivalry is the climax of conflict in digital geopolitics today. It illustrates the indispensable role of communication(s) in sustaining or altering the U.S.-led capitalist international order. Over the past four years, the TikTok ban has evolved into a prolonged debate over the complex relationship between platforms, data, and international politics. This paper focuses on why and how TikTok geopoliticized and emerged as a central battleground between the U.S. and China, by examining digital friction through the lens of techplomacy. The geopoliticization of TikTok reflects changes in technological relations between great powers. It is situated within an adversarial framework: innovation imperatives of the rising state versus security imperatives of the dominant state, which is accelerating the global tech bifurcation. Through the argumentation on TikTok, this paper identifies three boundaries of productive tension in the pursuit and response to digital rise, as manifested in three interrelated domains: national institutional issues underlying data security and technological capabilities, the balancing of domestic interests, and global power struggle in the cybersphere.