Is TikTok a national security threat – or is the ban a smokescreen for superpower rivalry?

There is no evidence that TikTok is a vehicle for ongoing mass surveillance. Photograph: Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

If the Chinese-owned TikTok is deemed definitively by the US to be a national security threat, it is hard to see how the UK or other western countries could conclude differently.

But the fact that Donald Trump has walked into the White House talking of a reprieve for the video-sharing network, which restored its service in the US after going dark for a day, suggests something simpler is at work – Trumpian geopolitics.