The other Chinese apps taking the US and UK by storm by googlenewz

 TikTok, the most popular free app in the US, has in recent days been making headlines not for its content but for alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party.

Shou Zi Chew, its boss, made an appearance before politicians from the United States in Congress, where he answered hostile questions about the app's data access by China and its parent company, ByteDance.

However, the platform is far from the only mobile app owned by China to gain market share in Western countries.

Another three of the top ten free mobile apps in the United States, according to Apptopia, an analytics company, are also owned by Chinese companies. Additionally, two of them rank among the UK's most downloaded.

What exactly are these apps, and what makes them so popular in China?

CapCut

According to Sensor Tower, the video editing app CapCut was downloaded 13 million times in February alone. It is frequently promoted as a companion editor for TikTok content creators.

The video editing tool has a number of features designed to make your videos go viral, like adding popular songs, filters, and special effects. It is optimized for mobile editing on the go.

ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, also owns CapCut.

Shein

Forbes reports that Shein, a global fashion brand established in 2012, is valued at nearly $15 billion.

It has its headquarters in Singapore and was established by Chinese billionaire Chris Xu.

On TikTok and Instagram, a quick search for the hashtag #Shein will bring up hundreds of videos from well-known influencers praising their most recent #Sheinhaul. It utilizes online entertainment to target GenZ clients with many new items day to day for minimal price costs.

Temu

This shopping app has been available in the United States for less than a year, but it has already surpassed Walmart and Amazon.

The online superstore lets customers buy directly from the Chinese manufacturer and sells everything from clothing to electronics.

After the company ran an advertisement during this year's Super Bowl, many Americans started asking, "Is Temu legit?" because the prices are so low.

Although the company is based in Boston, Massachusetts, it is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings, a Chinese-owned online retailer that focuses on direct-to-consumer products.

Experts claim that the fierce competition in China's domestic market, where US apps are banned, is partly to blame for Chinese apps' success in the US.

Zeyi Yang, a Chinese technology-focused journalist and MIT Review researcher, stated, "The tech companies from China have had such an intense period of competition at home that has made them as good or better, in some ways, than American apps."

Additionally, these Chinese companies have led the way in the creation of highly individualized recommendation algorithms, such as those utilized by TikTok and the instant messaging app WeChat.

Although TikTok is the first app owned by China to achieve significant global success, US lawmakers and experts on national security have expressed concern that apps owned by China could be subject to data privacy violations and censorship from the Chinese Communist Party.

The European Commission, the United Kingdom, and Canada have all banned TikTok from government employees' phones due to the same concern.

According to Paul Scharre, author of the book Four Battlegrounds: "How the US and other democratic countries address the challenge of Chinese apps like TikTok breaking outside of China has really profound consequences for free speech and the freedom of information globally," In the era of artificial intelligence, power.

Mr. Scharre stated that there are no such channels in China, whereas US-based tech companies like Apple have waged lengthy legal battles to prevent government requests for their users' data.

"By the day's end, assuming the Chinese Socialist Faction tells [a Chinese-claimed company], they need to follow through with something, they don't have a choice", he said.

TikTok manager Shou Zi Bite tried to console legislators about security worries by making sense of there is a "firewall" to safeguard Americans.

TikTok stated in a statement it sent to the BBC that foreign governments could not access US user data. The other apps were also contacted by the BBC for feedback.

According to Mr. Scharre, regardless of which nation owns an app, it could be vulnerable to data breaches until comprehensive data privacy laws are enacted by US lawmakers.

"There is a risk of an automatic response that anything Chinese is terrible," he said.

"People ought to be skeptical of all apps, in my opinion. Without fully understanding what they are accepting, what information that company is pulling, or how they are using it, people give up a lot of data on their phones.