TikTok digs in to fight U.S. ban with 170 million users at stake [Video]

Four years ago, when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok in the U.S., its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. worked out a preliminary deal to sell the short video app’s business. Not this time.

Once again, the U.S. government is aiming to shut down TikTok unless it’s divested from Beijing-based ByteDance. But the company has made clear it has no intention of selling. Indeed, TikTok’s management vowed in an internal memo to staff “we will move to the courts for a legal challenge” if the bill winding its way through Congress is signed into law.

That sets the stage for a watershed legal battle between the U.S. government and the offspring of a $240 billion startup that’s come to define China’s growing technological muscle. The outcome could define the business landscape for Chinese companies like Tencent Holdings Ltd. and PDD Holdings Inc.’s Temu with growing U.S. ambitions. And it’s …