News - Middle East: China has urged the United States to stop "unreasonably suppressing" TikTok, after Washington and its allies took a hard approach to the app, which is owned by the Chinese firm Bytedance

.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin made remarks during a regular briefing on Thursday after Washington gave the popular video-sharing app an ultimatum to part ways with its Chinese owners or face a nationwide ban.

"The US has so far failed to produce evidence that TikTok threatens US national security," Wang said.

"Data security issues should not be used as a tool for some countries to overstretch the concept of national security, abuse state power and unjustifiably suppress other countries' enterprises," Wang said.

The United States and the European Union have been taking an increasingly firm approach to the app, citing fears that user data could be used by Chinese officials.

On Wednesday, the White House was reported to have told the app that it will be banned in the United States if it continues to be owned by the Beijing-based tech firm.

Last week, the White House welcomed a bill introduced in the US Senate that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok.

The bipartisan bill "would empower the US government to prevent certain foreign governments from exploiting technology services... in a way that poses risks to Americans' sensitive data and our national security," Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said in a statement.

US government workers in January were banned from installing TikTok on their government-issued devices.