If one billion people are to be believed, a video app owned by ByteDance, just one of several Chinese Decacorns, is a key part of their daily lives. TikTok has minted millionaires from teenagers just editing their lives and playful pranks into short bursts of music-backed mayhem. 

In some ways, it is a shame that the app is too complicated for boomers (for whom Twitter and Instagram are the far-flung-end of the digital universe, and who never got to grips with Snapchat). If Trump used TikTok as his go-to medium for spreading his version of the world rather than Twitter, then ByteDance’s progeny may have been spared the tick-tock countdown of 45 days before its forced sale or shutdown. 

I fear this is just the tip of an iceberg in the battle for global supremacy. One hegemon’s attempts to turn the tide back. Trump channeling those who pushed King Canute to show it was not possible. There is much at stake. In addition to 2019’s tirade on trade, the accusations of coronavirus warfare in early 2020 have spiraled into a cold-war of words and actions that threatened to pull the rug from under the table of globalization. Trump seems able to push on this topic in his election year, in part as there is bipartisan support against China. The dominance of the US and all it stands for is at stake.

This is exemplified in the hitherto unrivaled dominance of the US dollar. The US has enjoyed a monopoly on currency for many years, and the status of the US dollar as the global reserve currency has afforded it tremendous direct and indirect advantages. Direct, as it can simply print more of the stuff, safe in the knowledge that the world needs dollars for trade. Indirect, as the US is the clearing-house for much of the worlds’ financial transaction flow. As banks such as Standard Chartered and HSBC have found out to their shareholders’ great costs, if you upset the US by playing with people they do not like (Iranians, Cubans to name but two) the threat of having your global business torn down, is enough to have you penitently writing billion-dollar cheques to the US treasury.

The days of the dollar may be numbered. The recent rapid rise in the price of Gold may be the moment where the world tries to wean itself off the mighty greenback. Emerging market currencies, including the Chinese Renminbi, may enter a period of strengthening, after a decade of weakness. The Euro has also risen in recent months, in a period where France’s President Macron is also envisioning a world where the US is not, unthinkably perhaps, Europe’s BFF.

Given the bi-partisan support in the US for China-bashing, further declines in the US-China relations are likely. Go-to Apps such as WeChat and TikTok will be removed from the Appstore — so new App stores will emerge. Apple’s stranglehold and 30% shakedown on App-developers will be challenged further. The US will no longer be an exit for US private equity investors in China growth technology stocks, they will list in Shanghai and Hong Kong instead. It’s not all lost. China and the US will not go to actual war — there is too much at stake. The war will be a war of Apps and market dominance and ultimately the winner will be determined by the users, themselves. China is indeed in your hand, as T’Pau once sang.