China state firms invest in TikTok sibling, Weibo chat app

The Chinese government has made investments in two of the nation's most significant technology firms — ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns global video app TikTok, and Weibo, China's version of Twitter — in a move apparently intended to bolster its sway over the nation's flourishing technology sector.

In April, ByteDance sold a 1% stake in its Chinese subsidiary, Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., to WangTouZhongWen (Beijing) Technology, a state-backed firm, according to public government records and the corporate information platform Qichacha.

WangTouZhongWen is owned by three Chinese state entities, one of which is linked to a fund backed by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the nation's internet watchdog, according to government records and Qichacha data.

The Information, a U.S. tech site, earlier reported that Bytedance had also given a board seat to a Chinese government official as part of the deal.

A ByteDance spokesperson declined to answer questions about the investment and board seat. But the company said that its Chinese subsidiary doesn't own TikTok, which operates outside of China. Instead, the subsidiary "relates to some of ByteDance’s China-market video and information platforms, and holds some of the licenses they require to operate under local law.”

The Chinese version of TikTok is called Douyin. ByteDance also owns the Chinese news app Toutiao.

Beijing has recently been clamping down on its technology sector. It has launched investigations into some of the country's largest internet companies and introduced new draft rules to strengthen data security and to prohibit companies from engaging in anti-competitive behavior after years of runaway growth in the industry.

In China, massive technology firms such as Alibaba and Tencent provide...