A lot of companies are incorporated in the Cayman Islands, or in Ireland, or other tax havens, but we don't generally refer to them as Cayman companies or Irish companies.
TikTok's parent company ByteDance has sought permission from the Chinese government to export technology, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. ByteDance filed a request with the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau asking for approval to export its technology under restrictions recently implemented by the Chinese government, according to Bloomberg. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/bytedance-seeks-china-govern...
First, it being incorporated in the Caymans is a technicality. ByteDance's headquarters are in Beijing[1] and they don't speak of a Cayman Islands office. In addition...
> As with many Chinese companies, the company has an internal Chinese Communist Party committee serving the party members among the employees, with vice president Zhang Fuping serving as its Party Committee Secretary. It also has a strategic partnership with the Ministry of Public Security for the ministry's public relations efforts, and joint ventures with a state-run publisher in Beijing and media firm in Shanghai. ... It has garnered public attention over allegations that it worked with the Chinese Communist Party to censor and surveil content pertaining to Xinjiang re-education camps and other topics the Party deemed controversial. [2]
[1] https://www.inputmag.com/culture/tiktok-weirdly-tries-to-sug...
ByteDance Ltd. (Cayman) -> TikTok Ltd. (Cayman) -> TikTok LLC. (US)
Legally it is indeed a company and not controlled by the CCP, but exactly how much of its US operations are conducted and directed by non-US citizens on non-US soil is unknown.