Well if TikTok is obligated by law to cooperate with the military, its main value proposition to the PLA is probably going to be its repositories of data on the citizens of foreign nations (particularly the US and its allies) and you can be pretty sure the data collection efforts are not being used to recommend some tasty local dim sum restaurants. In other words its highly probable that the data collected is used to support its propoganda efforts abroad. Given the close knit nature of the public and private sector fusion in China it might be safe to assume they are one and the same thing. Maybe TikToks role is not limited to just propoganda purposes but thats just too easy and valuable of a use case for it not to be employed in that context. I know of a few people on opposite ends of the political spectrum that eat up content that makes caricatures out of the other side. Not that this problem is limited to TikTok but in thier case being obligated to serve as an extension of the communist government it seems to be a ripe opportunity for spreading division and uncertainty in the citizens of rival countries.

Of course.

But I was talking specifically about China's ability and interest in harming me, personally, directly. I was not talking about China's ability to do societal harm.