A congressional effort to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from exploiting TikTok’s popularity in the United States “will eventually backfire,” according to a prominent Chinese diplomat.

“In recent years, though the U.S. has never found any evidence of TikTok posing a threat to the U.S.’s national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday. “Such practice of resorting to hegemonic moves … sabotages the normal economic and trade order in the world and will eventually backfire on the U.S. itself.”