China’s Temu may have funneled your data to the CCP– www.americanthinker.com

If you’re like me, you constantly see ads for Temu products. They promise things that are stylish, clever, useful, cute, or whatever it is you’re looking for, and they’re all so very cheap. But while you’re buying their product, it turns out that this Chinese company may well be harvesting your information and laundering it to the CCP. Now, though, at least in Texas, Temu can’t do that anymore.

Temu was unknown a few years ago, so it’s worth looking at its history to understand how it suddenly became so ubiquitous. It all started in 2015, when Colin Huang, a Chinese- and American-educated tech guy who also worked at Google, founded Pinduoduo, an e-commerce business he later rebranded as PDD Holdings. It is now one of China’s largest online shopping businesses.

While PDD is a publicly traded company, and Huang (no longer in leadership but still holding significant equity) is not a member of the Chinese government, that doesn’t mean PDD has no government ties. PDD has significant ties to the CCP because several former CCP officials are (or have been) among PDD’s top executives. Moreover, like all China-based companies, it must comply with CCP intelligence agencies when directed under the National Intelligence Law.

In September 2022, PDD launched Temu, a global version of the Chinese company. Its purpose is to connect consumers directly with inexpensive, usually Chinese-made merchandise. It grew at a near-exponential rate thanks to low prices, a huge advertising budget, cute games that drove bargains, cheap international shipping via a loophole Trump finally closed, and piggybacking on PDD’s supply chains.