By Peter Lemiska

Most people are at least vaguely familiar with the story of the original Trojan Horse. According to legend, sometime around the 12th or 13th century BC, Greece and Troy were at war. The Greek army was unable to breach the defenses of the heavily fortified city of Troy, so it devised a plan. It decided to build an enormous wooden horse and left it outside the city, seemingly as a peace offering, a gift. Hidden inside the horse, though, was an elite group of Greek fighters, and after it was towed inside the city gates, the warriors emerged and destroyed the city.

The term “Trojan Horse” has come to mean anything that may appear innocuous but is intended to cause harm. Today, most computer users associate the term with a type of computer virus — malicious software designed to spy on the user’s online activity or to collect sensitive, personal information.

The wildly popular TikTok is offered free of charge — a gift with no apparent strings attached. As a social media platform allowing users to post short videos online, it’s easy to understand its popularity. It gives users, mostly young people hungry for attention and exposure, an opportunity to perform before an audience. Some of the video postings can be entertaining, funny, and even illuminating and informative. But they can also be deceptive, morally corrosive, and even dangerous — especially for young, impressionable minds. And like all Trojan Horse viruses, this app collects personal information on its users.

So how is that a threat to our national security? The problem is that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company headquartered in Beijing and controlled by the Communist Chinese government, which ultimately controls the content.

Today, our president likes to call China a competitor. He wants us to believe that we’re engaged in some sort of a game with the CCP — something akin to horseshoes or lawn darts. But geopolitical experts tell us China is not a friendly competitor. It should be considered an adversary, or even an enemy. Anyone doubting that need only look at China’s routine theft of America’s intellectual property, its belligerence toward Taiwan, its territorial expansion in the South China Sea via artificial islands, and its bloated military. They need only look at China’s treatment of the Uyghurs to understand that the CCP is a ruthless, oppressive government, bent on world domination.

And it doesn’t have to be accomplished militarily.

It would be foolhardy to offer America’s enemies intimate knowledge of our nation’s psyche, or to allow Communist China’s propaganda machine to mold the impressionable minds of young Americans. That’s why TikTok has been called a threat to national security.

And social media platforms aren’t the only means China has to infiltrate America. There are other ways it can exert its influence and eventually dominate our country.

It can try to take control of our energy resources or our food supplies. It can work to transform our strong and proud citizenry into a nation of passive, compliant drug addicts by feeding us unlimited amounts of narcotics.

It’s all happening today under the watchful eye of Joe Biden. In fact, in many cases, Biden is doing more than allowing it to happen. He’s facilitating it.

It was Biden who depleted our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alarmingly low levels, where they remain today. It was Biden who sold millions of gallons of that precious commodity to China, while at the same time relentlessly pushing green energy. That has increased our dependence on Chinese-manufactured solar cells and batteries. And it’s Biden who’s allowing the Chinese to buy up millions of acres of our farmland, essential to the world’s food supply.

Perhaps Biden’s biggest favor to the CCP is his open-border policy. There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Biden’s 10 million “newcomers,” including 37,000 Chinese, have any intention of pledging allegiance to this country or even assimilating American values. But common sense and the law of averages tell us that a percentage of them are planning to do us harm.

And the fentanyl streaming across Biden’s open borders has already killed or incapacitated hundreds of thousands of our citizens. If it continues, it will lead to the utter decimation of a once-proud nation.

Then there’s the China spy balloon, which Biden allowed to meander across our countryside, sucking up national defense data. And the China Initiative that Biden abruptly cancelled. That program was designed to track China’s espionage activity in this country.

For the Chinese Communist Party, Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on giving.

Some attribute that to Biden’s incompetence and his obvious cognitive decline. Others believe the millions of dollars the CCP paid to his family may have something to do with it. Shamefully, still others close their eyes and pretend that none of it is happening.

If the efforts by Congress to sever China’s ties with TikTok succeed, it will remove one obvious threat to our national security. Unfortunately, there is still Joe Biden.

Peter Lemiska served in the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Secret Service. Following his retirement from the Secret Service, he spent several years as a volunteer for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.