As TikTok has faced political headwinds in the US over the past two years, the company has publicly distanced itself from China, where its parent company, ByteDance, is headquartered. “TikTok is not and has never been offered in China,” the company wrote in an August 2020 lawsuit against the Trump administration, which sought to ban it. And in November, ByteDance even reorganized into six distinct business units, partially in an effort to create separation between TikTok and its Chinese products, multiple outlets reported. But inside TikTok, the influence of ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters looms large, according to six current and former...