If you read the article though the actual content does not suggest they were asking for anything other than the ability to ensure TikTok/Byte Dance weren’t doing anything nefarious… and anyway it fell apart when it became obvious how hopeless that was because of how shady they (Byte Dance) are.
Can you share evidence that US regulators are holding US-based social media companies to all of these same requirements?
This moves goalposts. American social media companies don’t have CCP members in their senior ranks.
The problem is the “records and servers” bit could let the Feds execute illegal searches on any American’s data with zero oversight. Not that we’re being mean to TikTok.
Who added those goalposts? Chinese social media companies don't have FBI, CIA, and NSA members in their senior ranks, either.
This is whataboutism, but I'll answer anyway.
This article concerns the actions of a US governmental agency known as CFIUS.
CFIUS is not concerned with domestic issues, but rather foreign intrusions that impair national security: foreign businesses spying on US soil, foreign entities buying controlling interests in US companies and technologies, foreign real estate purchases near sensitive locations, etc. It is a regulatory body that can block sales and mergers and put a stop to such activities.
CFIUS wants the ability to audit TikTok so that it can ascertain the extent to which is or can be used to spy on US targets. From this data, they can themselves block certain business activities or recommend further actions to be taken by the government.
The Chinese do not think that they are doing anything nefarious either.
"Nefarious" is very dependent on context. The CIA spying on China is what the CIA is _supposed_ to be doing -- it's not nefarious in the US context, but surely, to the Chinese, it's "nefarious activity" and the CIA is aware of that. Surely the Chinese know that they're up to no good from the US point of view, even if it's ethically fine from their point of view.