WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The chair and top

Democrat on a U.S. House of Representatives committee on China

on Friday told the CEOs of Google-parent Alphabet and

Apple ( AAPL ) they must be ready to remove TikTok from their

U.S. app stores on Jan. 19.

Last week, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld a law

requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest TikTok in the United

States or face a ban. Representative John Moolenaar, a

Republican, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi separately

urged TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to sell the short video app used

by 170 million Americans. "Congress has acted decisively to

defend the national security of the United States and protect

TikTok's American users from the Chinese Communist Party. We

urge TikTok to immediately execute a qualified divestiture, the

lawmakers wrote.