Editorial
India bans 54 more Chinese apps
Seetao 2022-02-16 14:43
  • Indian government bans download of 54 more mobile apps citing threats to Indians' privacy and security
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According to a report by the Indian "Economic Times" and other media on February 14, 2022, the Indian government has banned the download of 54 mobile phone applications (APPs) on the grounds of "posing a threat to the privacy and security of Indians", many of which are large Chinese Products of technology companies Tencent, Alibaba, and NetEase. The "Indian Express" said that since June 2020, India has carried out four rounds of operations against Chinese apps, and a total of more than 270 apps have been banned. Statistics from the "Hindustan Times" show that this is the fifth round of the Indian government's ban on Chinese apps, and more than 300 apps have been banned. Bloomberg said on February 14, 2022 that this is the latest step taken by the Indian side against the backdrop of tensions between China and India due to border disputes.

According to the Economic Times, many of the latest 54 apps banned were apps that were banned by the Indian government two years ago but were later repackaged and put on the shelves. The report quoted an unnamed senior Indian official as saying, “Many apps owned by Tencent and Alibaba have changed hands to hide ownership and are hosted in regions such as Hong Kong or Singapore, but data ends up being sent to servers in China. The government has taken notice of this. a little."

According to the "Hindustan Times" report, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a statement on February 14, saying that it had received a request from the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs to implement an emergency blocking of 54 applications in accordance with relevant laws. The 54 apps "obtained various key permissions and collected sensitive data on users," the statement said. "The real-time data collected was misused and transmitted to servers in countries hostile [to India]. This will enable forces hostile to India's sovereignty and territorial integrity to collect vast amounts of personal data for mining, sorting, and analysis for activities that endanger India's national security."

Among the apps that were banned on February 14, 2022, the one that received the most attention was a game app called Garena Free Fire. Bloomberg said that the program is currently one of the most popular mobile games in the world, with more than 1 billion downloads in the Google Play Store, and India is an important market. The game's owner, Donghai Group, was founded by a Chinese Singaporean, and with the backing of major shareholder Tencent, the company focuses on the global gaming and e-commerce market. The "India Express" listed on the 14th a list of all apps banned by the Indian government since June 2020. The list shows that on June 29, 2020, the Indian government issued a ban on 58 apps including TikTok, QQ, Weibo, etc.; in September of the same year, 118 apps including PUBG Mobile and Baidu were banned; in November of the same year 43 apps including AliExpress and DingTalk under Alibaba Group were banned in India. But the Hindustan Times report gave higher numbers. According to reports, India has banned 267 apps in 2020 alone, including some clones.

Indian public opinion generally believes that the government's large-scale ban on Chinese apps is related to the Sino-Indian border dispute. The Chinese government has stated on many occasions that it firmly opposes India's repeated use of "national security" as an excuse to ban apps with Chinese backgrounds. Such practices violate the WTO's non-discriminatory principle and the principle of fair competition in the market economy, and seriously damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies. It also hinders the improvement of India's business environment and the innovation and development of related industries. In response to the Indian government's frequent suppression of Chinese companies while the border disputes remain unresolved, the Chinese side has repeatedly emphasized that the border issue should not be linked to bilateral relations.

Why do they frequently suppress Chinese companies and investments?

In addition to banning Chinese apps, India recently announced another ban. According to a report by India's "Business Today" magazine on February 10, the Ministry of Civil Aviation of India stated that the General Administration of Foreign Trade of India announced that it will ban the import of foreign drones from the 9th of this month. However, the import of drones for research and development, defense and security purposes is not covered by the ban, but still requires approval; meanwhile, the import of drone components is not affected. Many Indian media believe that this move is intended to respond to the Modi government's "Made in India" policy to promote local production.

India's New Delhi TV said on the 10th that the epidemic and global trade tensions have made it necessary to diversify supply chains and reduce risks. Several countries in the world are struggling to find alternatives to Chinese products and components, and India is one of them. India banned the import of drones, a move that effectively prevented Chinese drone giants from entering the emerging market.

Reuters has previously analyzed that there are two reasons for the Indian government to frequently suppress Chinese companies and investments: First, the nationalist sentiment in India is high, and many Indian traders and nationalist organizations have called for boycotts of Chinese products; second, after Indian Prime Minister Modi came to power. , has been trying to promote the "self-reliance" policy and localized production.

However, at present, this suppression seems to have little impact on the trade exchanges between China and India. A few days ago, the reference news quoted data from New Delhi that the trade volume between China and India in 2021 exceeded the US$100 billion mark for the first time, marking a new milestone in the history of exchanges between the two countries. Among them, India imported 87.905 billion US dollars from China and exported about 26.358 billion US dollars, an increase of 49.0% and 38.5% respectively.Editor/XuNing

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