Amid escalating tensions with China in the wake of clashes on its disputed Himalayan border, India on Monday banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, which are punishing foreign technology companies operating in China since long time ago.
India’s Ministry of Information Technology said it banned apps for engaging in activities “detrimental to India’s sovereignty and integrity, India’s defense, state security and law and order.” The ministry said it had received numerous complaints alleging that some of the applications were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting user data in an unauthorized manner” to servers outside India.
Indian Ministry of Information Technology
TikTok said in a statement today (June 30) that it has been “invited to meet with interested government stakeholders” about the ban. The short video company also said it meets the privacy and security requirements of current Indian law (the country is still in the process of drafting a data privacy law) and that it has never shared any information from users of the India with foreign governments, including Beijing.
While the ministry cited national security for its decision, the growing hostility towards China appears to be the true motivation for such a general movement.
In early May, thousands of Chinese and Indian troops have been entangled in a clash in the northern Ladakh region of India, with soldiers involved in skirmishes as each side accuses the other of invading disputed areas between countries. . Many also blame China for India’s economic suffering from the coronavirus, as the first patient groups emerged on the mainland.
After these developments, many in India called for boycotts of Chinese products, such as smartphones that dominate the Indian market. Reflecting that sentiment, a tool that it claimed could help users remove their Chinese apps was downloaded millions of times in India before Google pulled it out. India has also curbed foreign investment from neighboring countries, a move that is considered primarily to prevent Chinese companies from taking over Indian entities, and states have curbed new, new manufacturing projects funded by China.
The ban has surprised many in China who have denounced India’s “ultra-nationalism”, although what India is doing mimics the tactics used by Beijing for more than a decade to block foreign technology companies, and especially Americans. China has banned most of the top US internet companies, including Facebook, Google and Twitter, from offering their services in China, resulting in the creation of their own distinct version of the internet. More recently, it has forced companies like the Zoom and Apple video conferencing platform to censor users or applications based in China, citing the companies’ violation of local laws or the need to defend their “cyber sovereignty”, a concept coined by Beijing as a Challenge to the established rules of internet governance that favor an open internet. Now, as Chinese tech companies seek to go global, they also face political friction.
India’s ban probably won’t have a big impact right away for Indian internet users, who for the most part rely on American apps like WhatsApp for instant messaging (instead of China’s WeChat) and Facebook. And the millions of young users who already have TikTok on their phones should still be able to use it.
But it could certainly halt the app’s expansion into the country, its largest market outside of China. On Tuesday, TikTok and other apps appeared to be unavailable for download on Google Play and Apple app stores.
Compared to a previous TikTok ban last year, Anand Prasanna, managing partner at Mumbai-based technology investment firm Iron Pillar, expects the current ban to be “much more severe” and more lasting, or even permanent. The freeze can also give India’s own technology companies the opportunity to improve and sell their own products.
“For Indian investors and startups, this is good news, as there is less competition to deal with Indian applications,” Prasanna told Quartz.
In the past decade, Chinese tech giants like WeChat Tencent owner Alibaba and TikTok owner ByteDance have flourished both at home and abroad, in part thanks to Beijing’s ban on foreign tech rivals.
“Like China, India has a great capacity to develop applications and software, in addition to having a large internal market. Therefore, you can afford to copy the Beijing playbook to oust Chinese companies that mention the need to protect national players or other reasons, as Indian companies have the ability to replace their Chinese rivals. “said Shen Meng, director of investment boutique for Beijing bank Chanson & Co.
The ban is probably just as good for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose page on the now-listed Weibo social media platform, which he joined as a gesture of friendship in 2015, is receiving a barrage of angry messages from users. Chinese on the Internet for the decision. .
