Politics & Security

India bans 59 Chinese Apps including Tik Tok to which China reacts

China is strongly concerned regarding the decision of the Indian government to ban 59 apps with Chinese links, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

India bans 59 Chinese Apps including Tik Tok to which China reacts
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Government of India on June 29 banned as many as 59 Chinese Apps like Tik Tok, UC Browsers and many others citing threat posed by these applications to the country’s security,”

The move comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India has given a “befitting response” to China. He also spoke of the countrywide call for boycott of Chinese goods, juxtaposing it against the government’s “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” campaign. “We will buy local and be vocal for local and this will help India become stronger,” he said.

The Ministry of Information and Technology has said that it “has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps… for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India”. Since this “ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures”, it has said.

The move comes amid a countrywide call from traders and civil society to boycott Chinese products and services in the backdrop of current stand-off along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh with Chinese troops.

 

Within hours of being banned by the Indian Government along with 58 other China-origin apps, TikTok India on Tuesday has issued a statement. Nikhil Gandhi, Head of TikTok India, has said that the app is in the process of complying with the government’s ‘interim order’. 

 

“We have been invited to meet concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications. TikTok continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law and has not shared any information of our users in India with any foreign government, including the Chinese government,” the statement reads.

 

The statement further said that TikTok has democratized the internet by making it available in 14 Indian languages, with hundreds of millions of users, artists, story-tellers, educators and performers depending on it for their livelihood, many of whom are first time internet users.

Currently, the app has been removed from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store

Experts suggested that the ban on apps is a major blow to China’s Digital Silk Route ambitions, eroding millions of dollars from valuation of its companies. This could also lead to more countries following India’s path in acting against these Apps.

Investors in Indian social apps say that competition will come down due to the ban on Chinese apps.

 

“The competitive threat will go down. But a lot of apps in India are inspired by the deft engineering of Chinese apps. Overall the ecosystem’s ingenuity will slow down,” said Deepak Gupta, founding partner at WEH Ventures, which has invested in Indian video blogging platform Trell.

China is strongly concerned regarding the decision of the Indian government to ban 59 apps with Chinese links, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

“China is strongly concerned, verifying the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

“We want to stress that Chinese governemnt always asks Chinese businesses to abide by international and local laws-regulations. Indian government has a responsibility to uphold the legal rights of international investors including Chinese ones,” Zhao Lijian said.

List of Chinese Apps that are banned in India

Chinese Apps and their alternatives…

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