On Thursday, China called for a “fair, transparent and non-discriminatory” trade pattern with India as it expressed serious concerns over India’s decision to ban 54 more Chinese apps over security concerns. China Commerce Ministry stated that India has severely damaged the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies in Indian markets.
According to the reports, India on February 15 had banned 54 more Chinese apps spurred by security concerns bringing the total tally of apps banned in the country since June 2020 to around 321. The Spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce Gao Feng urged India to improve its business environment and treat China on equal bars with the other foreign investors.
“Foreign investors have created a large number of employment opportunities in India and made positive contributions to India’s economic development. Hope that India will improve its business environment and treat all foreign investors, including Chinese companies, in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner”, he was quoted in a tweet by the Spokesperson of Chinese Embassy in India, Wang Xiaojian.
Hope that India will improve its business environment & treat all foreign investors, including Chinese companies, in a fair, transparent&non-discriminatory manner.
— Wang Xiaojian (@ChinaSpox_India) February 17, 2022
Feng specifically mentioned that India-China’s economic and trade cooperation still had strong resilience and great potential. “China and India are inseparable neighbours and important economic and trade partners to each other. In 2021, bilateral trade volume between China and India reached $125.7 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 43%”, he added hoping for the Indian side to take concrete measures to maintain sound development momentum of bilateral economic and trade cooperation for benefit of the two countries and the two peoples.
In the past week, Indian authorities had also raided the premises of Chinese telecom company Huawei. Earlier Chinese phone manufacturer Xiaomi had faced similar probes for tax evasions. In January this year, Xiaomi was served a notice for Rs 653 crores for tax evasions.
Recently banned 54 Chinese applications by India include game Free Fire Illuminate, Tencent Xriver, Nice Video baidu, Viva Video Editor and more. The Indian authorities opined that the apps collect critical permissions and data from the users and provide them to servers located in hostile countries, posing a security threat to India. Earlier in the year 2020, India had banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, UC Browser and more saying they were prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India.
The ban on Chinese apps came after Chinese aggression in the LAC. India had retaliated with calculated strategic moves after China’s constant and relentless attempts to undermine India’s territorial boundaries. After the initial ban, India had banned 47 more Chinese apps that were variants of the 59 apps blocked earlier. Later, it also banned around 118 Chinese apps, this time including the popular game PUB-G, saying that it posed threat to India’s security.
It is important to note that China’s exports to India have today reached $97.52 billion against India’s $28.14 billion to China and the bilateral trade volume between the two countries have reached $125.7 billion. Though the actions by India coincide with the Chinese aggression at Ladakh borders, it has put a ban on only those apps which do not shield user data from the Chinese government appropriately by Chinese servers.
