China's ministry of commerce has responded to India's government blacklisting of another 118 China-made mobile apps - adding to its growing number of banned mobile apps. The ministry called Thursday for India's authorities to immediately correct their action.
The India government is clearly abusing the concept of "national security" to push its own agenda, ministry spokesman Gao Feng said during a news conference. The country's "discriminatory and restrictive" actions are clearly against the rules set by the World Trade Organization, Gao said.
China regulators have always made sure companies operating outside of the country abide by international rules and regulations, Gao said. He warned that the actions taken by India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology would not only harm the rights and interests of China's companies but also those of India's customers and businesses.
The banning of the apps is extremely detrimental to both countries' cooperative efforts thus far, the ministry said. Cooperation between the two countries in terms of trade and commerce has so far been greatly beneficial to both sides. China's officials are hoping both sides will work together to maintain their "hard-won" partnership and move forward to create a more open and fair business environment for everyone, it said.
China's response came after India added another 118 China-made apps to its ban list earlier in the week. In June, the country banned 59 China apps from the country. On both occasions, India officials alleged that the apps on its list had engaged in activities that threatened the country's national security, integrity and sovereignty.
The first batch of apps banned included popular platforms such as ByteDance's video-streaming app TikTok and Tencent's messaging app WeChat. The latest included additional popular games and platforms such as Tencent's Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, NetEase's Marvel Super War and Alibaba Group's Alipay and Taobao Marketplace. The affected app owners stand to lose millions of dollars in revenue as a result of the ban. Most of the apps have hundreds of millions of users in India.
