China Slams ’Discriminatory’ India App Ban, Blames US Pressure

By Staff, Agencies

China censured India’s latest move to ban numerous Chinese apps amid a persisting border conflict, further suggesting that New Delhi took the measure against Chinese hi-tech firms under US pressure.

"India has abused the concept of national security and adopted discriminatory restrictive measures against Chinese companies," China’s commerce ministry spokesperson Gao Feng declared during an online press briefing.

He further emphasized that Beijing strongly opposes the measure and called on New Delhi to "correct its wrong practices."

This is while China’s foreign ministry also implied on Thursday that India had imposed the ban on Chinese apps – including the hit game PUBG – under American pressure, as its spokesperson Hua Chunying warned against "short-sighted" participation in US restrictions against Chinese technology.

The development came after Beijing reacted strongly on Monday to earlier remarks by the Trump administrations’ National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien urging other countries to confront what he claimed to be the “challenges” of China and Russia and slamming Beijing’s political system and regional policies.

Insisting that Washington’s anti-China schemes were doomed to fail, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “For a while, driven by their zero-sum game mindset, Cold War mentality and personal gains, some US politicians have ignored the basic facts, continued to maliciously attack China's political system, wantonly slandered and smeared China, and sowed discord between China and other countries.” 

Indian authorities, however, claim that they have adopted the measure against the proliferation of Chinese technology companies because they promote activities "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, security of state and public order."

New Delhi has increasingly resorted to wielding economic weapons against its northeastern neighbor in their long-standing dispute, freezing Chinese companies out of contracts, including its 5G mobile phone infrastructure, in addition to the app bans.

Chinese Internet giant Tencent is among the country’s manufacturers of 118 more apps being targeted in the latest Indian ban that follows another flare-up of a deep territorial row along a disputed Himalayan frontier.

At least 20 Indian troops were reportedly killed in hand-to-hand combat during a battle in June.