China’s tech sector quietly assesses India’s ban on TikTok, 58 other apps

India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Monday issued an interim order banning 59 China-based apps, citing security and privacy concerns

Management at TikTok in India said the company was already ‘in the process of complying with the order’

2-MIN READ2-MIN

Sikh volunteers hang a sign prohibiting use of popular short video app TikTok at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a city in the state of Punjab in northwestern India. ByteDance-owned TikTok is among 59 China-based apps recently banned by the Indian government. Photo: Agence France-Presse

Published: 7:00pm, 30 Jun 2020Updated: 10:59am, 1 Jul 2020

Corrected [10:53am, 1 Jul, 2020]

[10:53am, 1 Jul, 2020]
A previous version of this article stated that Baidu said it had no comment "because it was still evaluating the order’s impact on its operations in India". This was a misinterpretation of the spokesperson's response. The article has been corrected to state that the company simply declined to comment. We apologise for the error.

Most of China’s technology sector appeared to take a collective pause on Tuesday to assess India’s decision to ban 59 popular Chinese apps over security concerns, as tensions rise between Asia’s two biggest economies.

On Monday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued an interim order banning TikTok, WeChat, UC Browser, Baidu Map and dozens of other China-based apps, citing information that these apps “are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.

The move followed a recent wave of online protests calling for people in the vast South Asian country to boycott a range of Chinese-made goods, from apps to smartphones, after a deadly skirmish between the Indian Army and Chinese troops along the two nations’ disputed border on June 15.

Management at TikTok, the short video app owned by ByteDance, said in a statement on Tuesday that the company was already “in the process of complying with the order”.

“We have been invited to meet with concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications,” Nikhil Gandhi, head of TikTok India, said in the statement. “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.”

TikTok, which moved ahead of YouTube in April to become the world’s highest earning non-game app, has about 120 million users in India, according to data from market research firm GlobalWebIndex.