China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has issued a response to India’s recent decision to ban a slew of Chinese mobile apps.
On 3 September MOFCOM spokesperson Gao Feng (高峰) said that China had expressed “heavy concern” about the Indian government’s decision, and was firmly opposed to it.
The day previously India’s Ministry of Information Technology had announced a ban on the usage of 118 Chinese mobile apps within India on the grounds of national security.
Apps on the list included Alipay, Baidu, WeChat, popular gaming app PUBG and social media platform TikTok.
“India is abusing the concept of ‘national security,’ and imposing discriminatory restrictive measures against Chinese companies, in breach of WTO rules,” said Gao. “China calls for India to correct these erroneous measures.
Gao also said that Sino-Indian economic and trade cooperation was for “mutual benefit and joint victory,” and hoped that India would work with China to maintain cooperative development circumstances that are “difficult to come by.”
He called for India to provide an “open and fair” commercial operating environment for international investors and service providers, including Chinese companies.
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