Decoding Indo China virtual war -Ajay Kaushik

After banning 59 Chinese app including TikTok in July 2020, the Narendra Modi Government has now decided to ban another 118 Chinese apps, which includes PUBG (Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds) — a popular video game, which has over 50 million users in India. Justifying its move to ban these apps, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that the move aims to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace. The Ministry further added that these apps give information about users — where they are travelling, and other minute data — which China can easily use against India.

However, my point her is, was the Indian government unaware of those Chinese app users being prone to such phishing attach by China? Is the Indian cyber security team unable to foil such Mandarin moves through its apps that left the Indian government with no option to ban these Chinese apps? The answer is a BIG NO! The India Government was well aware of cyber security threat coming to India via Radcliffe Line and the Indian cyber security team is fully adept in foiling such Chinese moves. In fact, the Indian cyber experts have been successfully containing any such possibility of phishing for years. 

So, what prompted Indian Government to ban 59 Chinese apps in July and now another 118 apps in August? The answer is loud and clear that New Delhi has made a bold statement in the world diplomacy that India is no more a nation of 1962. It also want the establishment in Beijing to realize that India can give a befitting reply to the Dragon nation for each and every betrayal, whether it is supporting the Pak sponsored cross-border terrorism, or its recent activities to dilute the actual position at the Galwan Valley. 

Actually, the Indian Government want to hit Chinse virtual business coming in through these apps, psot-COVID-19. It’s a well known fact, that there is huge leap in virtual meetings post-COVID-19 lockdown and Chinese apps are getting huge chunk of business in this post-Coronavirus world. Since, India is a big business provider to the Chinese government through these apps, the New Delhi decided to go for a crackdown on Chinese virtual business in India and force Beijing to carve itself away from the anti-Indian activities.

Political and diplomatic ways have been going on, and now India has decided the economic avenue in responding to China’s aggression at Radcliffe Line. Banning the app is an economic move and will hit their revenue system. This will not ease the situation at the border, but will definitely have an impact the people of China.

With this Indian government’s move, Chinese will lose ads from the Indian markets, and the vacuum getting created by this move will encourage Indians to develop their own apps, which will generate good domestic revenue and ultimately hit the Chinese market.

So, after the recent ban of Chinese apps in India, some more countries like the US and some European Union countries are also mulling the follow shuit and ban these Chinese apps in their countries. In fact, the US President Donald Trump has already issued orders that would ban the social media app TikTok and WeChat from operating in the US in 45 days if they are not sold by their Chinese-owned parent companies. 

Hence, the New Delhi move to ban Chinese apps is more of diplomatic and economic importance than what being perpetrated by the concerned ministry. 

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