The trade war with the US continues to take its toll on Chinese business interests through a combination of sanctions and retreats.
India seems to have decided that Chinese mobile apps represent a grave threat to its national security, because it keeps banning them. The latest batch of 43 apps, which somehow slipped through the net in previous purges, include Alibaba’s ecommerce service AliExpress.
“This action was taken based on the inputs regarding these apps for engaging in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order,” said the Indian announcement. “Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has issued the order for blocking the access of these apps by users in India based on the comprehensive reports received from Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center, Ministry of Home Affairs.”
We don’t know if all the banned apps are Chinese, but that’s where the smart money is. There is no specific mention of China in the announcement and that’s probably why India is being so piecemeal about this. The objective is clearly to ban all Chinese apps, but the way of international diplomacy is to never admit such things.
Meanwhile Reuters reports Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn is relocating some of its Apple work from China to Vietnam at the request of the fruity gadget giant. It seems Apple doesn’t like the look of how the trade war between China and the US is progressing and has decided discretion is the better part of valour.
This seems like a sensible move, given the climate of unilateral action against companies merely because of their country of origin. In fact, it’s amazing China hasn’t retaliated for the victimisation of Huawei yet and it must surely be a matter of time before a US company gets put on some kind of Chinese shit-list. When that does happen it would be wise to have as few of your business interests as possible on Chinese soil.