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Inside China Tech: with India’s app bans and US reshoring, are Chinese tech lifelines being cut?

  • India bans 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok and WeChat, amid border disputes
  • US companies looking to reshore manufacturing out of China amid worsening bilateral relations and the pandemic

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A staff member works at a factory in the economic and technological development zone in Jize County of Handan City, north China's Hebei Province, May 5, 2020. Photo: Xinhua

Hello, this is Melissa Zhu from SCMP’s tech desk in Hong Kong with a round-up of some of our most important stories this week.

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We kicked off the week with big news: India has banned 59 Chinese mobile apps, including the wildly popular TikTok and WeChat, saying that they “are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.

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India bans dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat, after deadly border clash

India bans dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat, after deadly border clash
The move comes after a deadly clash between the Indian Army and Chinese troops along the two nations’ disputed border on June 15, and a viral online campaign calling for people in the vast South Asian country to boycott Chinese-made goods.

For Chinese tech firms, there is a lot on the line. India, the second-most populous country in the world after China, represents a huge market for many companies.

Reuters reported that the blocked apps have a combined user base of more than half a billion. India is short video app TikTok’s biggest international market, with an estimated 120 million users, and Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp, whose Mi Video Call app was on the list, is the smartphone market leader in the South Asian country.
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As our reporters Che Pan and Yujie Xie found, the sector appeared to take a collective pause on Tuesday to assess the damage.
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