New Delhi: China on Tuesday said it is "strongly concerned" about the ban on Chinese applications in India and was verifying the situation.
We want to stress that Chinese government always asks Chinese businesses to abide by international and local laws-regulations. The Indian government has a responsibility to uphold the legal rights of international investors, including Chinese ones," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, adding that Beijing was concerned about the situation and is verifying it.
India had on Monday banned 59 Chinese smartphone applications, including some popular ones like TikTok, Shareit and Cam Scan. The announcement came at a time when tensions between India and China are at an all-time high, after the military skirmishes earlier this month.
There have been suspicions that the apps developed and or owned by Chinese companies and developers collect user data from their phones without their permissions and transmit it back to the owners.
In an official statement, the IT Ministry said it has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India".
Union Minister Ramdas Athawale had on June 20 called for a ban on TikTok to impact China economically. He had claimed that 15 crore Indians use the Chinese app and that country makes crores in profit from this.