As geopolitical contest intensifies, the rivalry between China and India is starting to appear in the technology sector with security concerns being a priority taken seriously by Indian government.
India is a poor country with a huge population and chaotic democracy which means it still lags behind China when it comes to technology and because China has already established itself as technological power house, India’s government is worried that this technological lead and amount of resources poured in research by the Chinese companies who often collaborate with the government will kill domestic research and technology development.
Although by 2017 India had identified the emergency of Chinese technology companies in India as a threat to India’s domestic research and technology development, it waited until 2020 when Indian soldiers crushed with Chinese soldiers at the border where 20 Indian soldiers were killed including 79 seriously injured and 4 Chinese soldiers who were also killed with unknown number of causalities.
This gave Indian government a chance to start banning Chinese apps, restricted its investments and prevented Chinese companies from acquiring any assets in India without government approval.
China’s reaction was somehow mute since tensions were running high with increased nationalism in India where thousands poured on to the street to protest the killing of 20 Indian soldiers. It was also in the middle of covid-19 pandemic crisis so China was still yet to figure out how covid-19 pandemic will affects its domestic affairs and International trade.
The lastest ban of 54 Chinese apps by Indian government citing security concerns indicates that tensions remain between the two neighbors which are also the largest Asian countries by population but this time China has decided speak up and defend its companies.
China and India share long unmarked border of 3488km( 2170 miles) along in the Himalayas where thousands of troops and military hardware from both sides have been massed since 2020 military crash between the two countries.
China of 2022 is totally different from the China of 2020 when it was still battling covid-19 pandemic as it has started asserting its power to mostly those countries which are provocative towards its companies and its core interests like we have seen with Australia, US, Canada and Lithuania.
I don’t think the Indian government expected any strong reaction from China since they are just apps nothing more but I think China is trying to tell India that enough is enough and if you continue down that path, you may not like the outcomes.
When it comes to trade between two countries, China has upper hand as most of what India uses in production of goods and consumption are bought from China from machinery, electronics, pharmaceutical ingredients, covid-19 pandemic protection gears, gloves, masks and consumer goods while China buys mostly minerals like iron ore, coal and agricultural produce from India which has lift behind huge imbalance in trade between the two countries.
The trade between the two countries has continued to boom dispute the tensions at the border with trade volume between the two countries reaching 125 billion dollars in 2021, the highest and it continues to increase as India tries to recover from covid-19 pandemic. India imported Chinese goods and services worth almost 98 billion dollars and exported goods and services worth 27.8 billion dollars with a deficit of 69.4 billion dollars.
Indian government is worried that continued dependency on Chinese technology especially in telecommunications will put the country at disadvantages incase of any war in the region whether with Pakistan or China since China will have ability to cut off communication rendering India’s military blind or shut its financial system, electricity power grid or Internet causing economic Chaos. Its from this point of view that India denied Huawei technologies from participating in the building of India’s 5G wireless internet.
