Tencent’s WeChat cuts off service in India amid the country’s ban on Chinese apps

Tan KW

Publish date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020, 02:31 PM

Super app WeChat, the multipurpose messaging and social media platform run by Internet giant Tencent Holdings, has ceased operations in India, weeks after New Delhi banned it and 58 other Chinese apps amid rising geopolitical tensions between Asia’s two largest economies.

“Pursuant to Indian law we are unable to offer you WeChat at this time,” said a notice sent by WeChat on Saturday to an undetermined number of Indian users, who were unable to log into the app.

“We value each of our users, and data security and privacy are of utmost importance to us,” the notice said. “We are engaging with relevant authorities and hope to be able to resume service in the future.”

Some affected Indian users reached out to WeChat’s Twitter account for help.

A Twitter user with the handle @jaysuyani, who claims to be a seafood exporter from India, said he was “very disappointed” about WeChat’s service cut-off. “All my clients are using WeChat and in that application we can also translate if they type in any language. [That cannot] be done in WhatsApp,” the user wrote in a string of tweets.

WeChat and Tencent declined to comment on Monday, providing no information beyond what was on the notice.

The stakes are high for Tencent to comply with New Delhi’s restriction because at least 10 of the company’s apps have been blacklisted in India, including QQ Mail, QQ Music and short-video platform Kwai.

Late in June, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued an interim order banning TikTok, WeChat, UC Browser, Baidu Map and dozens of other China-based apps, citing information that these apps “are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.

The ban came on the back of online protests calling for people in the vast South Asian country to boycott a range of Chinese-made goods, from apps to smartphones, after a deadly skirmish between the Indian Army and Chinese troops along the two nations’ disputed Himalayan border on June 15.

While there are many uncertainties about the ban, particularly about how it will be enforced in the long term, other affected Chinese app providers have also moved to comply with the Indian government’s directive, including removing their presence in app stores.

ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok, which has about 200 million Indian subscribers and has overtaken YouTube installations in the market, has discontinued its service in the world’s second-most populous country.

- SCMP

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