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US, Indian Bans on Chinese Apps Violate WTO Trade Rules, Beijing Says Amid Tech Trade Rows - Report

The news comes after Washington targeted several popular platforms with orders banning US firms from doing business with Chinese appmakers, including TikTok's ByteDance's and WeChat's Tencent.
Sputnik

A ban on numerous Chinese apps imposed by the United States and India violated World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, an official at the institution has said as quoted by the South China Morning Post this week.

According to an unnamed Geneva trade official at the event, Beijing said the bans restricted "cross-border trading services" and harmed the global "multilateral trading system".

The meeting took place at the Council for Trade in Services meeting on Friday and was attended by US, Indian and Chinese delegates.

India Bans 118 More Chinese Apps Over Security Concerns Amid Border Tensions
The statements come after US president Donald Trump ordered a sale of ByteDance's US operations by 14 November of face a national ban, after the previous deadline of 15 September was blocked by a US Federal judge.

US officials have routinely accused the apps of collecting data for the Chinese Communist Party and conducting cyberespionage, which Beijing and ByteDance execs have sharply and repeatedly denied.

India followed in June with similar measures after banning over 118 Chinese apps, including Tencent's WeChat, PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS (PUBG) and Baidu Maps following military clashes at the Himalayan border.

According to New Delhi, the apps were allegedly stealing and "surreptitiously" sending user data to servers outside of India, the SCMP wrote.

But Beijing said at the meeting there was no evidence to support claims from Washington and New Delhi, adding that data collection for ByteDance's popular video sharing app was standard practise for thousands of apps globally, it added.

SMIC, US Gov't Enter Talks on Trade Row as Beijing Set to Launch Google Antitrust Probe - Reports
India, the world's second-largest market for internet usage and mobiles, clashed with Chinese soldiers at Galwan Valley in late April, where roughly 20 Indian military personnel were killed in hand-to-hand combat along the 4,057km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The meeting comes days before reports revealed that China was mulling an antitrust probe on US tech giant Google for reportedly monopolising the tech market and blocking access to key technologies amid the ongoing US trade war on China.

The accusations come after the Menlo Park, California-based firm blocked access to its mobile services platform to devices from Huawei Technologies, namely after Trump blacklisted the latter along with dozens of Chinese tech companies in May last year, as well as restricting the Shenzhen-based company's access to US chipmakers without a licence for doing business.

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