What will be the effect of 'Indian TikTok ban' on China?

India recently banned many mobile apps developed by Chinese firms from use in India. While this might sound frivolous and will not have much effect on India, it might have some serious repercussions on China's perception as a global technology provider.

For many years China has been an outlier in the world of integrated technology. It has banned most of the big American technology companies to operate in China examples include Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. The main reason they think it was necessary was to control the dissipation of information and they can only control what they created themselves domestically. This gave rise to all kinds of homegrown technology companies providing all kinds of applications and services using internet as a platform. China basically created an ecosystem of technology which ran parallel to the technology of the outside world but never met. This parallel technology ecosystem was designed keeping in mind what was successful in the west e.g. WeChat was developed by Tencent on the lines of WhatsApp another popular internet based texting platform later both evolved into much more. Same was Weibo was created on the lines of Facebook. This inherent property to study and analyse western technology before building their own meant that they knew the psyche of the global technology consumer. This led to the emergence of China as a new technology providing powerhouse for the rest of the world.  Its companies like Alibaba and Tencent went on to create global technology platforms used worldwide.

While Chinese apps have always been under the eyes of global privacy protection watchdogs of local governments, it has never been shuttered the way it has been done by India. While China has been notoriously banning everybody else's technology to come to China it has been dealt a similar deal by India this time around. Now, this event has the potential to become a model for other countries from US to countries in Europe and Asia to curtail the rise of China in the internet-based app dominance and maintain data privacy.

This comes in the backdrop of China looking to launch itself as a global harbinger of technology and the big daddy of tech, threatening American dominance. It is one of the foremost providers in terms of 5G, its smartphone companies are looking to dethrone existing major players and people around the world are finding their tech appealing. This Indian episode does not fit in the Chinese plans as far as their technology aspirations are concerned. This is aggravated by US, which is going around telling its allies to stay away from Huawei for the 5G technology. In other words, while China may be developing its technology for the world but the world might not be interested in its technology after all due to negative publicity and other privacy and sovereignty concerns. Truth remains, trust is really important when it comes to giving technology an access to any country, if there are trust issues it might act as a dampener. 

This new trend of Techno-Nationalism emerging out of India emboldens countries like US which have been in crosshairs with the Congress on allowing Chinese firms to amass personal data in such huge proportions. Trump administration has already been going after China in many ways like tariffs on trade and blaming China for irresponsibly handling the Coronavirus pandemic, this might throw them another idea of shoring techno-nationalism within their domestic population just before American presidential elections.

India's prohibition further signifies that nations are using tech to assert themselves geopolitically. Much like the trade prohibition used by many countries in earlier times, today's world believes technology will be the next weapon to assert yourself on your enemy. American lobbying against China's Huawei as a 5G provider to America and its allies makes this point crystal clear. China should be worries that this border tension has sent India right into the lap of US and with TikTok and other apps banned, the American corporations are set to win.

Conclusion:

As India bans the popular Chinese app TikTok and many other mobile applications, the message is very clear. India wants to deny the economic and data opportunity of the fastest growing technology market to Chinese technology companies upon deadly clashes in Ladakh. This technology boycott would mean China with all its technology capabilities would have a negative story attached to it. This might enable other countries to not trust China when it comes to seeking important technology capabilities like 5G. US has already been lobbying against Huawei and questioning China's shadow practices in the garb of tech. Further the ban on Chinese apps is certainly going to add to the already popular American technology companies who have a much bigger presence in India. In short it becomes a US gain at China's cost.