India might be physically keeping the Chinese out of its borders, but they could already have a foothold in India thorough an unlikely source — Indian soldiers’ smartphones and in order to avoid the threat perception, the Indian Government has directed all the troops along the Indo-China border to delete 40 apps from their smartphones. The reason for deleting the apps was that their servers were in China which later can create a cause of threat as their servers are in China and they would easily be able to track and monitor the location of troops using these apps via smartphones.
The apps that have been ordered to be deleted are Weibo, Wechat, Beautyplus, Nes Dog, CM Browser, MI Community, DU Privacy and Selfie City, Mail Master and MI Video call-Xiaomi. This direction follows and earlier directive through which the Ministry had asked the troops of all the three services to avoid using social network sites as it can give away their place of deployment.
This advisory is also important since China could on the basis of these apps track the deployment of the forces as well. This information comes in the wake of Indian Security Agencies insisting on specific clearance for Chinese telecom products. Some companies such as ZTE and Huawei have not been allowed to be installed in the bordering areas. The agencies said that these products have their master servers in China and hence should not be used especially in the bordering areas.
It’s exceedingly likely that Indian soldiers would have Chinese apps on their phones as of this year, over half of all smartphones sold in India made by Chinese companies. Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Gionee have flooded the Indian smartphone market with cheap, reliable phones, and Indian have taken to them in droves.The timing of the ban on Chinese apps, though, isn’t surprising.
India has had a fractious relationship with China in the recent past, with the two nations having squared off at Doklam a few months ago. Both sides had amassed troops on each side of the border, and a conflict looked imminent. The crisis was finally averted, but given this recent directive about Chinese apps, the Indian government clearly believes that the threat won’t necessarily come from across the border — it could have already crossed over, along with the flood of smartphones and apps that the Chinese have sent over in the last few years.
India and China share a border more than 4,000 km stretching from Ladakh in the north to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. The LAC is divided into three sectors, including west (Ladakh), middle (Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand) and east (Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim).