BEIJING (AP) — China accused India on Thursday of improperly disrupting activities by Chinese companies in the midst of tensions over a bloody clash between forces along their disputed border.
China has not taken any retaliatory measures in response to India’s actions and a return to normal is in the best interests of both countries, Commerce Ministry spokesperson Gang Feng told reporters, according to the ministry’s website.
“It is hoped that Indian side will immediately correct the discriminatory practices against China and Chinese enterprises,” Gao said. New Delhi’s moves were in violation of World Trade Organization rules and India’s commitment to global trade’s rules-making body, he said.
On Monday, India said it had banned 59 Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, while Chinese companies are being blocked from participating in highway projects and are banned from investing in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Indian protesters have been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the June 15 confrontation along the border.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi quit ubiquitous Chinese social media platform Weibo to send a strong message to Beijing on the border issue, economic front and at “personal level too,” the Press Trust of India news agency cited his party leader B.L. Santhosh as saying.
The latest tensions began in early May and culminated in hand-to-hand fighting in the Galwan Valley, a remote stretch of the 3,380-kilometer (2,100-mile) Line of Actual Control — the border established following a war between India and China in 1962 that resulted in an uneasy truce.
Twenty Indian troops were killed in the fighting. China is also believed to have suffered casualties but has released no information.
China has long wielded a large trade surplus with India, particularly in manufactured goods.
___
Image: A Bharatiya Janata Party activist burns a photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping during a protest in Jammu, India, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. Indian TikTok users awoke Tuesday to a notice from the popular short-video app saying their data would be transferred to an Irish subsidiary, a response to India’s ban on dozens of Chinese apps amid a military standoff between the two countries. The quick workaround showed the ban was largely symbolic since the apps can’t be automatically erased from devices where they are already downloaded, and is a response to a border clash with China where 20 Indian soldiers died earlier this month, digital experts said. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)
