Techno-Nationalism: India Bans PRC's TikTok

Slap Xi's image with sandals...and ban Tiktok too!

 Well, well, well: In a previous post concerning whether India could boycott China after the recent, fatal border skirmish, I said "They can burn as many Xi pictures as they like, but their compatriots won't stop buying PRC-made goods anytime soon." As it turns out, techno-nationalism is alive and well but not in the way I had envisioned. (I am still correct on technical points since [1] what's transpired concerns services not goods and [2] it's a government ban instead of a consumer boycott). The jingoistic Modi government apparently couldn't help itself from taking a swipe at China.

Nationalism aside, Modi & co. are hitting China in a way that inflicts less damage on India. True, India still cannot restrict the purchase of PRC-sourced electronic equipment since they have limited domestic manufacturing capabilities for smartphones, 5G infrastructure, and so on. But, India has no lack whatsoever of software writing talent. So, India has banned Bytedance of China's TikTok app, nearly a third of whose users are in India:

For thousands of Indian content creators [...] TikTok was a window into fame and fortune. But on Tuesday, the app, owned by China's ByteDance, went blank on phones across India after the government banned it along with 58 other Chinese-origin apps which it considered a threat to national sovereignty. The move came weeks after a deadly skirmish between Indian and Chinese soldiers along the disputed Himalayan border.

So the first key difference is that the government banned TikTok instead of there being a user backlash against the app (though some users support the Indian government's move):

TikTok was a sensation in India. With more than 600 million downloads, India accounted for 30 percent of its two billion downloads worldwide. ByteDance planned to invest $1bn in India, its top growth market where it employs 2,000 people [...]

Unlike Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, TikTok found resonance in India's hinterland as well as its cities, thanks to its less elaborate user interface, background music options and various special effects. Users - who ranged from top Bollywood stars to people in remote villages who became mini-celebrities - posted a wide variety of content, though jokes, dance clips and videos related to India's thriving movie industry dominated the platform.

And second--this is probably the key to the Modi government's thinking--there aren't many difficulties in cooking up homegrown TikTok alternatives. India is exceedingly good at software development, so why rely on China's?

Indian video-creation apps like Roposo, described on Google's app store as "India's own video app", and another named Chingari are likely to see a popularity surge after the TikTok ban.

Like Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese telecoms firms, ByteDance's fate in overseas markets is inevitably tied to the PRC's image abroad. It's too bad since ByteDance has actually done more than you would expect to customize its offerings in overseas markets. It's the "reward" it gets from being a Chinese concern circa 2020.