New Delhi: The Indian government has no plans to lift the ban on Chinese short-video platform TikTok, said Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Amid speculation that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, could be preparing for a re-entry to India, the IT, Information & Broadcasting, and Railways minister made it clear that the matter has not even been discussed within the government.
“There is absolutely no proposal which has come from any quarters,” Vaishnaw said in an interview with Moneycontrol.
TikTok’s website was briefly accessible in India on some broadband and mobile networks, including Airtel and Vodafone. That triggered chatter on social media that the app may be making a comeback, but officials clarified it was only a technical glitch.
TikTok, which had the largest user base in India with over 200 million people using the platform, was first banned in June 2020. It was among 59 Chinese apps blocked due to national security and data privacy concerns.
The app was removed from Google Play and Apple App Store, and the restriction was made permanent in January 2021.
Asked whether Chinese investors could again become active in the Indian tech ecosystem, Vaishnaw said the government will follow a transparent approach. “We will see as it happens. Policies will be clearly shared with everybody. We are a very transparent country,” Vaishnaw stated.
Chinese companies like Tencent, Alibaba, Ant Financial and Shunwei Capital were among the biggest backers of Indian startups, and had invested heavily across e-commerce, fintech, food delivery, mobility, digital content and education technology sectors.
However, in April 2020 the Indian government introduced stricter rules for foreign direct investment (FDI), making prior government approval mandatory for investors from countries sharing land borders with India. Chinese investments thereafter slowed down, and several Indian startups had to reduce Chinese stake and find alternative funding sources.
