Chinese app pulls down India’s posts on conflict

Beijing

Beijing

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Chinese social media app, WeChat, has removed posts of the Embassy of India (EoI) regarding the India-China border conflict.

It has cited “endangering national security” and “divulging state secrets” as the reasons for the removal of the posts.

The EoI posts included Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks on the India-China border situation, details of a phone call between the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers held on Thursday and a statement by the external affairs ministry (MEA) spokesperson.

For two of the posts, a pop-up window said that the posts were “deleted by the author”. For the third post, which was a statement by the MEA spokesperson, the pop-up message read: “Unable to view this content because it violates regulations”. “This content was reported and confirmed by the platform of the following…Suspected of violating relevant laws, regulations and policies,” the message added.

The regulations included: “endangers national security, divulges state secrets, subverts state power, or undermines national unity, inciting hatred, disseminating false information, inciting illegal assembly, demonstration or gathering of people to disturb public order”.

This has come a day after a similar statement by the MEA spokesperson was deleted from the Embassy’s Weibo account. The Embassy had then issued a clarification saying that the post wasn’t removed by it, and re-published a screen-shot of the statement in Chinese.

Weibo is a Chinese microblogging website.

While the statements on WeChat were issued in English and Mandarin, the EoI’s Weibo account uploaded the MEA’s version of the events at the border in eastern Ladakh, in Chinese.

WeChat is yet to respond to queries from HT on the issue.