PM Modi exits Weibo account, posts taken down

Beijing: Prime Minister Narendra Modi exited his Weibo account on Wednesday, a day after India banned 59 Chinese apps, and with the armies of the two countries

Beijing: Prime Minister Narendra Modi exited his Weibo account on Wednesday, a day after India banned 59 Chinese apps, and with the armies of the two countries facing off along the de factor border after a skirmish in Eastern Ladakh on June 15 left 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers dead.

HT Image

“The message is loud and clear. If red lines are crossed, there will be consequences, “ the BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya said on Twitter, a micro-blooging platform after which Weibo is modelled.

All 115 posts on Modi’s Weibo profile have been taken down, as has been his profile photograph.

The removal of all information from Modi’s Weibo account comes 10 days after at least three official Indian statements – including the PM’s – were deleted from the Indian embassy’s official account on the popular Chinese social media app, WeChat.

“We are taking action to unsubscribe the account,” an Indian embassy official told HT.

Modi’s Weibo account was set up in 2015 amid much fanfare and publicity before his first visit to China as prime minister.

Since then the account has built 244,000 followers, many of them Chinese.

Since 2015, but barring this year, Modi has wished President Xi Jinping ahead of his birthday on June 15.

He also published messages on Sino-India ties especially after meetings with Xi.

Modi’s posts on Weibo were in Chinese.

The Hindustan Times has reached out to the Chinese foreign ministry for a comment on this development.

Modi’s abrupt departure from Weibo account and removal of the Indian government’s posts on Chinese social media come in the backdrop of the violent face-off, and ongoing tension, between Indian and Chinese troops.

The Chinese government has so far not revealed the casualties suffered by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) although China has admitted to international diplomats that it did suffer casualties. .

On June 20, an India’s external affairs ministry (MEA) statement about the Indian position on the ongoing border tension with China was mysteriously deleted from the embassy’s official Weibo account a day before the WeChat posts were deleted.

Tencent, a leading Chinese tech company that owns WeChat, didn’t respond to HT’s questions on the taking down of Indian government’s official statements.

The message that popped up on WeChat when clicking the MEA’s statement on the Galwan Valley clash said: “This content was reported and confirmed by the platform of the following:” before it says in Mandarin: “Suspected of violating relevant laws, regulations and policies”.

The long list of regulations include: “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”.