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New Delhi — After June’s deadly border clash in Ladakh, India is waging an economic war on China, with bans on almost everything from popular mobile apps to tenders on public projects. ByteDance’s TikTok, Tencent’s WeChat, Alibaba’s browser and Baidu map were among 59 Chinese apps banned by the Indian government in late June. Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s information technology minister, called it “a digital strike” at a recent political rally. Another 47 apps that are clones of those already banned were blocked in late July amid reports that over 250 more were on the chopping block, including Tencent-backed online multiplayer battle royale game PUBG Mobile and video-sharing app Zili from smartphone maker Xiaomi. “These are not just apps but propaganda agencies of the Chinese government,” Ashwani Mahajan, leader of Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic wing of the Hindu nationalist social organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), told the Nikkei Asian Review. RSS is the ideol...

New Delhi — After June’s deadly border clash in Ladakh, India is waging an economic war on China, with bans on almost everything from popular mobile apps to tenders on public projects. ByteDance’s TikTok, Tencent’s WeChat, Alibaba’s browser and Baidu map were among 59 Chinese apps banned by the Indian government in late June. Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s information technology minister, called it “a digital strike” at a recent political rally. Another 47 apps that are clones of those already banned were blocked in late July amid reports that over 250 more were on the chopping block, including Tencent-backed online multiplayer battle royale game PUBG Mobile and video-sharing app Zili from smartphone maker Xiaomi. “These are not just apps but propaganda agencies of the Chinese government,” Ashwani Mahajan, leader of Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic wing of the Hindu nationalist social organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), told the Nikkei Asian Review. RSS is the ideo...