Indo - Chinese Diplomatic & Economic Relations : News, Updates, Discussions & Analysis.


@randomradio u said, Chinese are not in a position to deploy j20 against India in near future.

I said the opposite. The J-20s have been inducted in large numbers already. In case we go to war in 2023, I have always said we will have to face off at least 50-100 J-20A/Bs(?). The definitive version J-20C(?) with 18-20T engine is not ready yet, it's under flight tests. The new version is required to actually be a threat to India because it can operate from the Tibetan plateau with very low payload restrictions.

The IAF had an overall advantage back in 2020 due to lack of PLAAF infrastructure. Today they have everything they need to fight India in the air. But, since any war here would be an army-centric war, and the IAF numbers are drastically low, the IAF will mostly be supporting the army.
 
Problem is with Indian leaders. They utter everything in the parliament whatever is breefed to them by the officials, also the strategy and future plans or what is running in their mind related to foreign policy and national security to gain votes. Due to that the adversary takes the preemptive step.
 

India escalates crackdown on Chinese phonemakers​

India has stepped up a crackdown on the Chinese companies that dominate its smartphone market in a series of legal actions that have raised trade tensions between Asia’s two biggest nations. Oppo, which sells both the popular realme brand and its eponymous marque, was accused by Indian regulators of tax evasion this week. That followed recent raids, lawsuits and sweeping asset seizures against Xiaomi and Vivo. Together, the three Chinese technology groups control about 60 per cent of India’s smartphone market.

The pressure on Chinese smartphone brands comes as New Delhi seeks to build up its domestic tech sector and reduce dependence on imports, and against a backdrop of frosty relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours over their disputed border. While India insists the legal cases against Chinese companies are not politically motivated, the raids have added to longstanding concerns about the country’s climate for foreign investment.

Ashutosh Sharma, research director at market researcher Forrester, said cross-border tension had intensified India’s scrutiny of Chinese-owned companies: “The level of distrust is so high between India and China, I don’t think there’s any likelihood that these companies are not closely watched by the government.”

India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, a financial enforcement agency, has alleged that Oppo, which along with Vivo is owned by Dongguan-based BBK Electronics, had evaded taxes worth Rs43.9bn ($550mn). The DRI alleges that Oppo obtained lower customs duties through mis-declaring imported items and failing to include royalty and license fees in their value. The revenue authority is demanding that Oppo repay the full sum. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Column chart of Market share (%) showing Xiaomi burst in to the lead in India’s smartphone market before losing ground Vivo was raided across 48 locations and assets worth $60mn were seized last week.

In response, the Chinese embassy in India complained that “frequent investigations by the Indian side into Chinese enterprises” were disrupting their business operations. Vivo said it was co-operating with authorities. This year, India’s financial enforcement authorities accused Xiaomi, the Chinese group that is the market leading smartphone seller in India, of unlawfully remitting $725mn abroad. Xiaomi has denied any wrongdoing. “It was to be expected that Chinese companies would be targeted over time,” said Jabin T Jacob, associate professor at Shiv Nadar University in New Delhi who specialises in China. “The longer the border stand-off continued, the more Chinese companies would be at risk.” It seemed unlikely allegations made by enforcement authorities were baseless, Jacob added.

Along with South Korea’s Samsung, Chinese-owned device makers grabbed market share from once-prominent Indian phone brands, undercutting homegrown companies with newer technology at cheaper prices. For India’s government, the dominance of Chinese smartphone makers “is a big matter of concern,” Sharma added. “That’s why the push is on ‘Make in India’”, referring to a government scheme to incentivise local manufacturing, part of New Delhi’s plan to reduce dependence on Chinese imports.

Most Chinese-owned phonemakers manufacture devices in India and have invested heavily in factories. India’s minister of state for information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has denied that India discriminates against Chinese-owned companies. “Our views of companies are not driven by whether they are Chinese or not Chinese,” he told reporters, adding: “There are laws, there are rules you have to comply with, and there is no free pass for anybody, whether you are Chinese or anybody.”

India has explicitly cold-shouldered Chinese companies before. It restricted direct investment from neighbouring countries in April 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic weakened Indian corporates and made them vulnerable to takeover. Commercial hostilities escalated after deadly border clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers erupted in the summer of 2020, with India banning hundreds of Chinese-owned apps including ByteDance’s TikTok, citing national security concerns.

Underlining the complexity of trade relations between India and China, Soumya Bhowmick, associate fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think-tank, found that after a slump in 2020, Chinese investments in Indian start-ups in 2021 hit “a three-year high, and Chinese funding is quite robust in the start-up ecosystem again”. Alibaba and Tencent are among the biggest backers.

India and China’s bilateral trade has grown in China’s favour — India imported $27.7bn worth of goods from China in the first three months of 2022 but exported only $4.9bn to China, a record trade deficit. Electronics, chemicals and car parts made up the bulk of Chinese imports.

Yet strategic sectors remain off limits. New Delhi does not want telecommunications companies to use equipment made by China’s Huawei, and this week broadened a regulatory framework for approving hardware use. Huawei is also facing tax probes but has said it was “fully compliant” with Indian laws and co-operating with authorities. Freezing Chinese companies out of telecommunications networks has encouraged domestic players to invest, China scholar Jacob argued, “because at least they’re assured of returns without competition from elsewhere”. “In a lot of ways, the Indians are following the Chinese playbook,” Jacob added, by “developing their own national champions”.

Recommended Xiaomi Corp Xiaomi battles law enforcement and competition in India Reliance Jio, the digital unit of the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate controlled by tycoon Mukesh Ambani, has upturned the mobile telecoms industry with dirt cheap data since 2016. It launched its own smartphone last year with backing from Google and Meta. While the device has yet to capture market share, “my prediction is in the next two to three years this will shift”, said Forrester’s Sharma, “we will probably see the dominance of local players like Reliance”. Gurcharan Das, an author and former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India, said that “India tries to create a level playing field” in relation to foreign investors.

While not addressing the specifics of the cases involving Chinese companies, he warned that commerce and politics should stay separate. “We should not mix politics with economics. A smart country does not hurt its economy”.
 

‘Rs 2,217-crore Customs duty evasion’: DRI notice to Vivo India​

In another case of tax evasion against a Chinese cellphone maker, the Finance Ministry on Wednesday said that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has detected customs duty evasion of around Rs 2,217 crore by Vivo India, a subsidiary of China-based Vivo Communication Technology.

A showcause notice has been issued to the company for misdeclaration that resulted in alleged wrongful availment of ineligible duty exemption benefits by Vivo India, amounting to Rs 2,217 crore. Queries sent to Vivo India by The Indian Express were unsanswered by press time.
“During the course of investigation, searches were conducted by DRI officers at the factory premises of M/s Vivo India, which led to the recovery of incriminating evidence indicating wilful mis-declaration in the description of certain items imported by M/s Vivo India, for use in the manufacture of mobile phones. This mis-declaration resulted in wrongful availment of ineligible duty exemption benefits by M/s Vivo India, amounting to Rs 2,217 crore,” the Finance Ministry statement said.

It added that the company has “voluntarily deposited” Rs 60 crore towards discharge of their differential duty liability.

Vivo Mobile India Pvt Ltd, or Vivo India, is a subsidiary company of Vivo Communication Technology Co Ltd, Guangdong, China, and is engaged in the business of manufacturing, assembling, wholesale trading as well as distribution of mobile handsets and accessories.

Last month, in another set of investigations conducted by the DRI, a showcause notice demanding a duty of Rs 4,389 crore was issued to Oppo Mobiles India Pvt Ltd. The tax authorities had alleged duty evasion by misdeclaration of imports by Oppo India along with alleging that the company has made provisions for payment of “royalty” and “licence fee” to various multinational companies, including those based in China, in lieu of use of proprietary technology/ brand/IPR licence etc.
 

Contract ended, China firm claims damages, Rlys replies with counter​

Two years after the Railways terminated a Rs 471-crore contract of the Chinese Railway’s signalling and telecom arm for its works in Uttar Pradesh, the Chinese firm has locked Indian Railways in international dispute and claimed Rs 279 crore compensation.

The company, China Railway Signalling and Communication (CRSC) Research and Design Institute, recently instituted arbitration under International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) rules in Singapore.

Playing hardball, the Indian side — the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), under the Railways — has issued a counter-claim of Rs 71 crore on the Chinese major. The matter is headed for a showdown in the international tribunal, sources in the Railways said.

In 2020, DFCCIL terminated CRSC’s contract for installation signalling and telecom systems on the 417-km stretch between Kanpur and Mughalsarai (now Deen Dayal Upadhyay) stations in UP for the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor.

The contract was terminated at the peak of the border dispute between the neighbours in Ladakh. The DFCCIL had cited non-performance by the contractor as the reason behind the move.


The Chinese company had dragged the matter to Delhi High Court at the time, but to no avail.
 

Mastermind of China-linked shell companies arrested while attempting to flee India​

New Delhi [India], September 11 (ANI): The government has arrested one individual named Dortse having links with China and is responsible for the whole racket of incorporating a large number of shell companies in India and appointing dummy Directors on their Boards.

Dorte has “clearly emerged as the mastermind” of the whole racket, a Ministry of Corporate Affairs statement said on Sunday morning. The arrest, however, was made on Saturday.

"After the simultaneous search and seizure operations conducted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on 8th Sept. 2022, on the offices of Jillian Consultants India Private Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Jilian Hong Kong Ltd., at Gurgaon, Fininty Pvt Ltd at Bangalore and Husys Consulting Ltd, an erstwhile listed company at Hyderabad, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has arrested Mr Dortse yesterday,” it added. Dortse and one Chinese national are the two directors of Jilian Consultants India Private Limited.

Based on inputs and the investigations carried out, it was gathered that Dortse had fled from Delhi NCR to a remote place in the state of Bihar and was attempting to escape India through the road route, the statement said.

"Immediately, a special team was constituted in SFIO which was deputed to the remote place. On the evening of 10th Sept. 2022, SFIO had arrested Dortse, who was later produced in the Jurisdictional Court and Orders for his transit remand were obtained.”

The arrested person Dortse had shown himself to be a resident of Mandi in Himachal Pradesh as per the records filed with the Registrar of Companies, the ministry’s statement said.

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Evidence procured during the enquiry by ROC Delhi and the simultaneous search operations clearly points to dummy Directors being paid by Jilian India Ltd. to act as dummies in several shell companies,” the statement said, adding that boxes filled with company seals and digital signatures of dummy directors have been recovered from the site.

The Indian employees were in touch with their Chinese counterparts through a Chinese instant messaging app, it added.

“Husys Ltd. was also found to be acting on behalf of Jilian India Ltd. Initial observations reveal that Husys Ltd. had a pact with Jilian Hong Kong Ltd. Investigations so far have revealed the possible involvement of these shell companies in serious financial crimes detrimental to the financial security of the country,” the Ministry added.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, under whose aegis Serious Fraud Investigation Office operates, had assigned the investigation of Jilian Consultants India Private Limited and 32 other companies to SFIO on Friday.

Earlier, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) Thursday initiated a crackdown on Indian entities that were providing “fake directors” to hundreds of Chinese shell companies in cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram, sources had said.

They added that Indian citizens with no education and working in menial jobs were being provided as Directors to Chinese Shell companies. (ANI)