A day after the Indian government banned 54 apps linked to China, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on February 15 issued a press release calling for the government to also ban the e-commerce app Shopee. Shopee is owned by Sea Limited, the same company that also owns Garena Free Fire, a popular battle royale game that features in the list of apps that were banned by the government. "The sovereign integrity and security of India is paramount and by banning these Chinese Apps, India has sent a clear message to the world that it will not be subjected to the economic terrorism of Beijing." – CAIT The government is yet to release an official notice of the ban and the list of apps that were banned, but Google confirmed to multiple media outlets including MediaNama that it received an order to ban certain apps under Section 69A of the IT Act 2000. MediaNama has also verified that the apps in the ban list circulating in the media are no longer accessible in Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India. Why CAIT wants the government to ban Shopee Chinese connection of Sea Limited: CAIT alleged that even though Sea Limited is Singapore-based, it is controlled by its Chinese founder Forest Li (who recently became a Singaporean national) and Tencent; and that Garena and Shopee store all of their data on Tencent Cloud. It is true that Tencent owns an 18.7 % stake in Sea, but Sea recently said that it does not…
