alt Hacker NewsChina doesn't require pre-installed apps but the Chinese government require all data processing and storage to be conducted within China with complete source code access.
India chose to back off on data sovereignty [0] because it would have had a side effect of making Indian IT Offshoring less competitive plus to help make negotiating a US-India BTA easier [1].
[0] - https://verfassungsblog.de/cross-border-data-flows-and-india...
[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-25/us-seeks-...
Replies
I don't think there is any reason to assume they would allow forced code execution just because they allow data residency for mainland accounts. And unfortunately, China is likely a much larger and more profitable consumer market than India - presumably they can still export phones produced inside India without this.
Most people in China install Wechat by choice, anyway
> making Indian IT Offshoring less competitive
So does a security backdoor in every mobile device used by said Indian offshoring staff.