Indian tax evasion probe against Huawei irks China, alleges discrimination

The Chinese have asked the Indian authorities to improve their business environment and treat Chinese companies in a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner.

Anish Kumar

New Delhi, First Published Feb 18, 2022, 3:48 PM IST | Last Updated Feb 18, 2022, 3:48 PM IST

Search operations at several offices of Chinese telecom giant Huawei a few days back as part of a tax-evasion investigation have evoked a sharp response from the Chinese administration.

The Chinese have asked the Indian authorities to improve their business environment and treat Chinese companies in a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner.

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Earlier this week, the Income Tax Department had conducted searches at the company's premises in New Delhi, Bengaluru, and Gurugram, and seized some of papers and documents related to tax evasion.

Expressing concern over the probe, Chinese embassy in India Spokesperson Wang Xiaojian said, "Relevant Indian authorities have taken a series of measures to suppress Chinese companies and their products in India, which have severely damaged legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies."

He also said that the Chinese administration has concerned about the investment environment in India.

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Stating that the foreign investors have created a huge number of job opportunities in the country and also made positive contributions to its economic development, the Chinese embassy expressed hope that "India will improve its business environment and treat all foreign investors, including Chinese companies, in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner."

It must be noted that the Income Tax Department had also conducted searches at the premises of mobile phone majors Xiaomi and Oppo last year and detected an unaccounted revenue of over Rs 6,500 crore.

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Xiaojian also stated that the two countries are inseparable neighbours and important economic and trade partners to each other.

In 2021, the two countries had a bilateral trade volume of over $125.7 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 43 percent. China has around $75 billion trade surplus as of now.

"Economic and trade cooperation between China and India has strong resilience and great potential. It is hoped that the Indian side can take concrete measures to maintain sound development momentum of bilateral economic and trade cooperation for benefit of the two countries and the two peoples," he said.

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India has taken a slew of measures since the troops of two countries engaged in the border standoff in parts of the Ladakh region in May 2020.

Just a few days back, India banned a total of 54 Chinese mobile apps citing national security threats. Since 2020, around 270 Chinese mobile applications have been banned on the grounds that these apps were transferring the sensitive data of Indians to Chinese servers. The ban was imposed under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.

India and China have held 14 rounds of military talks to resolve the issue in Ladakh. So far, the two sides have disengaged from the Pangong Tso region and Gogra heights and disengagement is yet to take place from the Hot Springs area.

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