Ever since I landed in Hangzhou to cover the 19th Asian Games, I have been curious to know the popular mobile applications in China. What piqued my curiosity was India's decision to ban hundreds of Chinese mobile apps citing national security.
Although the Chinese government has blocked access to a number of Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, and Instagram, the Chinese seem glued to their devices and I was wondering what exactly keeps them hooked. I got the answer when I glanced through the home screen of fellow journalist Yan Huo. The Chinese rely on locally developed apps and search engines. There are Chinese versions of every popular mobile application like Google and' X', formerly Twitter.
The eye-catching logos of the 'Made-in-China' applications accompanied by pictograph-like scripts make their mobile screens very appealing. The logo that caught my attention instantly was that of TikTok, which was banned by the Indian government in June, 2020, along with several other Chinese apps. The short-form video hosting service is known as 'Douyin' in mainland China. While we used TikTok to share our dancing and singing skills with the world, the Chinese mostly use 'Douyin' as a travel app to book tickets and hotel rooms.
According to Huo, 99 per cent of the Chinese population use 'WeChat', China's equivalent of WhatsApp. 'Baidu', China's answer to Google, is one of the most popular search engines across the world. Although Elon Musk has rebranded Twitter as 'X', the Chinese version of Twitter continues to be known as 'Weibo'. Chinese developers have even come with their own version of Instagram's newly introduced text-based conversation app Threads!
