Chinese Regulators Implement New Policies for Mobile Applications: Impact on App Development Industry

Editorial, CNBC Indonesia

Tech

Wednesday, 09/27/2023 21:10 IWST

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Chinese regulators have implemented new policies that closely monitor the distribution of mobile applications. In short, all applications are required to submit their detailed business documents to the government.

If you don’t comply, the application will be blocked from the app store on Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, et al. In fact, applications that have been permitted to operate can have their permits revoked if they do not submit the requested documents.

Quoted from ReutersWednesday (27/9/2023), Xi Jinping’s government announced that there had been 26 applications submitting documents.

Among others are applications operated by Tencent, Huawei, Ant Group, Baidu, Xiaomi and Samsung.

Until now, the Apple App Store has not been included in the list of those who have submitted their documents to the Chinese government. Reuters said Apple had not yet opened its voice on this matter.

This rule has been in the works since last June. Beijing wants to filter mobile applications that are circulating and can be accessed by Chinese citizens.

This rule has an impact on the application development industry in the Bamboo Curtain country. The reason is, releasing a new application will be very difficult. Apart from that, applications that have been released can also be blocked if they do not meet government standards.

“The Android app store has confirmed that new apps must include documents for the government to see. Existing apps must also include documents,” said Rich Bishop, CEO of app development firm AppInChina.

“This rule requires global applications that want to operate in China to form a local entity or collaborate with a local partner,” he added.

Since this regulation was signed, the Android application stores operated by Tencent, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have distributed notifications to application developers. If developers do not include the requested documents, their applications will be blocked from application stores.

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