Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) talks to Chinese President Xi Jingping for the duration of the BRICS meeting in Goa, India, on Oct 16, 2016.
Prakash Singh | AFP | Getty Pictures
China’s Twitter like services, Weibo, has eliminated Indian Key Minister Narendra Modi’s account at the request of the Indian embassy in Beijing.
The strange move will come amid rising tensions between India and China over their disputed border high in the Western Himalayas and a clash previously this thirty day period that left 20 Indian soldiers lifeless.
India retaliated by banning 59 Chinese apps, which include superior-profile types these types of as TikTok and WeChat. New Delhi is also reportedly weighing irrespective of whether to allow Chinese telecommunications big Huawei take part in the rollout of the country’s next-generation 5G cell networks.
Weibo introduced late on Wednesday that it experienced acquired a request from the Indian embassy in China to shut Modi’s account.
“Weibo received an software from the Indian embassy in China, which stated: ‘(I) hope to have the official Weibo account of Key Minister Narendra Modi eliminated from the platform,'” it explained.
The Chinese microblogging platform complied with the request and declared that: “Weibo has closed what was licensed as the account of the Prime Minister of India.”
The Indian embassy in Beijing was not immediately out there for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Modi has been on Weibo since 2015 but posted fairly infrequently.
His to start with at any time put up was written in Chinese and translated as: “Hello there China! Hunting forward to interacting with Chinese good friends by means of Weibo.”
Because social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are effectively blocked in China, Weibo is a major way to communicate with a Chinese viewers.
