The Author is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army

According to news reports of July 5, 2025, Apple's largest iPhone assembler Foxconn has recalled over 300 hundred of Chinese engineers and technicians from its iPhone factories in India. China has also stopped deliveries of machines and spare parts that are crucial for India's electronics and automobile sectors. Chinese workers make up less than one per cent of the workforce; but they play a key role in tasks such as production and quality management.

The setback to Apple, which has been scaling up exports of phones from India, and was readying to ramp up production of the iPhone17, is obvious; both the quality of production and the efficiency of the assembly lines would be impacted. Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn from India went to the US between March and May 2025, customs data showed, far above the 2024 average of 50 per cent, even as US President Donald Trump has been wanting Apple to shut iPhone manufacturing in India and make them only in America.

Foxconn's move is being viewed as China's determination to curb technology transfers and exports of equipment to India and other Southeast Asian nations

Foxconn has recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers for their factories in Chennai to protect its manufacturing base.

Foxconn's move is being viewed as China's determination to curb technology transfers and exports of equipment to India and other Southeast Asian nations as it seeks to protect its manufacturing base and prevent other countries from growing theirs. There is speculation that the Chinese move may be a breach of agreement. But notwithstanding this, it also exposes India's inability to create a large pool of adequately trained manpower that can be employed in the country's high-tech manufacturing units. If the Chinese engineers and technicians constitute only one per cent of the workforce, why is it that after all these years, India is unable to provide these for Apple iPhone manufacturing in India?

Ironically, the latest India Skills Report indicates that about 64 per cent of engineering graduates are employable while TeamLease showed that only 45 per cent of the 1.5 million engineers that graduate every year can do what industry requires. Obviously, we lack focus despite studies by the National Skill Development Corporation reveal a huge supply-demand gap. Only five per cent of India's workforce has reportedly received formal skill training as against 80 per cent and 96 per cent in countries like Japan and South Korea.

But while Foxconn's move is being viewed as China's move to slowdown iPhone manufacturing in India, there is also a view these engineers and technicians may have been withdrawn for fear of being caught in unethical activities – like discreet bugging and spyware/malware insertion in these phones. It was reported in these columns in October 2024 that 'Recorder Future', a company based in Somerville, Massachusetts (USA), had observed that CCTV cameras in Taiwan and South Korea were digitally talking to crucial parts of the Indian power grid; a deliberate indirect route by which Chinese spies were interacting with malware they had previously buried deep inside the Indian power grid. The attack was reportedly not foiled by an Indian intelligence agency or a close ally. Whether India was even aware or imagined that such a conversation was possible is also questionable.

Chinese Apps like RedNote, Weibo, and Douyin have been found to collect unauthorised personal data, including location data, contact lists, clipboard contents, screenshots, and device storage

It was also reported in these columns earlier that on April 8, 2020, China's state-owned 'China Telecom' advertised erroneous network routes for 18 minutes that instructed "massive volumes" of the US and other foreign Internet traffic to go through Chinese servers. A US Department of Defense (DoD) spokesman told reporters that he did not know if "we've determined whether that particular incident was done with some malicious intent or not". China Telecom naturally denied the charge that it "hijacked" the US Internet traffic. Salt Typhoon's infiltration of US telecom networks exploited vulnerabilities, even in patched systems, and enabled targeted surveillance of select high-value political and national security figures.

The latest is that Taiwan's National Security Bureau (NSB) has warned the public about significant cybersecurity risks posed by five Chinese mobile apps, including excessive data collection, following a cross-agency investigation, according to news reports of July 7, 2025. The NSB, in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the Criminal Investigation Bureau, announced its findings on July 2, 2025 regarding social media apps Douyin, RedNote, and Weibo; messaging app WeChat; and computing app Baidu Cloud. Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok - both owned by China-based internet company ByteDance.

RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu (Chinese equivalent of Instagram), was found to have violated all 15 indicators. Douyin and Weibo each had 13 violations, while WeChat had 10 and Baidu Cloud had nine. RedNote, Weibo, and Douyin have been found to collect unauthorised personal data, including location data, contact lists, clipboard contents, screenshots, and device storage. WeChat was also found to have committed all of these violations except for accessing clipboard data. All five apps were found to have deliberately extracted data on programme lists and device parameters. Except for WeChat, the apps were discovered to have collected facial recognition data. All five apps were also found to send data packets to China-based servers. Under China's Cybersecurity Law and National Intelligence Law, Chinese enterprises are obligated to turn over user data to competent authorities concerning national security, public security, and intelligence.

Indian corporate can't resist the benefit of cheap Chinese components resulting in Beijing enjoying an annual balance of trade in China's favour around $100 billion

In India, the government banned TikTok in recent years but is running full force. The number of Chinese smartphones being used by Indians is enormous. A senior naval veteran wrote that the Indian economy is entirely based on Chinese electronic Innards. India is also dependent on Chinese heavy machinery like tunnel boring machines for metro railway lines. This was an easy way out for mass production under the pretext that everyone could have mobiles, TV, fans and the like. According to a source in the establishment, the US and China already know everything – so why bother about secrecy!

Ironically, the Indian corporate can't resist the benefit of cheap Chinese components resulting in Beijing enjoying an annual balance of trade in China's favour around $100 billion. Now Starlink is to provide broadband coverage in India, while Jio and Bharti Airtel were also in the race, and 'Ananth Technologies' (leading Indian aerospace and satellite solutions provider) is poised to make history by launching India's first private satellite broadband service in conjunction with ISRO.