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The
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said late
on Tuesday that apps without proper filings will be punished
after the grace period that will end in March next year, a move
that experts say would potentially restrict the number of apps
and hit small developers hard.
You Yunting, a lawyer with Shanghai-based DeBund Law Offices,
said the order is effectively requiring approvals from the
ministry. The new rule is primarily aimed at combating online
fraud but it will impact on all apps in China, he said.
Rich Bishop, co-founder of app publishing firm AppInChina, said
the new rule is also likely to affect foreign-based developers
which have been able to publish their apps easily through
Apple's App Store without showing any documentation to the
Chinese government.
Bishop said that in order to comply with the new rules, app
developers now must either have a company in China or work with
a local publisher.
Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The iPhone maker pulled over a hundred artificial intelligence
(AI) apps from its App Store last week to comply with
regulations after China introduced a new licensing regime for
generative AI apps for the country.
The ministry's notice also said entities "engaged in internet
information services through apps in such fields as news,
publishing, education, film and television and religion should
also submit relevant documents."
The requirement could affect the availability of popular social
media apps such as X, Facebook and Instagram. Use of such apps
are not allowed in China, but they can be still downloaded from
app stores, enabling Chinese to use them when traveling
overseas.
China already requires mobile games to obtain licenses before
they launch in the country and it had purged tens of thousands
of unlicensed games from various app stores in 2020.
(Reporting by Josh Ye; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Kim Coghill)
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