We were doing a bit of research today when we found out that there’s some China in practically everything we own or use, even without realising.
1. Out of the five bestselling phone brands in India, four are Chinese – Xiaomi, Vivo, Realme and Oppo.
2. The Alibaba Group alone has investments in Big Basket ($250 million), Paytm.com ($400 million), Paytm Mall ($150 million), Zomato ($200 million) and Snapdeal ($700 million).
3. Tencent Holdings has investments in Indian firms like Byju’s ($50 million), Dream11 ($150 million), Flipkart ($300 million), Hike Messenger ($150 million), Ola ($500 million) and Swiggy ($500 million).
4. Chinese companies also hold stakes in Delhivery, MakeMyTrip, Oyo, PolicyBazzar, Quikr, Rivigo etc.
5. Most of our iPhones are assembled in China. Not only that, rare earth elements, a group of 17 elements of the Periodic Table almost exclusively mined and refined in China.
6. Fertilisers, organic chemicals, and plastic material are among the top five Indian imports from China. So the toys we play with to the bottles we drink water out of, to the food we farm and then eat, all of it has some Chinese.
7. Indian drug-makers import around 70 per cent of their total APIs, also known as bulk drugs, from China. APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) are the raw materials used to manufacture drugs. For example, Paracetamol is the API for Crocin.
8. Between April 2019 to January 2020, India imported $2.5 billion of silver in the form of plates, powder and sheets alone. So that spoon or that utensil and that jewellery and that other thing… Yup, most of it came from China.
9. India also heavily imports monitors and projectors among other things from China. It’s very likely that the screen you are reading it on is in some way related to China
10. In 2019, India was importing 10 times more auto components from China than it was exporting. So that car our parents own, that’s part Chinese too.
Just FYI, this is not an exhaustive list.