Sterlite 2.0: China and Indian Communists join hands to force iPhone manufacturing company Wistron out of India

As the global companies are shifting their factories from China to other countries including India, it seems that the Chinese Communist Party has activated their stooges to disturb the manufacturing operations in other countries. In the last few months, Taiwan-based many iPhone parts manufacturers including Wistron set up their factories in India, hiring a large number of employees.

Wistron, which set up an iPhone manufacturing unit in Kolar district of Karnataka, increased the number of employees from 2,000 in June to 12,000 in October and operations were going in full swing in the last few months. But, the company’s manufacturing unit was attacked on Saturday morning by a large number of unidentified people.

The company used to pay 22,000 rupees per worker for an eight-hour shift, which is well above India’s wage for unskilled manufacturers. Moreover, the company also provided a more feasible working environment when compared to others, so a worker’s revolt in such a situation seems very unlikely. 

 The Communist Party-linked trade unions like All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), which is trade union arm of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (Liberation) (CPI(ML)L), has already started batting for workers’ rights and is trying to prove the whole incident as worker’s revolt with claims like the company didn’t pay the workers.

Right after the attack, the Chinese Communist Party activated its propaganda claiming that the companies will regret their decision of moving to India.

“This is a potential risk when manufacturers consider moving their production lines out of #China where they have the most stable labour market supporting the nation to become the largest manufacturing hub. Does Terry Gou from #Foxconn, regret about moving those #iPhone lines to #India,” tweeted Qingqing Chen, a reporter of Global Times, the mouthpiece of Chinese Communist Party.

Moreover, Global Times did an article on the same, titled- ‘Chinese netizens called for Apple to move manufacturing back to China’, claiming, “Due to the poor local security situation in India, Wistron’s factory was an obvious target for attacks.”

“Experts said that low productivity levels in India and violence, as well as the severe pandemic situation, would hinder India’s manufacturing capacity, disrupting the iPhone supply chain, so many believe that companies will choose to return to China,” added the article. 

Moreover, most of the international media portals, many of which receive billions of dollars from CCP and its affiliate companies in the advertisement, were quick to pick up the story. The news spread like wildfire in the global media and many financial newspapers like Bloomberg, the New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal picked it up instantly. Apple too announced a probe in the matter and dispatched a team to investigate the incident. “We have teams on the ground and immediately launched an investigation at Wistron’s Narasapura facility in India. Our teams are in touch with local authorities and we’re offering our full support to their probe,” said Apple.

The whole incident looks like a repeat of what happened with Sterlite plant in Tamil Nadu, where the Chinese-backed NGOs started protesting against the manufacturing unit, and ultimately a weak government gave up to the pressure and shut down the plant. 

Read more: Is there a large-scale conspiracy behind the protests against Sterlite copper plant?

The owner of Sterlite Copper Plant, Anil Agrawal led Vedanta Group has told the Madras High Court that the anti-Sterlite protest was funded by Chinese companies which will benefit from the closure of the plant. “These companies promoted and funded the agitations and protests against Sterlite. India’s import bill for copper is $2 billion, the demand was being met by Sterlite earlier,” claimed Aryama Sundaram, the legal counsel for Vedanta Group before the special bench of the court comprising Justice T S Sivagnanam and Justice V Bhavani Subbaroyan.

Since the closure of Vedanta’s plant, 38 per cent of the country’s copper demand has been met through imports from foreign firms. “There is a direct economic, financial interest of the foreigners in this,” said Sundaram. “Foreign manufacturers are benefiting from this and the profit goes to them. The import bill for copper is $2 billion, which Sterlite used to satisfy earlier,” he further added.

The Karnataka government must take swift action against the conspirators who attempted to host a similar event in the state, otherwise, the overall situation will soon be known as ‘Sterlite 2.0.’ The Chinese and Pakistani companies benefited massively from the closure of Sterlite plant, and China is using the same method to close the Winstron facility in India too, to ensure that the companies do not move out of China.