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India's following in the footstep of US in cracking down on Chinese tech firms and echoing anti-China sentiment, will only hurt its internet ecosystem, Chinese analysts said Tuesday.

The comment comes after Chinese search engine giant Baidu, the Chinese answer to Google, and Chinese Twitter-like social media Weibo, were both blocked in India, the Times of India reported Tuesday.

The two Chinese companies were asked to withdraw their apps from Google and Apple app stores, while internet service providers have been told to block them, the report said, citing sources.

Baidu declined to comment when reached out by the Global Times. Weibo could not be reached out as of press time.

Baidu has been trying to increase its presence in the Indian market as its peers Alibaba and Tencent have invested hugely in the country. During his visit to India in January, Baidu CEO Robin Li Yanhong said he wanted to work with Indian institutions in the future.

The Chinese tech firm had 45 million aggregate monthly active users across its mobile products in India in 2015, media reports said.

Weibo closed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's verified account on July 1 at the request of the Indian Embassy in China. New Delhi banned 59 Chinese apps on June 29 including some of China's biggest tech behemoths such as WeChat and TikTok, which were wildly popular in the Indian market.

"Some Indian departments have been taking aim at Chinese apps, and the trend is not likely to end in the near future," Sha Jun, executive partner in the India Investment Services Center of Yingke Law Firm, told the Global Times Tuesday.

India has drawn up a list of 275 Chinese apps that it will examine for violations of national security and user privacy, India's Economic Times reported on July 27, citing people familiar with the matter.

"Banning Chinese apps seems to make room for India's local firms to grab the market, but the latter is not as capable as Chinese internet firms in terms of operation experience and user services, which means Indian apps cannot fully catch the fruit thrown to them," said Sha.

The anti-China sentiment in India as well as its blind following of US' steps, which is not at all pragmatic, will only hurt its own rising internet ecosystem, said Sha.

Behind India's rising tech start-ups are a slew of high-tech giants from China that have been eagerly investing in the South Asian country in recent years, bringing capital and technology. A majority of India's 30 unicorns - start-ups with valuations of over $1 billion - have Chinese investors, according to Mumbai-based think-tank Gateway House in April.

Global Times