According to You Yunting, a lawyer with the Shanghai-based DeBund Law Offices, the directive in fact needs ministry clearance. According to him, the new regulation would have an influence on all Chinese applications and is primarily intended to combat online fraud.
The new law is also likely to have an impact on foreign-based developers who have previously found it easy to publish their apps through Apple's (AAPL.O) App Store without having to provide any supporting documents to the Chinese authorities, according to Rich Bishop, co-founder of app publishing company App In China.
According to Bishop, app developers must now either have a firm in China or collaborate with a local publisher in order to abide with the new regulations.
China's information ministry said that the nation will compel all mobile app developers to register their businesses with the government. This is the latest step Beijing has taken to control the market.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said late on Tuesday that applications without correct files will be penalised once the grace period, which will end in March next year, has passed. Experts say this move may limit the availability of apps and be particularly difficult on small developers.
A request for comment from Apple was not immediately complied with.
Following China's introduction of a new licensing system for generating AI apps for the nation, the iPhone manufacturer removed more than a hundred artificial intelligence (AI) apps from its App Store last week in order to comply with rules.
Additionally, according to the ministry's notification, organizations "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 restriction could have an impact on the accessibility of well-known social networking platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram. These applications cannot be used in China, but Chinese citizens may still download them from app stores and use them while they are outside of China.
Tens of thousands of unlicensed mobile games were removed from various app stores in 2020 in China, where it is already mandatory for games to get licenses before they can be released there.