The US and Korea don't have territorial claims or border disputes or fought a war with India. Also, many Chinese firms are known for hacking and spying to get trade secrets. Chinese firms will have a big leg up against Indian ones if they know the price they're bidding for overseas contracts, for example.

Example of ZTE blatantly violating an NDA it signed. http://thepatentinvestor.com/federal-judge-says-vringo-has-c...

The way that Xiomi blatantly copies Apple, including the "one more thing", I wouldn't expect them to have any qualms turning any and all info to their govt. for any small benefit.

http://www.cultofmac.com/291859/xiaomi-ios-7-ripoff/

Unlike American or Korean companies, Chinese ones are understandably viewed with extra suspicion because India does not exactly have very friendly relations with China (although this seems to be changing).

Also, a couple of months ago, Xiaomi phones uploaded adsressbook information to their servers without user permission. After the backlash, they issued software updates to ask for consent.

On a general note, one wonders how many instances of arbitrary data uploading they - by which I mean pretty much every 'cloud' integration provider - get away with.

Gather any data, upload it to an IP otherwise publicly known for benign purposes, over an encrypted connection with a closed-source sync daemon, and cover your ass with some vague and easily glossed-over clause in the privacy policy that no one reads. I hope otherwise but I am almost certain something like this exists in every commerical mobile OS today. :-/

Backing up to the cloud means your data is open to interception by the government that service technically and jurisdictionally stores data in.

I assume the consideration here is that the Chinese government (via Xiomai's cloud) is to be feared more than the US (via Google's Android backup) - which of course is a topic worthy of debate itself

I think the issue here is Apple and Samsung disclosed publicly that data for xyz is sent back but Xiaomi never did so that's why they view it as spying. I believe Apple had a similar issue when they were discovered to be recording your geo locations but never telling the public about it.

A security company found an excuse to make a nasty story to get PR, basically.