Round The World
New Delhi, 24 April
2020
Corona
Corners China
INDIA
JOINS BANDWAGON
By Dr. D. K.
Giri
(Prof.
International Politics JMI)
The predictable global reaction has started
happening. China is being cornered by the world as it exposes itself with
attempts at opportunistic takeover of distressed assets around the World. A
host of big and medium powers are recognising and resisting Chinese game plan
to dominate the world economy. The United Sates has been urging the world to
‘decouple’ Chinese economy. The big-economies have at last come to realise it
and are taking remedial steps to fend off the Chinese aggressive moves in the
wake of the Corona pandemic. India decided finally to bite the Chinese bullet
and jumped into the contain-China bandwagon.
Arguably, India should have been wary of
Chinese malicious moves quite some time ago. However, New Delhi, more because
of its prevarication on China, or its foreign policy on it being a throwback to
Non-Alignment days, than the rational dictates of trade and economy, kept
dithering on China. Let us recall the maxim on dynamic of history, which is,
“history repeats itself”. During India’s Non-Aligned days, New Delhi tried to
maintain equidistance from both the Super Powers, but tilted towards the Soviet
Union. Of late, New Delhi sought to do the same between USA and the new Super
Power China with a bias towards the United States. Evidently, this was not
working well.
New Delhi is now confronting the dragon as
the rest of the world. The immediate provocation came from China raising its
stakes from 0.8 per cent to 1.01 per cent in HDFC. This sent an ominous signal to
the mandarins in South Block to change the FDI rules to avoid Indian companies
being gobbled up by Chinese. The change in FDI says, any investment from the
countries such as China having land border with India will need a nod from the
Government of India. In addition, any transfer of ownership of any Indian
entity will require approval from GoI as per the guidelines issues by the
Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
Beijing has reacted through its embassy in
Delhi that the new rules issued by Government of India are discriminatory
violating the WTO principle of non-discrimination, liberalisation and facilitation
of trade and investment. New Delhi maintains that it is not so, India is
entitled to protect its industries and economy form the predatory and
manipulative investors.
One need be clairvoyant to say that New Delhi
should have taken such steps much earlier. For some inexplicit reason, New
Delhi wished to build strong economic relations with China with the imbecile
hope that it (economic ties) will normalise the bilateral relations. In fact, many
observers thought that India would replace China as the world manufacturing hub
at the back of US-China intense trade rivalry. India failed to do so,
apparently as economy hardly drives this government despite its rhetoric on $5
trillion etc. It is preoccupied with citizenship law and such other
non-economic issues. Beijing was shrewder to divert its trade to India in order
to restructure the global supply chain, and later to weaponise the same trade.
With regard to other big counties trying to
tame China, United States is the front-runner as it strives to sustain its
supremacy in the world politics. President Donald Trump blowing hot and cold on
China in his utterances is doing everything in his capacity to cow China down.
The latest is, he has asked his lawyers to file suits for compensation from
China for the loss to the US economy due to Covdi-19. One hears on the
grapevine that the compensation to be asked is to the tune $50 billion. In a
related development, the US warships have entered the South China Sea.
From Europe, two biggies, France and Germany
have launched the offensive; France through its foreign ministry and Germany
with its media. The French Foreign Ministry has pulled up the Chinese embassy
in Paris for publishing an objectionable article on their website that France
is giving up on its old people and letting them die in the pandemic. The
Ministry said tartly in a statement that such statements do not conform to good
bilateral relations.
In Germany, the editor-in-chief of the
newspaper, Bild, strongly criticised
the Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his regime’s failure to come clean on COVID-19.
He accused the Chinese government of not sharing the state of infection in
Wuhan when other governments and agencies in the world had asked for it.
Moreover, the Chinese authorities and scientists knew that the virus was highly
infectious, ‘yet you kept the world in dark’.
The editor wrote to Xi, “You were too proud and nationalistic to tell
the truth”. He asked in a letter to Xi Jinping, “Will you pay for the massive
losses inflicted by the virus.”
The third European country to come out
against China is the Netherlands. Its leading newspaper Volkskrant has incurred
strong reactions from the Chinese ambassador in Amsterdam for accusing China on
the spread of the virus. The European Union is wary of Chinese takeover of companies
under duress. The Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestager has suggested
that the EU governments buy stakes in companies to prevent their acquisition by
Chinese.
Similarly, countries like Australia, Singapore,
Iran and others have been cautious of the Chinese moves during the corona
crisis. Australia has imposed restrictions on trade from China. The Brazilian Education
Minister went a step further and said that China “spread the virus deliberately
to dominate the world economy”, quite a strong statement that one. In our
neighborhood, Sri Lanka had suspended the tweeter handle of Chinese Embassy in
Colombo for putting out inflammatory tweets.
One wished New Delhi had partly led this
counter-attack on China. Until the Communist empire fells China, the world
cannot stop surveilling Beijing. As the truth from Wuhan gradually surfaces,
the world might know to its horror that China either invented the virus or used
it for its pernicious trade agenda.
At any rate, New Delhi should grab this opportunity
with both hands to put China on the defensive in the India-Pacific region. New
Delhi can no longer be oblivious of the history of Chinese animosity towards
India, and its current subterfuges with Pakistan to destabilise India. Great
leaders are those who can seize an opportunity as its presents itself. The
world regards Narendra Modi to be one such big leader. Will he or will he not
prove the world right? ---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
New Delhi
23 April 2020
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