Table of Contents
- Narendra Modi’s new ‘vocal for local’ campaign started when he announced it during his speech while addressing the nation about Lockdown 4.0.
- The ‘vocal for local’ campaign started with an aim to make India self-reliant.
- Thus, it has implicitly set up a country narrative to Boycott China services and goods.
- #BoycottChina, #BoycottChineseProducts, #BoycottChineseApps hashtags are trending in India. 01-06-2020
BUT IS IT FEASIBLE TO BOYCOTT ALL CHINESE GOODS AND SERVICES?
- India is one of the largest importer of Chinese goods and services.
- India’s trade deficit with China is among the largest among two major trading partners.
- India imports from China nearly seven times more than it exports to that region.
- The number of items we import from China is huge:
- Consumer durables such as electrical devices, mobile phones, plastic objects, cars, solar cells,
- Important medicinal drugs, including tuberculosis and leprosy medications, antibiotics, and many others.Q
- Chinese smartphone brands currently power over $8 billion of India’s smartphone market by 51%.
- China exported well over 60% of electronic products and components in 2018-19.
A BIT OF CHINA IN EVERY PRODUCT
- In almost every product that we consume there is a little bit of China.
- Ironically, China itself manufactures the laptops and smartphones we use to forward the message to boycott Chinese products.
- The process of modern-day manufacturing is complex and interconnected.
INTERCONNECTED WORLD
- Every nation can’t be segregated and its goods boycotted.
- Take the smartphones: it uses China’s labour and land, will have investment and resources from the US or a European country, will have innovation from Japan or Korea, and could end up using apps made in India.
- Thus even if we wanted to, Keeping China out of our daily lives is practically impossible.
BOYCOTT MOVEMENTS BY OTHER COUNTRIES
- Such consumer boycott movements are hardly new or unique.
- It’s been tried out and has failed in the world many times before.
- In the early 1930s, China itself attempted to boycott all Japanese products in protest against Japanese colonization.
- In 2003, U.S. consumer forums tried to boycott French goods to protest France’s refusal to send troops to Iraq post 9/11.
- Jamaicans boycotted Trinidad and Tobago goods, Ghanaians boycotted European goods and so forth.
- The list continues.
SO WHAT IS THE ALTERNATIVE?
- The only feasible way to boycott Chinese products is to implement an import-substitution method and produce alternatives of all products.
- But this is far from ideal at least in the short run.
- If we wished to create alternatives of all the products that we are currently importing from China,
- This will entail a substantial reallocation of our resources from efficient to inefficient
- The range of products available to the consumer as a choice would immediately decrease, the quality of the products would worsen and the price levels would be higher.
WAY AHEAD
- Therefore the bottom line is that Indian companies need to work harder before they can compete with the Chinese.
- The government also needs to step in by providing improved services and lowering the cost at which Indian companies are issued loans.
- India can boycott Chinese products only when the gap between India and China is
- If such a boycott is done now, Indian interests may be hurt even more.
- Thus a phase wise approach must be adopted.
CITIZEN CENTRIC MOVEMENT
- After the US government put sanctions on Chinese goods,
- The Xi Jinping administration replied by enforcing sanctions of aown on crops imported from the US, killing the country’s soybean market.
- Thus forcing President Trump into a USD 28 billion bailout for farmers.
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