What if China boycotts india ? -Yogesh Soni( Asst. prof. Pt. Harishankar Shukla Memorial college Raipur C.G.)

    

During covid19 crisis nowadays Indian and China both are facing each other on 4 different frontiers mobile application market , border , stock market and trade with citizens , army, investors and traders. Apart from the border side the aggression is much more with the rejection of Chinese things at huge level from the side of Indian consumers and traders due to nationalism. It has been seen from past decades China is treating Indian market as a dumping zone of low cost Chinese products which ranges from toys to steel . Indian manufacturers are facing too much struggle to survive. Recently  The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which represents 7 crore traders and 40,000 trade associations, has announced boycott of 3,000 Chinese products. A national campaign called ‘Indian goods – our pride’ has been launched to boycott Chinese goods across the country from June 10. The list of 3,000 products prepared by CAIT is basically FMCG, consumer goods, toys, festive goods, fabrics, textiles, stationery, paper, food items, electrical, electronics, builder hardware etc. CAIT also urge Indian consumers to buy indigenous products in place of Chinese goods and in this way Prime Minister Narendra Modi's  call ‘Vocal for Local’ will also be fructified”. Users of various Chinese mobile applications also now uninstalling them due to data security threats. Indian govt strengthen investment norms in stock market too.

So we can say India ( not the govt only consumers and traders) is openly boycotting China but the question is what will happen when China start initiatives like this ? In that case situations will be highly skewed in favor of China . Ground reality can be understand by the fact that India imports much than to export to China . Exports to China from India was 79.99 INR Billion in February  2020. Imports from China in India was 317.64 INR Billion in February  2020 ( As per trading economic). In our smartphone industry, out of the five bestselling phone brands in India, four are Chinese – Xiaomi, Vivo, Realme and Oppo. These four brands combined dominate over 60% of the smartphone market in India. On the other hand, 30% of India’s automobile components are met from China and about 90% of the country’s toy market is occupied by Chinese products. Similarly, 50% of the demand in the country’s bicycle market is met by imports in which China has a large share . The Alibaba Group alone has strategic investments in Big Basket ($250 million), Paytm.com ($400 million), Paytm Mall ($150 million), Zomato ($200 million) and Snapdeal ($700 million).

Similarly, another Chinese group, Tencent Holdings, has investment in Indian firms like Byju’s ($50 million), Dream11 ($150 million), Flipkart ($300 million), Hike Messenger ($150 million), Ola ($500 million) and Swiggy ($500 million) .

See the difference it shows how much Indian economy and consumers rely on China imports , companies and investments . So the conclusion is first India has to create situations in its favor to become actually Aatmanirbhar by gradually creating substitutes in all fields, it can't be achieved only by boycotting China .

 

References- Trading economics, The Indian Express and the wire