Amidst lockdowns and increasing anxiety among people all over the world, world leaders have started blaming China for their negligence and acknowledge the pandemic as a biological weapon used for world dominance. Common people face the fear of using Chinese products in their daily lives, especially as the vaccine has not been developed to combat. Before the pandemic, when we decided our own freedom, we were surrounded by Chinese products and were readily and candidly using these products. Each and every object had a label “Made in China” and even if the product was manufactured in other countries, the raw materials were mostly acquired from China. China quadrupled its economy from 2003 majorly through establishing manufacturing dominance in international trade.
An American lawyer recently filed a $20 trillion lawsuit against China for the innovation and spread of the novel coronavirus. President Trump asked for honest release of number of cases by China after accusing WHO for siding with china and threatened to stop UN agency’s funding. Brazil Education Minister insinuated that China was behind the world health crisis. Japan recently announced $52 billion emergency financial package in response to the threatening pandemic. It aims at helping struggling businesses and households to combat impact of the widespread infection. An advice of shifting businesses from infected areas have been suggested (hinting China majorly). The negligence shown by the organisation and China has led to the spread of this contagiously deadly disease.
After implementation of Work from Home schemes, a video calling application Zoom suddenly emerged as one of fastest proliferating companies. After gaining immense populace, the news of China using this application to access information around the world came out after digging deep into the server usage. Most of the servers were located in China and the Republic has a national security law under which the government can ask for data from any Chinese company. Students, teachers, executives who were connecting through Zoom feared about hackers and cyber-crime, and major governmental meetings were also held through this application. The world did not fear about the hacking of the application but was concerned about information that China collected through this video calling application.
Internet censorship in China or the Great Firewall of China blocks many websites and social media application around its premises. The Chinese government restricts its citizen from learning about governmental actions and has many restrictions on Chinese companies to disclose all facts when asked for. China has emerged as one of the most powerful developing nations in the world after implementing various barriers on its citizens and almost keeping them away from world interdependence. After various allegations by world superpowers, the first world trade question that comes up is that, after the situation becomes better will the world boycott china or will china successfully supersede all the nations?
In 2015, the manufacturing industrial sector contributed approximately 40% of China’s GDP. It accounted for nearly 50% of global manufacturing output in 2017. Manufacturing PMI and expectation of production surged amidst Covid-19 and forecasting that China will play no role after normalization is naivety. Although the manufacturing sector might see a pitfall because the demand from United States might plummet as it is now one of the worst hit countries by Covid-19 and dissatisfaction among citizens is increasing for China.
The courage shown by the Indian Prime Minister in March 2020, when India had negligible number of cases relative to its population gained popularity not only among its citizens but was also applauded world-wide.
This could act as a huge opportunity for India to show progress in “Make in India” program. As the name suggests, this program aims at holistic development of India diversified from facilitating investment to building world-class manufacturing infrastructure. It is the time when countries will acknowledge goods from India amidst widespread despair for Chinese goods. Recently, United States requested India for supply of Hydroxychloroquine which is a drug that will be used for treatment of Covid-19 patients, but the raw materials were again acquired from China.
Rising tides float all boats implying that Covid-19 will not only impact countries individually but will disastrously influence World Trade and Economy!
By Muskan Bagrodia
Literary Sources: UNSD, World Bank, NBS of China, Statista, Pew Research Centre.