Sushant Sareen, strategic affairs expert and senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), on Thursday expressed his frustration on Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s comment on China’s economic rise.
While speaking at the India Global Forum in Mumbai, the Union Minister said that China’s economic rise was backed by unfair trade practices, hidden subsidies, and distorted labour models.
Goyal further accused the World Trade Organisation (WTO) of ignoring the dark side of Beijing’s economic ascent. Replying to this, Sareen said that while he does not like the Chinese because of their bullying tactics and land grabbing.
“I don’t particularly like the Chinese because of their bullying and land grabbing. But to be fair to China, they did what they needed to do to become the 2nd largest economy and the world’s factory,” he wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Going ahead, he lamented the fact that India lacks the brains and leadership to achieve what China did. “How I wish we had the brains and leadership to achieve the same rather than constant cribbing and whining that we hear about why we haven’t done and why Chinese have.”
Besides this, the strategic affairs expert also posed some questions to Piysuh Goyal. “What stopped us from reverse engineering, stealing IP etc and then coming up with something as good if not better than the original? What stopped us from producing goods and unrealistically low prices like the Chinese?”
Meanwhile, Goyal claimed that the rise of China came at the cost of economies and the manufacturing ecosystem of several nations including India. “The current state of play, in some way, is a culmination of almost three decades of this attack on several economies.”
Not only did Goyal accuse the WTO of looking away from the shady trade practices adopted by China, he also alleged that global leaders were overly optimistic about Beijing’s intentions.
“Many parts of the world were convinced China would reform itself — transform its processes, bring transparency into its economy, and work on fair terms in the global economy.” The Union Minister said that instead, China used predatory pricing, opaque subsidy structures, and labour norms which resulted in the absence of a level playing field.
