Few days back, we all saw some sort of hustle and bustle regarding boycotting China. Here is a question: why is it important to boycott China? Firstly, it is important to understand the root cause of how Chinese Communist Party wants to dominate the world in political, economic and geographical order by playing different tactics.
China is not just posing a threat to India and Taiwan, rather it is a danger to all democratic countries across the world! China is doing intrusions in India and it continues this into Taiwanese airspace with Su-30 fighter planes.
Firstly, it is necessary to understand the economic tactics regarding trading. The question is this, why would any country want to trade with other countries? There could be three main reasons:
1. The non-availability of a certain product in your country while it is available in another country.
2. The availability of a product or service in another country at cheaper price as compared to your own country.
3. The availability of a product or service of a better quality in another country.
The advantages of trade are very clear, that consumers will have more choices and have access to cheaper goods. By this, every country will be able to specialize in its own indigenous areas and they are capable of building better products and this could benefit all the countries internationally. But there is a very interesting question that what will happen to developing and underdeveloped countries, which cannot develop specialization in any sector on their own?
If a country neither has a great natural resource, nor a specialization in anything, so they would not be able to export any product or service to other countries. By this, trade will be a big loss for it. In such a situation, several developed and developing countries impose import taxes that are called ‘Tariffs’. Imposing such taxes ensures benefit to the local industries of your country.
There could be several other reasons for imposing tariffs such as, if a country wants to pressurize another country regarding a geopolitical decision, or if a country disapproves of an economic decision of another country, so, tariffs are also imposed for mounting pressure. Now, the point is how Chinese Communist Party misuses trade and tariffs against the other countries?
China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, while certain conditions were imposed upon China at the time of joining WTO. China promised to liberalize and open up its economy, so that trade could be easily conducted between China and other countries. Although China has opened up its economy to some extent, but today, after 20 years later, China has misused the WTO for its own benefit.
You can find the products of China in almost every country across the world, but when it comes to importing, then the largest social media networks in the world like YouTube, Facebook, Google and Amazon are no where to be found within China. China has not allowed them to enter in it. Instead, China copied these companies and robbed their technology and created copycat clones of these companies within their country.
China has indulged in Intellectual Property theft (IP) in almost every sector. Normally it would not have been possible in a democratic country. For instance, if a company in the UK wishes to clone the product of a US company, then a US company can file a case in the courts of the UK, but there is no question of court cases in China because their government promotes these cloning companies and protects them.
In fact, the rules have been twisted in China to ensure benefits to these companies like if any foreign company wants to set up a business in China, then they will first have to transfer their intellectual property to their Chinese partners. It has been estimated that the USA incurs a loss between 300-600 billion dollars annually due to this pilferage by China.
Another weapon of China is ‘Dumping’. In economics dumping refers to the export of a locally made product at such ridiculously low prices, so that it would drive the local industries of that country out of business. By this, your market share will increase, and you will gain monopoly in that industry. Here the question comes in mind that how China is able to manufacture goods at such low prices? Its simple answer is that Chinese government provides export subsidies to their own companies.
Another tactic is a ‘Currency Manipulation’ in which China is being accused of deliberately undervaluing its currency in comparison to the US dollar in order to maintain its cost advantage. By this, almost 30-40% cost advantage is maintained whenever someone wishes to buy a ‘Made in China’ product.
Politically, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to exert its influence in the internal affairs of the other countries through evil means. One of its example is of the last year, when a Chinese student was studying at the University of Queensland, Australia. He participated in a protest against the Chinese government that was being held in Australia and then the Chinese government reached his family home in China and pressurized his family to keep their son under control.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute released a report recently which revealed how China is employing covert and deceptive methods to infiltrate the foreign political parties and the multinational companies to topple the democratic systems all across the world. As a result of all the above reasons, everyone is talking about boycotting China. What’s your opinion, is it correct to boycott China after all this or not?
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