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Abstract-
The growing economic and military supremacy of China from South China Sea to the String of Pearl and border disputes is the cause of great concern, not only for India, but also for many other countries. The reports from various institutes have shown that countering China will be a big deal for any country, the rapid development with other promoting factors in this modern era has helped China to dominate through fear of debt, land dispute and others. The first part of this content that is the introduction of the title evokes the data’s and information shared from online sources that draws comparison between India and China, border disputes, education and development, Galwan clash, the hegemony of China, e-ban, how both the countries had a similar start, but with the changing pace of time China leads the show. The middle portion talks about the Ministry of Information and technology, trade deficit, oppression of Uyghurs, Hongkong conflict, WTO, disengagement, debt trap and diplomacy of both the countries. The third and the last part of this article, the conclusion part talks about the various problems faced by the citizens, due to e-ban, data policy, privacy, Information technology, companies and implementation.
Keywords: Index, power, development, dominance, suppression, Ban, clash, hurdle, criticize, laxity, implementation.
Introduction:
The Asian power index 2020 released by Sydney based Lowy institute ranked 26 countries to assess the relation power of state in Asia. The top spot is hacked by USA leaving the rest for China, Japan, India and Russia, but why this index and Asia? After the border skirmishes between India and China every report and index has become significant. The border issue between India and China shocks the world with its bloody shades from Sino-Indian war of 1962 to the recent dark night face-off on 5th May. Both the countries share their border with other different countries, India shares its border with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan on the other hand China has the maximum number of border shares with 14 different countries. Now coming to military, economy and education, according to a report (by Word Bank) China is the largest economy with respect to its GDP that is 14.34t in 2019 nearly five times than the economy of India and ranks third on the list of military strength with active personnel of 2,183,000 respectively while India’s GDP was 2.87t and ranked fifth in military strength. [i]In education also China has moved far ahead of India in terms of number of world-class institutions, gross enrolment ratios in higher education and research output, around 22 universities of China ranked in top 500 list of educational institutes by an UK based agency Quacquarelli Symonds, and only 9 institutes from India. Last but not the least currently fits on these reports, we can easily judge the pace of development in china how fast they are growing by hooks or crooks does not matter.
The dominance of dragon can be observed from South China sea to String of pearl, their diplomacy and development are now their sword of power. There was a time when Indian rupees shared the same value as yuan, but now one Chines yuan equals to 11.15 Indian rupees, so nothings left to show that challenging dragon needs too much and too hard from homework to best economy means economic independence and development. This is because Indian imports accounted for $66.7 billion the lowest figure since 2016, but there is no clear evidence showing that India is really changing her path and towards economic independence, but shows that this is the time to change and break the custom and become independent as economic independence means a lot not only to India but to every other country especially when it comes to encounter China’s pride the recent example of the same is the e-ban movement by countries from all around the world starting from USA banning Huawei to India banning 267 Chinese apps from online stores. China being a communist country cannot ignore the economic loss due to these sanctions even no other country can avoid these sanctions when they are obeying the path of hegemony and following the silhouette of unethical subjugation. According to an article published by Business Today [ii]apps ban to cause Chinese firm $200 million a year.
The start of e-war and economy:
The reason stated by ministry of electronics and information technology for banning Chinese apps is that they were found indulged in activities prejudicial sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, security of state and public order, under section 69 of Information and Technology act. The order comes after the recent clashes on the border between both the countries and there is no transparency in using the power while banning these apps, this is a bit worrying trend, as we don’t know that it will be applied to the other applications or not, also the companies have denied of sharing any data to the PLA of China. The ban has affected millions of users in India specially the advertisement groups who often used those apps for promoting their brands, as it cost less expensive to them. China has also stated that the current act of India is the violation of WTO rules and normal trade norms and therefore they will criticize the move of India as it is against the gain of both the countries, but they have not yet cleared whether they will move to an appropriate forum against India or not.
According to the economic experts the relation between India and China is like driving a roller cost and there is no reason for the Chinese government to move against India against this ban as in the past they had followed the same trend of banning social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. stating data sharing threats. The new theme of adopting swadeshi is also at the notch after this decision and government is encouraging people to prefer desi against foreign products or goods by highlighting ‘Make in India’ and this has further raised question against Indian policies against foreign companies. This can be an issue for the government to provide assurance to foreign investors by coming up with bona policies and their proper implementation. China is one of largest trading partner with India and currently its hard to balance the trade deficit at that level which is required and there are lot of hurdles for maintaining good relation between both the countries, keeping the current situation and the attitude of the countries in mind one must not forget that actually the trade deficit apart from rounds of talk is something which is helping to overcome the terrific faceoff, as both India and China are interdependent on each other India for jobs creation and cheap services by these Chinese companies and China for good market hence the trade deficit is actually a boon for maintaining peace the situations after the violent clashes of 5th May and disengagement on the border. The bilateral ties of both the countries are influenced and often regulated through economic and diplomatic way, India was also the first Asian non-communist country to recognize China as a country, but the expansion of new China has become a bone of neck for the world as most of the country in the world have criticizes China for its strict capitative policies against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province and the suppression of pro-democratic movement in Hongkong of the mainland China. The severe oppression of that community has raised questions of dominancy of China as mala fide many countries have spoked against it. USA has already criticized and imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over ‘Mass Detention of Muslims’ naming it as ethnic genocide. The continuous violation of human rights across the country is an alarming sign for the countries around the world the path of domination and hegemony is crucial for the countries having border disputes and trade relations with the mainland China. The debt trap is also the reason many countries are falling into it day by day for China and losing land to counter her.
A strong economy is the source of national strength.
-Yoshihide Suga
Diplomacy:
When it comes to diplomatic ties between the countries both India and China try to be at the top notch to counter each other. From the past few years India seems to be quite conscious to maintain good relations with her neighbor’s and it has shown the same by granting free COVID vaccines to the countries across the world while China is also working hard on it from the very starting by supporting neighbor with money and collaborating with them on various projects and programs like the current one belt one road initiative of China which is a massive structure development strategy developed in 2013 across Asia, Africa and Europe, but most of countries after this COVID-19 situation and corruption are unable to pay their part to the project, hence the project is lying under cover, the PLA is trying hard to start the project again as soon as possible. This is not the stop, as all roads lead to Beijing, Chinese government is trying hard to help its neighbor for the silk road project. China, also tried to involve India in one of such initiative through economic partnership with ASEAN countries called RCEP or Regional comprehensive economic partnership with the eastern countries, but India pulled out herself from it citing concern for domestic entrepreneur, industrialist and local startups, as the deal was for free trade agreement for the countries who signed the deal, also the RCEP countries are accounting for 30% of the world GDP, that’s why the deal is important.
Conclusion:
The decision taken by the government on e-ban is appreciated all around the world especially by countries suffering the grudge of mainland, but the decision was taken in rush which is the major problem as, currently India has no proper data policy on cyber securities and it will lay down a bad precedent for other foreign investors especially for digital companies interested to and investing in India like Oppo, Vivo etc. who are actually benefiting the invested countries by providing jobs to the local and providing a better service than many India brands, so before taking any more step further the government needs to think for the present and future. This is first time Indian government is coming with such an economic war with the mainland, there is nothing to deny the loss incurred by China, but one should not forget that we are the one who imports more products and services from them as they are cheap from other countries and doing such act will be termed as discrimination against a country and its people which is bad for the image of the country. The economic provocation may further worsen the situations between both the countries. The Global times had also cited that millions of Indian may lose Job due to banning of these apps, because when people are choosing an application, they are choosing the application of utmost perfection with effective and efficient service. The demographic dividend of India is the on the eyeball of most the investor countries and China is one of the major players among them dumping its goods and services at the cheapest rate to earn as more as possible will not be happy to be forced to leave the hotseat, when the countries are unable to win by offering lower rates that her, this is the best opportunity for them.
We need to have a strong economy that can create employment opportunities and that can also produce the revenue that we need to defend our country at home and abroad.
-Bob Menendez
The government needs to ensure that people of the country should not be affected economically after any ban in future, we have to strengthen ourselves economically, militarily and educationally. The current move will surely encourage Indians to develop and innovate for long run, but primarily it will cause problem in terms of expense, variety is the good face of globalization provide people with options for everything will make it easy to work. The all in all is making of a policy on cyber security and data sharing information, not only China, but many other companies are ignoring the privacy of Indian citizens on global platforms the current example of it is WhatsApp its new controversial policy privacy is an issue to debate, but due to the criticizing pressure from the natives of the country it has put it in the cold storage for some time, that’s why we need to have to have a strong data policy for future outcomes. The controversial bill of 2019 on personal data protection raised various issues on data protection the first of those issues is, the draft states that all the fiduciaries must store a copy of all personal data of Indian citizens in India that is data localization section of the legislation, also it scraped the stipulation of only requiring individuals consent for transfer of data abroad, now they also required the approval of an independent Data Protection Agency (DPA) having members specialized in the field of data protection of more than ten years and the government can remove them from their office before the end of their term in accordance with the rules prescribed by law, the agency will decide whether the personal data would be shared abroad or not, but the government can exempt certain sections under this, this new concept is wholly criticized by foreign companies who from the very beginning stores the data of the citizen abroad, the new bill as stated by the government will protect the fundamental right of the citizen declared by the honorable Supreme court in K.S. Puttaswamy & Anr v. Union of India under article 21 of the constitution, which talks about the right of life and personal liberty, and also control the arbitrariness of the foreign companies who show duality and biasness when it comes to the right of Indian citizen, but the critics have to say something about the policy that the permit to access to all personal data by the state possess a humongous threat to the privacy of the ordinary individuals and is further infringement of their right to life and personal liberty as guaranteed under article 21 of the constitution. The government need to work on the privacy policy while preserving the right of the citizen, the government must work on the concerns of the new data policy to safeguard the rights of the citizen. Now coming to the new education policy which seems to be cool with respect to the new changes which is further required with the pace of time, but in India the only thing which throws water on every good cool policy is its proper implementation because of the laxity, therefore the government need to implement the new education policy as soon as possible with the encouragement and promotion to innovation.
[i] Tadit Kundu, “What can we learn from China’s rise in higher education” Mint, Aug. 6, 2018
[ii] Nidhi Singal, “Apps ban to cost Chinese firms $200 million a year – and a future; PUBG to loss $100 million” Business Today, Sep. 3, 2020.
Author: Anushka Tripathi
Editor: Kanishka Vaish, Senior Editor, LexLife India.
Lexlife India 