Last Updated on June 18, 2020, 5:17 PM AST by Anthony Morris
Indians are now calling for a boycott of Chinese goods, and the Indian Government has pledged to block the investment and increase the tariffs for China as a result of the deadly border clash in the Himalayas which has left 20 Indian soldiers martyred and 76 soldiers injured.
The fight on Monday night on a steep precipice along the disputed border in Ladakh was the worst incidence of violence between the Indian and Chinese forces in the past 45 years. China has still not disclosed if it had suffered any casualties because of the fight.
Indian Government officials have said that they are planning on imposing higher trade barriers and also on raising the import duties on around 300 products from China.
Presently, India has a $59.3bn trade deficit with China, and 11% of India’s imports come from China.
The Indian Telecom Ministry has ordered the Government telecom providers and other private companies to ban all future Chinese equipment upgrades and deals.
The Chinese companies would also be banned from participating in the tenders for future projects, which is very likely to include plans of upgrading the 4G services in India.
Calls for a boycott of Chinese goods, investment and technology, have been growing in India since May when the Chinese troops had started to build in the disputed territory in Ladakh, and violent skirmishes and stand-offs had occurred between the troops of India and China on the ground.
An Indian-built program which helps the users to identify and delete Chinese apps in their phones was downloaded over 5 million times in May before Google blocked the program.
However, the boycott campaign has gathered momentum quickly on both local as well as Government levels across India after the news emerged regarding the violence in the Galwan Valley, where soldiers fought each other in a hand-to-hand conflict, with stones and clubs wrapped in barbed wire which were used as weapons.
An Indian Government official claimed on Friday that the Chinese forces had dammed the mountain streams near the site of the skirmish, after that, they waited for Indian troops to approach and then they released the torrents of water which knocked several Indian soldiers off-balance.
Sonam Wangchuk, a pioneering Indian engineer, living and working in Ladakh, is at the forefront of calls for a boycott of Chinese products and investments, in response to what he said to be China’s “bullying” behaviour over the recent past, where land used by local herdsman to graze goats in Ladakh has been encroached by the Chinese forces slowly.
Wangchuk said that the campaign had been more successful than he had anticipated.
He said that the citizens can make a huge difference and that the same wallets which built China in the past 30 years can also bring China down.
Both sides have blamed the other side for the conflict, India has alleged that China carried out a “premeditated” attack on the Indian forces, on the other hand, China has claimed that the Indian troops had entered the Chinese territory on three occasions.
Satellite footage has confirmed that there had been a major build-up of Chinese troops in the areas they were previously absent over the last month.
The situation is still tense.
Both India and China have agreed to continue the process of de-escalation; however, the discussions between Chinese and Indian army generals on Wednesday, remained “inconclusive”.
The Confederation of All India Traders represents more than 60 million Indian traders, has said that it would be stepping up the anti-China boycott to include around 450 broad categories of commodities, which cover more than 3,000 Chinese products ranging from cosmetics to handbags and furniture.
Pressure has also been built to cancel the lucrative contract which was recently given to a Chinese construction company for building an underground stretch of a rapid rail project in Delhi.
Priyanka Gandhi, the general secretary of the Congress party, accused the Government that it has adopted a weak strategy of kneeling before the Chinese by handing them the construction project.
There is a sense that China is concerned about the Indian calls for a boycott.
A piece in the Global Times, the newspaper which is a mouthpiece for the Communist Party, called for India to curb “illogical boycott-China voices” after the border clash, adding: “It is unrealistic and self-destructive for Asia’s third-largest economy to launch frictions with the largest economy in the region.”
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
