Boycott Chinese products : Is it a pragmatic idea??

Sonam Wangchuk an engineer,innovator and an educational reformist called for a boycott of Chinese goods through the power of Indian wallet. He also advocated for doing off with Chinese apps. He laid a roadmap for a self reliant India without dependence on Chinese goods by building our own software in 1 year, hardware in 2 years and other essential goods in 5 years. His call gained traction in the backdrop of esaclation of Chinese military along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Many celebrities also supported the call given by Wangchuk,and showed their allegiance by uninstalling Chinese apps like Tiktok.

If we watch two of his videos on China issue,his call for boycotting the Chinese products was not only centered on Chinese military escalations but also on other issues like suppression of Ughir muslims, autonomy for Tibetans and liberating the bonded labour in China. 

So he actually wanted all the Indians to support the cause to put pressure on China to soften its stand on all the above issues. He requested all the Indians to make it as a pan India movement and even compared it to the Arab spring that took place in many Arab countries which resulted in fall of monarchies in those countries. He opined that Indians can build a similar movement and bring a change in China. As a resident of Ladakh,he may feel vulnerable and insecure due to rising escalations from China along the LAC and the standoffs are also indeed creating a kind of disturbances in the villages contiguous to the borderline. 

Whenever this kind of simmering of tensions arise between the two countries,we always hear these boycott china voices for few days till the tensions cool down and immediately return to square one and start using Chinese goods. This time Wangchuk wanted to make best of this opportunity to build an all India movement and justified his stand by comparing it to countries imposing economic sanctions on their adversaries to bring them in to line. He also asserted that Indian government cannot take such bold measures due to economic and trade interests and the movement should come from Indian masses. 

Let's look whether Indians can actually put pressure on China with their wallet power. When coming to Chinese goods, India is no where in the top five of major exporting nation for China,it is placed 7th in the list and China exports around 3% of it's total exports to India, if Indians boycotts Chinese goods, Chinese stand to loose only 3% of market to their products which they can easily find in other countries particularily in Africa where it is expanding it is footprint with huge investments. If Chinese retaliate in return,India stands to lose 4.2% of its exports. 

Chinese trade is more diversified when compared to Indian trade and China can easily replace Indian market with other markets and many indians are stand to lose their jobs with the loss of this export market. Over all India is going to lose its "number one " trading partner and import market. 

In this area, US has more leverage when compared to India to put pressure on China. India is very far from it's vision of "Make In India" and it is still a difficult task for Indians to open their shops to manufacture In India. Also ,we have major Chinese companies like Xiaomi and Huawei having their manufacturing units in India giving tough competition to their counterparts. It is very difficult for any android user to giveup on their Chinese mobiles given the quality for the price they offer. Coming to Apps, Indian apps actually gained their market in the year 2019 and surpassed Chinese apps,but still Chinese apps give tough competition as there are many things that work in favour of these apps in the Indian market like - a good budget for marketing expense, “focus on vernacular India users, an addictive user interface, racy content, quick iterations and execution cycles, cheap offerings” etc. These advantages make any serious user difficult to resist from installing these apps and a huge disvantage is that many Indians are employed in developing these apps for localisation and they are going to lose their jobs once the user base dips in India. Also Indian app developers stands to lose a huge Android market like china if it retaliates back on India.

 Even if Indians succeed in bringing unrest in China,the government has absolute control over it's people with its instruments of governance and can easily suppress the citizens voices with a iron hand as we are aware of the fact that how China suppressed  Tainanmen square protests. Overall,it is a lose-lose situation for both the countries and the major loser among both the countries will be India. Sonam Wangchuk basically promotes simple living with minimal needs and his idea behind this call is also to make Indians adopt a simple life by reusing their goods, which may be a difficult task for majority of Indians given the rise of consumerism in the country. Finally, it is a good food for thought for many people who are ready to superficially boycott goods of any country which they find it as an adversary to India and ignore the struggles of millions of Indians who eke their livelihood by selling these goods.

Image sources : Wikipedia and news reports.