‘Sino-Indian trade ties tilted in Beijing’s favour’

BEIJING: An ongoing call to boycott Chinese goods in India over diplomatic disputes will fizzle and fail to change the current nature of bilateral trade ties that is heavily tilted in Beijing’s favour, Chinese state media has argued.

In the end, consumers will opt for reasonably priced goods from the East Asian country, it has forecast. One reason why the boycott call will not work in changing trade ties in India’s favour is that the Chinese consumer goods to be shunned form only small part of what China exports to India, Liu Xiaoxue from the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) wrote for the nationalistic tabloid, the Global Times.

“Moreover, the merchandise, which is mentioned by Indian media all the time, is only a small part of Chinese exports to India,” the CASS researcher said. “Being a major exporter of hi-tech goods, today’s China mainly exports hitech products to India, including electrical equipment, telecommunications equipment, train locomotives, computers and telephones. These are all necessary for India’s economic development and its people’s everyday lives.”

Liu added that for consumers, attractive goods with a reasonable price are naturally their first choice. “That said, a boycott of Chinese goods will not only result in little of the political effect that people who initiated the movement would like to see, but will also fail to fundamentally change India’s currenttradetieswithChina.Inthe end, it will be nothing more than a tiny incident,” she wrote.