Boycott China: The Harsh Truth | Dhruv Rathee - YouTube

Greetings, friends!

In the last video, I told you about the dangerous and the dirty tactics that are adopted

by the Chinese Communist Party to exert its influence over the world

And why is it important to boycott China, not only for India, but for every democratic country in the world?

Come, let us see how it is possible to boycott China realistically and practically

by us and India

Some of you had commented on the last video and asked that if China is resorting to such dirty means-

dumping, theft, currency manipulation-

then why are the rest of the countries not taking any action against China?

They are!

Discussions are being held in Australia on how Australia, as a country,

can reduce its dependency on China

Due to these reasons, Donald Trump in the USA had announced a trade war against China in 2018

And not only Trump but many politicians of the opposition- the Democratic Party- also supported the trade war

So what exactly is entailed in a "trade war"?

Trade war basically means that Trump said that all the Chinese goods that come into the USA,

should be subjected to increased taxes and tariffs

which would make these goods costlier. And if these goods become costlier,

then the people in the USA would not want to buy them

It is a very simple method to boycott Chinese products-

straightaway increasing tariffs on the Chinese imports

But doing this would obviously, cause USA to incur losses as well

The US companies made products in China due to cheaper labour

and now when they will import their own products into the US, then it would be costlier for them to do so

Now, either these companies would have to bear losses themselves or they'd raise the cost of their products

If they raise the prices of their products, then it would be a loss to the consumers

Things would become costlier for them

On the other hand, China isn't going to sit quietly either. China would also hike its import taxes

for all the goods that come to China from the USA

So, basically, this is what is called a trade war

Both the countries raise their import tariffs

to make the to and fro movement of goods more difficult

And this would result in economic losses for both the countries. And so it did happen

As per the calculations of the Bank of Finland, until November 2019,

there was a 1% difference in China's GDP growth rate due to this trade war

and a difference of 0.9% on the GDP growth rate of USA

In USA, the biggest losses were borne by the farmers, who exported their agricultural products like soyabean to China

But Donald Trump was aware that this trade war would negatively affect the economies of both the countries

But this was not the purpose of the trade war

The purpose was to build pressure upon China and force the latter to mend its ways

and to decrease the dependency of USA upon China

And both these aims were successful to some extent in some ways

Under pressure from the trade war, China finally promised to stop currency manipulation in January 2020

and that it would provide stronger legal protection to intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks and patents

and would help in putting an end to the ongoing IP theft

China also promised that the foreign companies that come to China, who are forced to transfer their technology

will no longer be forced by China to do so

Only after China made these promises, a Phase 1 trade deal was signed between USA and China

to mutually lower their tariffs

Another positive effect of this was that it forced several US companies

to relocate their production facilities from China to some other countries

if they wish to sell cheaper products

So, a lot of US companies stopped dealing with China and shifted to other countries

And overall, the US dependency on China began to shrink

This can be seen in this graph

In January-April 2019, as compared to January-April 2018,

What were the percentage changes in the imports of US?

There was a change of minus 10% in the imports coming to US from China

The biggest gainers in this were- Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Netherlands

The US companies that manufactured their products in China now shifted to these countries-

Vietnam, Taiwan, Netherlands

Another graph shows that Vietnam reaped the biggest benefit out of this trade war

because a number of things that were manufactured in China are also supplied by Vietnam

The aim behind the discussion on this entire trade war was to show you

how easy it is to boycott Chinese products

if the government imposes import taxes on the goods coming from China

But doing this would result in a big blow to the Indian economy

The losses would be far more than what US incurred in the US trade war

In my opinion, India is not prepared to do this

Why is India not prepared and what it can do to be prepared

Come, let us talk about this

The trade between India and China is extremely imbalanced

Talking about 2018-19,

then goods worth 70 billion dollars were imported in India from China

and the goods exported to China from India was worth merely 16.7 billion dollars

This lopsided imbalance is called a trade deficit

There is a deficit of nearly 53 billion dollars

And this trade deficit has been increasing over the past few years

That means, this is a huge advantage for China

that China has made India dependent on itself

The thong which India imports the most from China and for which India is the most dependent on China

is electronic stuff- for example, TVs, smartphones

Speaking of smartphones, 76% of our market is replete with Chinese companies

Next in line are pharmaceutical products. 65-70% of our medicines come from China

These are the most important areas in my opinion which need thinking about how to replace Chinese goods

When we talk of "Boycotting", this does not mean that we will completely stop using all products from China

We will have to look for another alternative

We will have to look for alternatives to replace them

Let us first talk about what can be done on an individual level as a consumer to replace

the goods made by Chinese companies by the other companies

Doing this is very easy in some fields. For example, if we talk about Chinese software,

You can instantly delete the Chinese apps from your phones

If you find an app useful, you will find a non Chinese alternative of it pretty easily

There are numerous apps on the app store

which are of better quality

But I believe that there should be some government support to motivate the people for this

It shouldn't be that we are boycotting Chinese apps on one hand,

on the other hand, the Modi government is making an official Indian government account on TikTok

So it is extremely essential to mount pressure on the government to atleast stop doing this

Leaving aside software and talking about hardware,

then this too, can be achieved within one year, as Sonam Wangchuk had pointed out

It is not that difficult to do

We are not saying that you should throw away the Chinese smartphone that you currently possess

Don't buy a smartphone from a Chinese company, the next time you go to buy one

For example, do not buy from Oppo, Vivo etc

There are several other available options - you can buy one from Samsung, which is a South Korean company

HTC is from Taiwan, Nokia is a company from Finland, Asus is another company from Taiwan

Apple is a company from the USA

Micromax and LAVA are Indian companies

You can buy your next smartphone from any of these companies

Buy new TVs or electronics for home use from these companies

Many out of you would also point out that several of these products use parts that are made in China

What should be done in such a scenario?

These things can be basically divided into four levels, in my opinion

The first level is - Products made by Chinese companies

The second level is- Made in China products that are manufactured by some other company. For example,

the iPhone. It is made by Apple, which is a US company.

But it is made in China

The third level includes products that use Chinese parts

And at the fourth level are companies that have a Chinese investment in them

In my opinion, we need to stay alert at only the first level out of all these four levels

We need to boycott products manufactured by Chinese companies

Made in China products are not that big a deal, in my opinion

Because, today, Apple manufactures its iPhones in China because the manufacturing costs are the lowest there

But say, Trump kept the import taxes high on the iPhones that are made in China,

or that Apple noticed that Chinese labour is increasingly becoming expensive,

and that they would get cheaper labour in some other country,

then Apple can shift its production companies with comparative ease

And the iPhones that were "made in China" until yesterday will now become "made in Vietnam"

or "made in India"

So this isn't that big of a problem

As long as the companies- be it foreign, Indian or non Chinese- manufacture products in China

then I don't think that you should boycott them

You can continue using such products

There are so many Indian startups

which have some percentage of their ownership in the hands of China

Chinese companies have invested their money in them

Our popular companies- Zomato, Swiggy, Ola, Paytm, Ola, BYJU's

Some percentage of all these companies are owned by Chinese companies

Their case is extremely interesting

On one hand, you could argue that these companies were started in India

They provide both jobs and benefit to Indians

and hence we should not boycott them

On the other hand, you could also argue

that Chinese companies own some portion of these companies

So, some percentage of all the profit that these companies make

would go to the Chinese companies and help them make profits

And as you are aware, Chinese companies dance to the tunes of the Chinese Communist party

They would give up their entire data if the latter demanded so

I feel that both the arguments here hold weightage. We should evaluate what percentage of a company

is owned by a Chinese Company

If that figure is small- around 10-20%, then it wouldn't make that big of a difference

but if that figure touches 40-60%, as in the case of Paytm,

then we should not use these companies

Because using them would be tantamount to transferring majority of the amount to China

and Chinese companies are minting profit off of them

And if the ownership is more than 50%,

then the decision making also gets transferred into Chinese hands

But what about made in India products manufactured by Chinese companies?

I'd say that we should avoid them in this case as well

because Chinese companies are our main target here

And finally, there are some people that say that we should boycott Chinese food as well!

And this is utter rubbish!

You shouldn't do this at all. Think about it- Who is making the Chinese food?

The Chinese restaurants in India, where Indian cooks are employed

The restaurant has been set up by some Indian who is serving other Indians

So how does it matter to the Chinese? The food is not being imported from China!

In fact, you'd be surprised to know that several Chinese dishes that are served in India today

in the name of "Chinese food", have actually originated in India

You would not get such food if you ever go to China

the food that you get in India in the name of "Chinese food"

For example, a lot of people think that momos have come from China

but they actually originated in North-east India

So, there's no benefit in boycotting things like these

By doing this, we would be going against the people of our own country and harming our own country

Doing all this would only increase racism against the North eastern people

And a similar malarkey is being out forward here

Some BJP youth workers are rampaging shops because they sell Chinese toys

Who is going to incur losses by doing this?

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Talking on the level of businesses and companies,

What can they do to boycott Chinese products?

We need to understand one thing first

Companies and business do what their customers demand

If the customers demand the cheapest product available,

then no company is that stupid that it would bear losses

and sell costlier products that no one buys

If they see that people buy made in China products because they are cheaper, then that is what they'll sell

There's no sense in blaming the companies and businesses in this

This is why I am saying that it makes no sense to vandalize the shops of the shop owners

We will have to motivate them in positive ways

For example, these companies can use "not made in China" as a marketing tactic

The shop owners can put up large signs in front of their shops declaring that they do not sell Chinese goods

I feel that more people would want to come to such a shop

The businesses of the shops would definitely increase if the owners use this as a marketing tactic

and this is a positive way of doing this

There is no force or vandalism involved

But if something more has to be done, then it has to happen on the government level

So let us now talk about what can be done on a government level

to boycott China

The first thing is - Free Trade Agreements

Free Trade Agreements are signed to boost trade between two countries

Both countries cut down their import taxes

and remove other barriers to facilitate trade between both the countries

If India wishes to reduce the imports from China,

and wishes to lower its dependency on China,

then it will have to ink free trade agreements with the rest of the countries

India's free trade agreement with Australia has been stuck in negotiations for the past 8 years

The government has been unable to negotiate with Australia to take this forward

India's free trade agreement with the European Union has been stuck in negotiations for the past 10 years

As long as India does not increase its trade with Australia and the European Union,

the dependency on China cannot be lessened

Taking advantage of India's laziness, other countries are getting ahead of India

Vietnam has already inked a free trade agreement with the European Union

and India will have to bear the brunt of this

Export of footware, marine products, garments, furniture

that India sends to the European Union will now diminish

because the European Union has inked a free trade agreement with Vietnam

so the products from Vietnam would now be cheaper for the people living in Europe

India lagged behind here

Furthermore, if you consider the trade war between US and China,

when US companies were looking for alternatives to import from instead on China,

then India should have been their next option

But most of the US companies did not choose India and opted for Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea instead

This tells us that the economic conditions of India are not good today

This shows the failure of the Indian government

The infrastructure of India is not great, there is rampant corruption and there are several other reasons

owing to which India could not compete with Vietnam

Those companies made a beeline for Vietnam instead of coming to India

The Indian government would have to make its industries stronger

and would have to improve its economic condition and its social image

in order to attract such companies to India

Also, the government would have to admit what huge flops programmes like Make in India and Startup India have been

Had they not been such huge flops, then the Chinese investments that you see in these startups

would not have been made

Indian startups would have got support as well as investment from the Indian government

and they would have been able to sustain themselves

In the last point, I'd like to mention that India needs to improve its foreign relations

with its neighbouring countries

Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan- India would have to increase trade with all of these countries

Relations need to be made friendlier so that India

is able to reduce its dependency on China

And doing this is no easy job

Our government is failing in this front as well

considering the relations we see with Nepal today

So these are some ways that we can adopt on an individual level

and what the government can adopt on its level

in order to lower our dependency on China and to boycott it

I hope you would have liked this video. Share it

so that it reaches more and more people and so that they're able to take actions in their lives

to reduce the use of Chinese products as much as possible

I'm saying as little as possible because not everything can be boycotted

or that you shouldn't use that at all even if you need it

The Use of Chinese products should be reduced as much as possible

I hope you would have liked this video.

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We will meet again in the next video.

Thank you.