As Anger Towards China Grows, Will India Make a Strong Comeback When World Hits Reset Post Covid-19?

In all these contexts — disenchantment with the China model, deglobalisation and relocalisation and multilateral engagements on critical issues — India’s comeback from Covid will be closely watched. Heads of state worldwide have spoken of the shape of things “on the other side” of the pandemic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged “self-reliance”, France President Emmanuel Macron has touted “independence” for his country’s agriculture and industry and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stressed on economic “sovereignty”. The mantra of sovereignty and self-sufficiency is finding purchase the world over. At the same time, there is no denying the need for greater multilateralism in tackling critical issues like climate change and security in the years ahead. That said, there is no blueprint for a post Covid-19 economic and political order. The pre-existing trends towards deglobalisation (or a different form of globalisation) and the rise of sovereignist forces is accelerating as a result of Covid-19, but how will this recalibrate the world? In recent decades, we have witnessed two broad approaches to economic development. The manifest limitations of the 1989 Washington Consensus and its market-democratic paradigm led, from the mid-2000s onwards, to a valorisation of the ‘China model’, dubbed the Beijing Consensus, as a robust alternative for developing economies. Presented as a pragmatic and flexible strategy for rapid development, it gained currency in Africa and South-East Asia, helped in great measure by China’s “gift diplomacy” and no-strings-attached loans. It is seen as being more respectful of self-determination than conditionalities-laden aid from the IMF-World Bank. The elephant in the room is obviously China’s authoritarian system. Some pundits have gone so far as to propose that the decoupling of capitalism and liberal democracy is advantageous; since Chinese officials do not have to cater to disparate political lobbies, they are better able to implement policy. Good governance and economic success promote the common good, never mind civil liberties and media freedoms (thereby debunking the “end of history” hypothesis, which sees liberal democracy as the final stage in the ideological evolution of humanity). The fatal flaw in this reasoning has been exposed, rather dramatically, by the pandemic. The global media has red flagged China’s proactive suppression of the extent of the epidemic, resulting in class action lawsuits or demands for compensation from Germany, Australia, the UK and the US.