Asia

While we’ve noted the extent to which markets have been flooded with ‘cheap quality yet affordable’ products from China, with PM Modi’s push towards Atmanirbhar Bharat, it seems changes can be plotted especially this festive season. As trends suggest, this is the peak season for huge amounts of imports from China to meet the demand of customers for diverse goods. Yet, this year has brought a twist in the tale. What accounted for almost 70-80% of market share some 5-6 years ago has fallen to a mere 10% share of imported Chinese goods this year. Traders importing Idols of gods and goddesses have declined rapidly. Forces behind this change range from anti-China product demonstrations to a significant change in consumer sentiments as demand for Made in India sees a rise. This in turn ha...

China’s emergence as a recent economic superpower is in no small part due to its massive production industry. The coastal factory towns produce an assortment of goods — with equally varying degrees of quality — on an enormous scale and with low cost, only for them to be shipped off to the rest of the world. Cheap labour —allegedly through labour rights violations as well as slave labour — and brazen theft of intellectual property have played a fairly large hand in cementing the Communist state as a principal hub for free market production. Experts had prophesied a subsequent political transformation from communism into a democracy with the liberation of China’s economy. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has pioneered a sinister amalgamation of the ugliest aspects of Marx...