By: Avishek Banerjii
China became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, promising to liberalize its economy in the coming future. Nearly after 20 years, China has certainly opened up its economy but has completely misused the WTO to its benefit. When it comes to exporting, “Made in China” products are found in every corner of the world but when it comes to importing, its mercantile system keeps away the entry foreign product and produces from its country and forces countries to hand over their Intellectual property (IP) if they intend to start their businesses in China. It is so that all big tech companies such as Youtube, Facebook, Google and Amazon have their respective clone versions in China like Alibaba is a copy clone of the online shopping company Amazon. Moreover, the Chinese government protects and promotes these clone companies over any foreign companies.
China is a mastermind in the dumping strategy. This means that Chinese products are sold at such low costs in other countries so that they can extend its monopoly in market share and create its dominance by selling goods and services of the same local product at cheaper rates. For example - Steel, aluminium etc.
China built huge infrastructures in poor countries. Due to their inability to repay their loans, they often face a debt trap. Hence, to repay its debt these countries sell their strategic locations - which can then be used for any purpose by Chinese government.
The belt and road initiative (also known as the silk road) is also being questioned about in the initiative to increase more of such debt traps and benefit their military. Such a network would expand the international use of Chinese currency. For example in recent times, Zambia is in risk of losing its sovereignty to China because they are seizing on national assets once the government default on loans.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had also tried to infiltrate local politics in Australia. Attempts had been made to influence political systems and covertly access valuable technologies, encourage more investments in China, gather intelligence etc. These are the very few dirty tactics used to expand its networks. Such spy networks have been made in Australian Universities and colleges to spy on Chinese students.
In comparison to US dollars, the Chinese have devalued its currency to maintain its cost advantage by lifting exports. Being labelled as a currency manipulator, a cheaper Chinese currency helps to reduce the tariffs, which otherwise would make the Chinese goods very expensive. This affects the exporter and erodes the effectiveness of tariffs. It could create market pressures among other Asian countries competing in similar industries to devalue their currencies, disrupting investment flows and trade.
In addition to all of this ,due to media censorship and having such a powerful monitoring body, film , radio , television ensure that the content shown promotes the party doctrine and forwards their policies and prevents the news coming out from its country.
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