Boycott of Chinese goods will hurt India

Amid the ongoing standoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Donglang area of the Sikkim sector of the China-India border, several ultranationalist Indian politicians of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and some right-wing Hindu organizations are trying to incite Indian citizens to boycott Chinese goods. The call to boycott Chinese goods is a frog-in-the-well kind of perspective, which will not help India but could deter Chinese enterprises from investing in India and thus harm bilateral cooperation.

On Aug 7, the BJP's Karnataka provincial general secretary called upon people to boycott Chinese goods such as toys and consumer durables, saying the ruling party "will create awareness among the people about the problems caused by China at the border and the need to boycott Chinese goods". Two days earlier, yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who is more like a televangelist and heads a multibillion-dollar business empire, had urged Indians to boycott Chinese products, in order to stir up Hindu nationalism.

Over the past two years, various Indian right-wing organizations have called for a boycott of Chinese goods to "teach China a lesson" for creating trouble by preventing the UN Security Council from declaring Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist and opposing India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.