China lifting Indian beef import ban is boost to globalization

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By CGTN’s Ravinder Bawa

While the West is losing faith in globalization, India and China have championed the virtues of global integration. Both countries are making a case in favor of globalization.

Fearing quality issues, China has long banned imports of Indian beef. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, called for a lifting of this measure when he visited China in May 2015. According to a joint statement issued after Modi’s visit, China and India vowed to remove impediments to bilateral trade.‍

Beijing has since sent quality inspectors to India to examine buffalo meat facilities and has cleared at least 14 abattoirs to export to China, according to a recent report in The Indian Express.

VCG Photo

The leaders of these rising Asian powers are hoping that the deal will benefit their populations and give their economies a boost. At the very least, beef exporters in India are looking forward to an economically viable 2017.

China is among the top beef consumers in the world but depends on imports to meet domestic demand.

India’s exports to China have suffered in the last few years but this new step will give them a boost.

Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a battle cry for global trade when he addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

“Today I wish to address the global economy in the context of globalization. The point I want to make is that many of the problems troubling the world are not caused by economic globalization,” he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 17, 2017. /Xinhua Photo‍

There is good reason for China and India to support globalization.

“Both the Indian and Chinese economies are oriented externally on trading with the outside world – on technology from the outside world, investing in the outside world. For them, obviously rolling back the forces of globalization would bring costs,” said Jabin Jacob, a fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi.

But will the pressure from China and India force developed economies to rethink their rollback on globalization?

Jabin Jacob, a fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. /CGTN Photo‍

One thing is certain: With the changing world order, countries’ ways of doing business will be altered from here on.