Tag: Beijing

  • The Curious Case of Indian Silence over damning UN Human Rights Report on China

    The Curious Case of Indian Silence over damning UN Human Rights Report on China

    Not surprisingly, India has not come out with any condemnation of China for its atrocities in Xinjiang, a classic example of India in recent times trying to steer clear of global contestations.

    Down the ages, the phenomenon of imperial overreach has been prevalent across the world.  The evils for which it gets perpetrated would, by and large, be known to those who succumbed to it for supposedly national aspirations, religious fervour or even self-glory by some megalomaniacs!

    That the country relentlessly aspiring with rapidity to be the next global superpower, China, can be unquestionably placed in the category of an imperialist power brooks no emphasis. China thus, without remorse or any humanitarian considerations pursues its ambitions of forcible, bordering on evil, integration of people of all faiths and regions in its vast nation. Its threat of military intervention in tiny Taiwan in recent months bespeaks China’s hegemonistic ambitions.

    Though rather late, the UN has rightly condemned China’s woeful human-rights record in its restive Xinjiang province where for the last many years, China has been committing genocide on its Muslim minorities, the Uyghur and Turkic communities. That the world, at large, and the Islamic nations, in particular, have cast a blind eye on this monumental human tragedy conveys, unmistakably, how the sheer pursuit of mere national interests dwarfs humanitarian considerations elsewhere. The significance of the UN Report on Human Rights just released, accordingly, cannot be understated.

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  • US-China Trade Wars on IPR and what it means for India

    US-China Trade Wars on IPR and what it means for India

    Each incumbent in the White House since the entry of PR China into the WTO in 2001 has agonized over the protections provided by the Communist state to intellectual property rights. As China’s capacities increased and as Chinese enterprises continued to operate in an unrestrained fashion, the US Government along with other European countries raised the pressure on Beijing to change its behaviour. They refused to accept at face value Chinese protestations that these actions were compliant with WTO provisions. US responses covered the entire range of domestic law actions, bilateral pacts and approaching the WTO. A study of these actions, with the benefit of hindsight, shows it was lacking in both scope and determination. US President Donald Trump’s efforts which sparked the trade war has been the most dramatic and effective till date. Both US and China agree that their IPR differences are fundamental in nature and will be addressed in its entirety in the second phase. In this regard, the cat and mouse legal games being witnessed in the case of Huawei and its 5G ambitions  deservec scrutiny. Simultaneously the Trump Administration has doubled down on the WTO and reduced its dispute settlement body into a pale shadow of its original self. India is also a target of US actions on the IPR front, albeit of a lesser degree compared to PR China. WTO case law is instructive and there are lessons to be learned even outside of the US-China trade dispupte framework. In terms of the impact of the US-China IPR differences on India, three broad dimensions can be identified. The first one pertains to the WTO regime and other regional trade arrangements. Second, India needs to brace for further action at the WIPO and on the larger question of what US withdrawal from multilateral bodies means for the rest of the international community. Thirdly, Indian Government and companies need to try and leverage the opportunities that maybe created by China’s reforms in the IPR  fieldincluding the Pilot Free Trade Zone at Shanghai.

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    This paper is also published in AALCO journal.