Indian students studying medicine in China: Disruptions caused by the Covid Pandemic

Rama V. Baru,Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU and Honorary Fellow, ICS, Delhi and Madhurima Nundy, Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress

Source: Hebei North University

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted both school and higher education across the world with indefinite closure of institutions and online learning.  For those who were enrolled or planning to enroll in professional courses like medicine especially in middle income countries like China and Russia, have faced the maximum disruption. According to the data put out by the MEA, the pandemic resulted in a 55 per cent dip in 2020 with only 2.6 lakhs students having gone abroad compared to 5.9 lakhs in the previous year. A small proportion of students travelling abroad is for medical education and nearly 30,000 of them are in China. The pandemic and diplomatic tensions between India and China has jeopardized the continuation of students studying medicine. The return of Indian students due to the first outbreak of COVID-19 in January 2020 has affected their study and career plans.  The rising anxiety due to this uncertainty is palpable. As Susan Ann Varghese of Thiruvananthapuram and a final year medical student at China, said that she “cannot go back as the Chinese government is not allowing the Indian students to return and the universities which had taken initiative to send us back home are not responding”.

Meanwhile, students are being instructed online by their respective Chinese medical colleges. But online teaching is not recognised by the National Medical Commission (NMC) in India and hence it creates concerns for students transacting classes in this mode.  The students recognise that online instruction will be inadequate to complete their training since practical exposure is critical for medical education.  They are also facing issues in accessing online classes since Chinese apps are banned in India and students have to purchase VPN to access the online classes. As a result, the students feel that they have been left in a lurch by both the governments. A union of students studying medicine in China have expressed their anguish to the Indian government: “We are 25,000 Indian students studying in Chinese universities who have been forced to participate in online classes for the past 17 months because of travel and visa restrictions. Our medical study requires a lot of practical and group work, but our entry to China and our respective universities have been banned for the past year-and-a-half and we are suffering every day.” With little hopes of returning to their campuses anytime soon, Indian medical students enrolled in China are now looking at mid-course transfers to institutes in India and other countries. However, this requires the NMC which is the apex administering body for medical education in India to allow the mid-course transfer. The NMC is silent on this matter for the moment.

The plight of students who have returned from China and other countries is also filled with anxiety and uncertainty since their employability is dependent on their clearing the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination.  The pass percentage over the last few years has been low and is demoralizing for the students travelling abroad for medical education. The Covid pandemic could have utilized the services of the large number of foreign medical graduates to supplement the shortage of medical personnel but this was not done.


FMGE result statistics (2019-2021)

Particulars 2021 (December) 2021 (June) 2020 (December) 2020 (June) 2019 (December)
Number of candidates appeared 23349 18,048 19,122 17,789 15663
Number of aspirants qualified 5665 (Pass % – 24.26) 4,283 (Pass % – 23.73) 3,722 (Pass % – 19.46) 1,453 (Pass % – 8.16) 4032 (Pass % – 25.74)
Number of failed candidates 17607 12,895 13,713 10026
Number of absentees 342 657 1,092
Number of aspirants with withheld status 77 213 136 1605

Clearly, the lack of policy engagement and direction from the NMC and the  Indian government to address the concerns of continuing students and those who have completed their course in China and other countries is unfair. There needs to be a review of the FMGE process and some kind of parity with those who completed their medical education from public and private medical colleges in India. It is worth considering an exit exam for all medical graduates irrespective where they were trained, as a pre requisite for employability. This is a reform that has been suggested at various points in time but has received little attention from the professional bodies. On the one hand there is a move to increase the number of seats for the training of medical graduates and on the other there is little effort to find ways to engage with the large number of foreign medical graduates who are looking for employment. Clearly, this impasse cannot go on for much longer since it affects a large number of young professionals who at the moment are frustrated by the indecisive attitude of the NMC and the Indian government.

Why Will China Not Give Up on its ‘Dynamic Zeroing’ Covid-19 Strategy?

Hemant Adlakha, Vice Chairperson, ICS and Associate Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

This article was published two months ago in Modern Diplomacy under the same title. However, following the revival and fast spreading of local variants of Covid-19, including Omicron, first in Xi’an and then in Yuzhou city in Henan province, and now in the northern port city of Tianjin near Beijing, questions have been raised in China on the rationality behind persisting with “zero tolerance” policy. I hope to come up with the second part of the article with focus on resurging Covid-19 cases in China and the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Image: Where is the exit from China’s zero tolerance on Covid-19?
Source: scmp.com

The world is again at war with China. This time, the war is not about China’s aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy; nor is it about China threatening to use force to reunify with Taiwan. Instead, if one goes by what the global media says, this new round of “war” is an ego clash between what China calls Covid-19 “dynamic zeroing” and what the West is practicing – “living with virus strategy.”

Last year, Dr. Li Wenliang, who raised an alarm about the coronavirus in the early days of the outbreak, was forced by the police in Wuhan to write “self-confession” and was told to immediately stop spreading false rumours. Within a few days, Dr. Li caught the infection and was hospitalized, where he succumbed to the virus and died three weeks later. Of course, Li was not infectious disease expert, he was an ophthalmologist at the Wuhan Central Hospital. A little over a year later, when Zhang Wenhong, a doctor in Shanghai who has been compared with the top US health official Dr. Anthony Fauci, wrote on his Weibo blog indicating China might have to live with the Covid-19 pandemic, he had to face vicious attacks by the official media and the Chinese health authorities. For, Dr. Wenhong had come in the cross hairs with China’s official “dynamic zeroing” strategy aimed at eliminating the coronavirus.

It is important to recall, since early last year China has been strictly adhering to a “zero tolerance” (Qingling in Chinese) policy for Covid-19, under which authorities have imposed strict border controls, travel restrictions, lockdowns and at times carried out mass testing as and when new Covid-19 cases emerged. Furthermore, the success of “zero tolerance” policy which resulted in long stretches of zero new cases was drummed up by the communist leadership of the country as the secret for successful coronavirus pandemic containment strategy. “China’s government attributed the effective virus containment to the phenomenal leadership of the communist Party and its institutional superiority over Western liberal democratic systems,” commented The Diplomat two months ago. (Emphasis added).

Image: China’s zero-Covid strategy risks leaving it isolated for years
Source: Bloomberg.com

Rise in regional flare-ups

However, more recently, China experienced regional flare-ups of the globally prevalent delta variant, including in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. As a result, Beijing authorities were forced to postpone the capital city’s annual marathon scheduled to be held on 31 October. A week earlier, on 24 October, Beijing’s Universal Studios theme park also took preventive measures and started testing all its employees after it was found out that a suspected case had visited the Studios. At the same time, Shanghai Disneyland and Disney town were temporarily shut down as part of the pandemic prevention drive. According to China’s English language newspaper, Caixin Daily, the decision to suddenly close Disneyland followed the emergence of a new Covid-19 case in neighbouring Zhejiang province, it was someone who had visited the Shanghai attraction.

In fact, the recent flare-ups spread across over twenty provinces and areas in China have been attributed to a cluster of Covid-19 cases in Ejin Banner in the remote Inner Mongolia that is in the Gobi region. According to reports, nearly 9,000 tourists who were visiting the Gobi Desert during China’s National Day “golden week” holidays were trapped there, mostly in quarantine. The Chinese tourists had gone there to spend time in the famous poplar forests where trees turn golden yellow during this time of the year. An official Chinese media outlet reported “the recent local Covid-19 outbreaks that began in mid-October have spread to two-thirds of China’s 31 provincial-level regions, with more than 1,000 locally transmitted infections.” Attributing delta variants as the cause for the country’s second wave of the pandemic, one of China’s top epidemiologists, Dr. Zeng Guang, a former head of Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), opined China must continue with emergency measures, including maintaining long quarantines and vigorous contact tracing, until a “barrier of immunity” has been established.

Living with the virus” is more costly

While acknowledging that the global challenges in containing the delta variant will mean that society must learn how to coexist with Covid-19, Zeng emphasized that “China will need to continue its ‘zero tolerance’ strategy against Covid-19 with nationwide emergency responses.” Reacting sharply to the last of few remaining countries which too have finally shifted from eliminating strategy to trying to live with the virus – for example, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia – China’s most celebrated infectious disease expert and “national hero” Dr. Zhong Nanshan has strongly defended “zero tolerance” strategy on the grounds that measures to deal with sporadic Covid-19 outbreaks are less costly than treating patients after they have been infected. “The cost is truly high, but compared with not managing it, relaxing (the zero tolerance policy), then that cost is even higher,” Dr. Zhong Nanshan said in a recent TV interview.

Image: How long can China chase COVID zero?
Source: japantimes.co.jp

Remember, China has reported about 4,600 deaths due to COVID pandemic. In comparison, the US with just a quarter of China’s population and a far more expensive and superior health care system has lost over 755,000 lives. No wonder China’s foreign ministry spokesperson has recently disdainfully dismissed the US as an “inferior system” and a “total failure.” Defending the Chinese government policy, Dr. Zhong Nanshan questioned all those countries (mostly the developed countries in the West) that had relaxed their policies amid a drop in Covid-19 cases only to go on to later suffer a large number of infections. “The global mortality rate for people infected with Covid-19, which spreads fast and continues to mutate, is currently around two per cent. We [China] cannot tolerate such a high mortality rate,” the top Chinese epidemiologist said.

The logic of China’s “zero tolerance” policy

Refuting the logic offered by Dr. Zhong Nanshan in defense of China’s “zero tolerance” policy, i.e. it is more effective and less costly to contain Covid-19 than treating patients after they have been infected, an overseas Chinese scholar Zhuoran Li attributed China’s so-called success in fighting the pandemic to the Maoist doctrine of mass line and the CPC’s Leninist identity, respectively. “The key to implementing this ‘zero tolerance’ is the CPC’s mass mobilization capability. The CPC has viewed mobilization as a ‘secret weapon’ throughout its history. After Mao’s Mass Line became a key to the CPC’s victory in 1949, the Party continued to rely heavily on mass mobilization to achieve its goal – social transformation between 1949 and 1956; steel and food production between 1958 and 1961; or combating natural disasters in 1998 and 2008,” Zhuoran Li argues.

At another level, adding a different dimension to Zhuoran Li’s argument, another overseas Chinese scholar, Yanzhong Huang, a senior research fellow with the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) has observed: “It’s becoming part of the official narrative that promotes the approach and links to the superiority of the Chinese political system.” Maybe true, however, from China’s point of view, what is most disturbing is there is a lack of consensus within the official narrative. Take Ruili for example, a southwestern city surrounded by Myanmar on three sides and currently the center of the highest flare-up. According to Ruili residents, they have been the worst victims of China’s zero-transmission strategy as they have been subjected to multiple rounds of quarantine, lockdowns and excessive Covid19 testing. The local city authorities have put the blame for the plight of the 270,000 residents on the successive flare-ups on “traders and refugees who frequently cross the border into China.” On the other hand, the angry residents in the city have been complaining of the escalating financial as well as social costs for having been left alone to cope with the epidemic.

Image: China is keeping its borders closed, and turning it inwards
Source: economist.com

Furthermore, foreign experts and the global media have maintained that China either doesn’t want to admit or the authorities in Beijing are yet to realize – as most or nearly all countries have – that not only the virus is now permanent but also that there is no chance in the long run that a zero-Covid strategy could work in terms of achieving complete elimination. This confusion is the official narrative in China has been best manifested in a public spat between the mayor and the deputy mayor of Ruili. Last month, Dai Rongli, the deputy mayor posted an essay on his personal social media blog highlighting the difficulties city residents have been facing due to the pandemic prevention policies. “The pandemic has mercilessly robbed this city time and again, squeezing dry the city’s last sign of life,” the deputy mayor wrote. Within days, an infuriated city mayor Shang Labian criticized his deputy in an interview with a Chinese digital news platform saying: “Ruili does not need outside support and sympathy.”

To sum up, it is indeed true that most people in China support the country’s strict pandemic prevention policies. Yet undeterred by what most other countries are claiming, that is, “the illness will circulate in perpetuity and can only be encountered with high immunization rates,” the Chinese leadership is standing firm on its resolve that the zero-transmission strategy is less costly. Liang Wannian, the head of China’s “leading small group” under the Ministry of Health to combat Covid19, has refuted as baseless claims that China is persisting with its zero-transmission strategy for political reasons such as holding of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022 and the 20th CPC National Congress in October next year.

Image: The Delta Variant and China’s Need to Change its COVID-19 Policy?
Source: nytimes.com

Dynamiczeroing is not zero transmission, nor is it China’s permanent strategy. Whether to change the current pandemic prevention strategy depends on the trend of the global epidemic, the mutation of the virus, the change in the severity of the disease and the level of vaccination coverage in China and other factors,” Liang said. In other words, Liang Wannian almost confirmed what experts outside China have been claiming: “They [China] are not confident about the effectiveness of [their own] vaccines – the ability to prevent infections.” Therefore, China has been caught in its own trap of “zero transmission” or “dynamic zeroing.”

The US Policy towards China: Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations

Ashu Maan, Research Intern, ICS

China and the United States have been explicitly at loggerheads in the past few years. However, issues of contentions in Sino-US ties have existed in the past as well. This research blog attempts to understand the US Policy towards China during three different administrations –   Obama administration; Trump administration  and Biden administration.  Additionally, the blog also attempts to understand India’s position in the  US-China conflict.

Obama Administration

Barrack Obama was the first African American to become the president of the United States and he was also the first American president to visit China in the first year of his presidency. However, Obama administration’s China policy seemed inept as it faced several challenges one after another. On his state visit, Obama was criticized by the media for “not displaying American values” and being “lead by the nose”. Obama’s unsatisfactory visit to China was further followed by ‘Failure to secure an ambitious Copenhagen deal’ at the Copenhagen Climate summit in 2009. Additionally, the American spy apparatus in China was being unearthed and assets were disappearing. Despite the challenges, Obama administration leaned towards engaging China rather than confronting it considering China’s rising economic stature globally. China overtook Japan and became the second-largest economy in the world during his presidency and the Obama administration was quick to realise and accept China’s new reality as an economic heavyweight. Obama administration believed that it was best to cooperate with China as was evident from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton February 2009 remarks – “some believe that China on the rise is, by definition, an adversary, but on the contrary, we believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other’s successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities”.

Further President Obama with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao initiated the ‘U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue’ in 2009. The dialogue was aimed at discussing bilateral, regional, and global issues between the two countries. On the trade front the US-China trade rose from $ 40.7 Billion in 2008 to $ 57.8 Billion in 2016. The trade deficit in the same period increased from $ 268,039.8 Million to $ 346,825.2 Million.

Table 1: U.S. trade in goods with China (Million US $)

Year Export Import Balance
2008 69,732.80 337,772.60 -268,039.80
2009 69,496.70 296,373.90 -226,877.20
2010 91,911.10 364,952.60 -273,041.60
2011 104,121.50 399,377.20 -295,249.70
2012 110,516.60 425,619.10 -315,102.50
2013 121.746.20 440,430.00 -318,683.50
2014 123,657.20 468,474.90 -344,817.70
2015 115,873.40 483,201.70 -367,328.30
2016 115,594.80 462,420.00 -346,825.20

Source: Compiled from United States Census Bureau.

Trump Administration

Trump throughout his presidential campaigns was vocal about his criticisms of globalization particularly in the context of the ills plaguing the US work force. Donald Trump blamed China for taking jobs away from traditional industries like iron and steel and popularised the slogan of ‘America First.’ By the time Trump came to power, China had clearly become a “competitor” as opposed to Hillary Clinton’s “partner”. Trump was straightforward in dealing with China as he termed it an outright adversary, blamed it for stealing Intellectual Property from American companies operating in China, and started the infamous trade war. In the trade war, Trump realized that China was capable of countering trade sanctions and equal retaliation. It is important to note that although aimed at China, Trump’s infamous trade war also affected United States’ closest allies in Europe and Canada. On the trade front, the U.S.-China trade under Trump decreased from $ Billion 578 in 2016 to $ Billion 558 in 2020. Naturally, the trade deficit also decreased from $ Million 346,825.2 to $ Million 310,263.5 in 2020.

Table 2: U.S. trade in goods with China (Million US $)

YEAR EXPORT IMPORT BALANCE
2016 115,594.8 462,420.0 -346,825.2
2017 129,997.2 505,165.1 -375,167.9
2018 120,281.2 538,514.2 -418,232.9
2019 106,448.4 450,760.4 -344,312.0
2020 124,485.4 434,749.0 -310,263.5

Source: Compiled using data from United States Census Bureau.

Biden Administration

Joe Biden came to power in December 2020. Biden’s policy has been the same as Trump with one change – Biden is engaging with Washington’s closest allies in Europe and Asia in countering China. Since coming to power, Biden has prioritized building alliances and reinvigorating old ones. So far, Biden’s China policy has been well received.  In March 2021, the European Union, Canada, and the United States imposed joint sanctions on Chinese officials in Xinjiang. The Biden administration also reinvigorated the QUAD grouping and hosted the first leaders meeting of the QUAD countries namely Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. India and Australia have engaged fully with QUAD owing to Chinese actions on its Himalayan borders and sanctions levied on Australia due to Australia asking for investigation into the origin of Coronavirus. Since coming into power, there have been two leaders’ summit of QUAD, the first one was held virtually on 9 March 2021 and the Second one i.e., the first in person leaders’ summit was held in Washington D.C on 24 September, 2021.  To counter China the grouping is focusing on areas such as trade, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, Infrastructure, vaccinations etc as depicted from the formation of working groups during the two meetings.

Apart from QUAD the Biden administration also formed a security alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom, popularly known as AUKUS. The group is focused on countering China’s influence in the Western Pacific region by providing Australia with eight nuclear-powered and conventionally armed submarines. The aim of the pact is to modernize the Australian navy by giving access to cutting-edge military technology to Australia including artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea capabilities.

India’s Role in the Sino-US Conflict

During the last great power rivalry between US and USSR, India spearheaded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) with an aim to remain neutral in the rivalry. During the Cold War neither Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson nor Nixon wanted India as an ally. An economically weak India would be an additional security burden for the US and for the American taxpayer because as Eisenhower put it, the US would have to defend “2,000 miles more of the active frontier”.

Unlike the Cold War, stakes are high and personal for India in the US-China rivalry. India shares a long land border with China and there have several border disputes. This time India cannot sit on the sidelines and watch from far. As can be seen from the recent trends, India’s China policy seems to be aligned with that of the U.S to a considerable extent. India has engaged vigorously with QUAD since border clashes with China last year. India’s role in the US-China rivalry will be of balancing and containing China with other Asian and Oceania allies i.e., Japan and Australia. India is slated to become the third-largest economy by 2030 overtaking Japan and Germany and is already among the strongest militaries in the world. India has a significant footprint in the Indian ocean via Andaman and Nicobar Islands and its partnership with France and Seychelles. India, through the courtesy of Andaman and Nicobar Island can impede China’s access to the South China Sea or the Indian Ocean by blockading Malacca Strait during times of conflict.  

Though there have been many areas of contentions between India and the United States in the past, they are at present focusing on cooperation both bilaterally and multilaterally. It is important to note that China will not be contained just by security alliances but by economic and technological alliances. The United States should actively look to decouple its economy and manufacturing and diversify into countries like India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. The United States must accept the new realities of the world and understand that the future of the world will be multipolar. The United States through alliances and partnerships can counter China.

What does China gain from its South Pacific Engagement?

Wonchibeni Patton, Research Intern, ICS

Image: President Xi Jinping with eight Pacific island countries’ leaders at the 26th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting
Source: Getty Images

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the third-largest aid donor to the Pacific Island Countries (PICs), spending around US$1.76 billion in aid towards the region. In its aid programme, the PRC emphasises on equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. On this note, the following paragraphs examine the benefits that the PRC gains from its engagement with the PICs.

Scholars have identified the PRC’s two main interests in the PICs as political and economic. Political or diplomatic interests include decreasing Taiwan’s diplomatic clout and gaining the support of the PICs at multilateral forums, mainly the United Nations (UN). The PRC and Taiwan rigorously engaged in “chequebook diplomacy” in the 1990s, competing for diplomatic recognition from the PICs until 2008 when President Ma Ying-Jeou of the Kuomintang government came to power in Taiwan and led to a diplomatic truce. Before 2019, Taiwan had six diplomatic allies in the region, but this was reduced to four when the Solomon Islands, followed by Kiribati, switched to the PRC in September of 2019. There were several reports that the PRC had baited both countries with promised aid: US$500 million for the Solomon Islands and funds for aeroplanes and commercial ferries for Kiribati

Although the PICs occupy only 15 per cent of the world’s surface, with a cumulative population of around 13 million, they hold about 7 per cent of UN votes. The PRC’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has often been questioned, and the PRC is often targeted at the UN for its human rights record. The Xinjiang issue has been raised twice at the UNHRC in the recent past-2019 and 2021. Both were led by countries from the West. However, both times the PRC responded with greater support from its “Like-Minded Group”- a term used to describe a loose coalition of developing states often led by the PRC, Russia and Egypt . In 2020, when the issue of China’s new national security law in Hong Kong was raised at the 44th session of the UNHRC by 27 countries, Papua New Guinea was amongst the 53 countries that backed the PRC. In 2021, when the human rights situation in Xinjiang was raised at the 47th UNHRC session by Canada with the support of 44 countries, a coalition of 69 countries led by Belarus responded in China’s support. The PICs Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands were included in the 69. Thus, the PRC has been successful at garnering increasing support from the PICs on issues concerning its interests in international fora.

The PRC’s economic interests in the region include the promotion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the hunt for raw materials. All the ten diplomatic partners of the PRC in the region have signed up for the BRI. The PICs’ total exclusive economic zones (EEZs) extend across nearly 7.7 million square miles of ocean. This can be beneficial to China’s endeavours in exploring and extracting natural resources. Some of the PICs are blessed with abundant natural resources and raw materials in terms of minerals, metals, fossil fuels, fisheries and wood. A global audit of Pacific resource extraction undertaken by the Guardian’s Pacific Project revealed that China is the largest importer of the region’s natural resources, importing resources worth US$3.3 billion in 2019. In the mining industry, the PRC has invested in seven mining projects across the region, with the largest one being the US$1.4 billion Ramu nickel and cobalt mine in PNG. PNG and Fiji have been the main focus of investments in this field. Other major operations include the Porgera gold mine and the Frieda River Copper project in PNG, the Nawailevu Bauxite mining project and the Vatukoula gold mine in Fiji, and so on. These operations are partly owned and run by Chinese SOEs such as Zijin Mining Group, Xinfa Aurum Exploration and Zhongrun International Mining. In 2019, PNG exported US$2.3 billion worth of oil, metals and minerals to China while Fiji exported US$4.8 million of the same.

The Pacific region is the world’s most fertile fishing ground. China imported US$100 million worth of seafood products from the region in 2019. However, Chinese vessels have also been involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which has been threatening the region’s revenue sources and food security. Even though the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) states that China has around 600 licensed vessels fishing in the area, various estimates of the Chinese fleet range between 1,600 and 3,400 vessels. The major exporters of tropical logs in the region are PNG and Solomon Islands, where forestry is a major industry. According to the US Department of Agriculture report, in 2020, Papua New Guinea was the largest hardwood log exporter to China, accounting for 21 per cent of China’s total imports, followed by the Solomon Islands. The Pacific region’s emerging potential as the ‘blue economy’ has also caught Chinese interest. China has started looking into Deep Sea Mining by conducting research projects through the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA). They have identified polymetallic and cobalt nodules, hydrothermal sulfide deposits and have also produced several deep-sea mining maps in the Pacific. Furthermore, in 2017, China signed a 15-year exploration contract for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone in the Pacific Ocean with the International Seabed Authority. Although the gains from the Sino-Pacific engagement may not be equal in quantity, Sino-Pacific engagement can be considered a qualitative ‘win-win’. Certainly, China’s primary goals in the region are being met to some degree on both the political and economic fronts.

China’s Journey to Vaccine Hegemony

Swapneel Thakur, Research Intern, ICS

Source: Wall Street Journal, 2021

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has continued to control the spread of the virus, successfully and effectively. A country of 1.4 billion people, more than the combined the populations of Europe and the United States, has been reporting some clusters of cases and has been able to prevent widespread community transmission. Although much of this success could be attributed to its experience gained from the SARS Epidemic in 2002, China’s disease control strategy featured a balanced combination of both prevention and protection.

Soon after COVID-19 first emerged in December 2019, Chinese scientists were able to identify the virus and share the genome sequencing data internationally. By the end of the January 2020, Chinese doctors had already categorised the clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients, risks of person to person transmission, genomic characteristics, and the epidemiology. This robust foundation of research was backed by political commitment from the very top to use science to tackle the outbreak decisively. For instance, China’s National Health Commission sent three groups of national infectious disease experts to Wuhan at the beginning of the outbreak to investigate the risks and transmissions of the virus, to which their recommendations for a lockdown immediately implemented. The government was also quick to respond to the advice given by academic scholars such as Cheng Wang, the President of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. His idea of Fangcang shelter hospitals, or temporary hospitals built by converting existing public facilities like stadiums became a key strategy for promptly providing large number of hospital beds and appropriate health care to patients suffering from the disease. However, its prevention control strategy would not have been possible without the broad range of community engagements and solidarity that was seen at an unprecedented level during the COVID-19 outbreak. Control measures that could curb individual freedoms like mandatory wearing of mask in public areas and social distancing were readily accepted by the public, unlike in the Western countries where anti-masking and anti-lockdown protests were quite common. Thus, after achieving the primary objective of limiting the spread of the virus, China’s next strategic goal was to successfully balance these immediate challenges with preventive measures, namely, providing safe and effective vaccines for protecting the population from further infections.

While the US and most Western countries followed a market driven model based on advanced purchase agreements, China adopted a state driven model which leveraged both political mobilisation and the use of economic instruments. Responding to an outbreak of a new infectious disease by solely relying on market mechanism can be expensive, besides being fraught with risks. Furthermore, market-based solutions could increase the probability of slowing down vaccine research due to high levels of uncertainty. For instance, despite having early access to the virus’s genome, several Western pharmaceutical companies continued to dedicate greater share of resources to develop lucrative treatments for existing chronic diseases such as cancer than to counter this infectious disease which could have global ramifications. Janssen and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine research began only when large scale infection was imminent in Western countries during late February.

With vaccine research starting as early as in January 2020, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) had already launched emergency research projects by February to accelerate vaccine development. It went on to sponsor five technological roadmaps and 12 vaccine candidates that included private sector giants and nascent start-ups. In order to coordinate policy goals across agencies and to mobilise resources promptly, the government had also established a COVID-19 Task Force comprising senior officials from the National Medical Product Administration (NPMA), the MOST and other concerned departments. The Task Force was affiliated to the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council and reported directly to the Vice Premier of China. Under the Task Force’s direction and guidance, the vaccine research program featured multiple players collaborating to maximise their joint performance. For instance, due to the long-standing relationship that the MOST shared with domestic pharmaceutical companies, the Chinese Government was quickly able to identify enterprises that were capable of developing COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency. These enterprises were then supported with efficient allocation of resources required for vaccines development across the Chinese Academy of Sciences, universities, the army and the state-owned enterprises. In addition, the Task Force had also directed the NPMA to modify its procedure in accordance with China’s Vaccine Administration Law to streamline the inspection and review process for vaccines and accelerate market approval.

As of now, four vaccines have been approved in China and in at least one foreign country. Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV, Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac, CanSino BIO’s Convidecia and ZhifeiLongcom’s ZF2001 make up the most of China and its allies arsenal in the fight to defeat COVID-19. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had also given emergency approval to Sinopharm vaccine in May and the Sinovac Biotech vaccine in June 2021 With the help of government resources and institutions such as Chinese Academy of Sciences and Academy of Military and Medical Sciences, Chinese manufacturers had already started increasing production capacity when the vaccines were in early stage of development. As early as in April 2020,Sinopharm had established production lines in Beijing and Wuhan with an annual capacity of 300 million doses and with plans to eventually export 300 to 500 million doses to over twenty countries. Similarly, Sinovac and CanSinoBIO increased their production capacities to 300 million and 200 million doses respectively. This explains why Chinese companies have been very optimistic about reaching an annual production capacities of more than a billion doses in 2021. For instance, earlier this year both Sinovac and Sinopharm had declared that they were capable of producing more than a billion doses annually. This expanded capacity has allowed China to meet huge domestic demands as well as to fulfil orders from abroad. With Chinese vaccine developers conducting Phase III trials in various countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa, China has emerged as one of the leading suppliers of COVID-19 vaccines in the world.

Such vaccine developers would usually collaborate with local pharmaceutical companies or health departments which helped recruit volunteers, coordinate physical and institutional resources and conduct trials in return for preferential pricing, delivery time and technology transfer. This led to China extending support to more than 80 developing countries. The government has been actively encouraging companies to export independently to other countries in its effort to ensure sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. Some of the agreements entered into by Chinese companies included an additional clause stating that if a local pharmaceutical company has hosted the clinical trial, the country itself is designated as partner in manufacturing and distributing vaccines for domestic use and export. This explains why China has been supporting overseas production bases of its vaccines in countries like Brazil, UAE, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey Mexico and Pakistan. While UAE would be producing Sinopharm’s vaccine under the name of Hayat Vax, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and Egypt have been manufacturing Sinovac Biotech’s vaccines. Mexico and Pakistan have also started producing CanSinoBIO’s vaccine via an exclusive production line in their respective countries.

As one of the major producers of COVID-19 vaccines in the market, China has reshaped its position as a supplier of affordable vaccines to several developing countries in the world. By investing in research and production capabilities right from the early days of the pandemic, Chinese companies have not only taken major steps to mitigate the severe shortages of vaccines in the developing world but has also provided a viable alternative to expensive vaccines offered by pharmaceutical giants like the Pfizer and Moderna.

The author is thankful to his mentor, Dr. BiswajitDhar, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University.The views expressed here are those of the author(s), and not necessarily of the mentor or the Institute of Chinese Studies.

How Nepal Turned to China to Fill its COVID-19 Vaccine Shortfall

Shreha Gupta, Research Intern ICS

Image: Vaccine diplomacy and Nepal
Source: Griffith Asia Institute

Nepal’s vaccination drive against COVID-19 began on 27January, 2021 with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) under the brand name Covishield. The campaign was launched with the one million doses of Covishield that India had provided under grant assistance in sync with its ‘Neighbourhood First’ Policy and ‘Vaccine Maitri’ Initiative.

On 17 February, 2021, Nepal signed a contract with SII and made the advance payment to procure two million doses of Covishield, out of which only a million doses were delivered.  According to a report by Reuters, India had put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca Coronavirus shot made by SII to meet rising demands at home amid the raging second wave of Coronavirus. The second phase of the vaccination drive that began on 7March, 2021 was left in limbo, despite the country becoming one of the first in the world to launch the campaign.

However, India denies that restrictions were imposed on vaccine exports and maintained that it was trying to prioritise the demand at home. “India has not enforced any restrictions on exports of Covid-19 vaccines,” said Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs of India during the weekly press briefing on 2April, 2021. “We will export vaccines taking into account the domestic demand”, he added.

Following the inability expressed by SII to provide vaccine until the end of this year, the COVAX facility which is a vaccine pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator in partnership between Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), UNICEF and WHO, suggested that Nepal should explore appropriate alternatives apart from the Covishield vaccine.

Nepal began looking towards China to fill its vaccine shortfalls amid uncertainty over COVID-19 vaccine supplies from India. China had donated 1.8 million Covid vaccines developed by Sinopharm in two different grants of 800,000 doses and 1 million doses. On 29March 2021, Nepal received China-gifted 800,000 doses of vaccine as per the commitment of providing 500,000 doses made on 5February 2021 during a telephonic conversation between the foreign ministers of China and Nepal. Later, China decided to provide an additional 300,000 doses which increased the grant assistance of the COVID-19 vaccine for Nepal to 800,000 doses.

On 1June 2021, Nepal received another consignment of 800,000 doses of Vero Cell vaccine developed by the Chinese state-affiliated pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, out of the 1 million doses of vaccine which were earlier announced to be provided on a grant basis as per the commitment made during a telephonic conversation between presidents of the two nations on 26May, 2021. The remaining 200,000 doses of the Vero Cell vaccine has been provided to Nepal by the Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a release.

Nepal has also bought four million doses of the Vero Cell vaccine from China under an agreement with a non-disclosure clause, of which 800,000 doses have been received on 9 July 2021. On 16July, Hou Yanqi, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal informed the newly-appointed Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba that China will provide additional 1.6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to Nepal in grant assistance. With this announcement, China has become by far the largest vaccine donating and exporting country to Nepal.

Ashok Pandey, Associate Research Fellow in Policy Research Institute mentioned in his Research Report that vaccine donations made by India helped to strengthened Nepal-India relations but the delay in the procurement thereafter and news of corruption in vaccine procurement began to reverse the gains. He also mentioned that the gesture of one million vaccine donations from China was widely appreciated in Nepal at a time when the country was in dire need of the vaccine.

Beijing’s vaccine diplomacy will benefit its competition for influence in South Asia where India has traditionally been the dominant power. According to an article published in Voice of America (VOA), analysts have pointed out, “China moves in to fill the gap left by India, Beijing’s “vaccine diplomacy” could give it leverage in the strategic Indian Ocean region, where it has been pushing its Belt and Road initiative that aims at building infrastructure projects across many countries”.  

Michael Kugelman, the Deputy Director of the Asia Program and Senior Associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center pointed out that China views its vaccine diplomacy as an image-building tactic and India’s suspension of vaccine exports is a strategic opportunity for China.

In his article published in The Himalayan Times, retired Nepali Army lieutenant colonel Ashok Kumar Khand mentioned that the economic giants like India, China and the United States are “trying to regain a foothold in the countries of their interest or influence in the name of humanity through vaccine donations”. According to him, “the vaccine donation gives China a key to deter India’s monopolistic political influence over Nepal, counter the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States and the QUAD policy, and push the ambitious BRI project forward”. He added, “Winning the Nepali sentiment for India, aligning the Nepali view with that of India against China’s expanding influence in South Asia, including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and control of Nepali politics from behind the curtain could be the hidden agenda behind India’s vaccine diplomacy”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Deuba on 19 July 2021 and assured early supply of covid vaccine to Nepal but India’s image as a vaccine-giving nation and its soft power gains has been dented and could be further damaged if there is a long delay in exporting vaccines. As the world’s largest producer of vaccines, India is expected to ramp up enough capacity to resume vaccine deliveries to other countries in addition to meeting the requirements at home. Michael Kugelman pointed out that New Delhi has the opportunity to reassert itself further down the road and India has an inherent comparative advantage over China because it is the world’s top manufacturer of vaccines. Another advantage India’s locally produced vaccine has over Chinese vaccines is its affordability. Although the price of the Chinese vaccine has not been disclosed owing to the non-disclosure clause, it is said to be around $10 per dose whereas, Nepal bought the jabs from the SII at $4 per dose.

India had an early movers advantage because it moved in with the commitment of initial large supplies but it lost ground due to the inability to provide vaccines either on a grant basis or fulfil commercial commitments made by SII. Nepal gave priority to vaccines produced in India because of reasons like, logistics, pricing, existing storage and transportation facilities in Nepal and India’s assurance to facilitate procurement but India’s inability to provide vaccines have created a vacuum that was filled in by China. According to Harsh Pant, Director Studies and Head Strategic Studies program at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, “Given that this crisis will be with us for the foreseeable future, certainly there is going to be a sense of China becoming a very important player for many of these countries if India is not able to pick up some slack after a few months once things stabilize”.

Nepal is still far from achieving the required inoculation for its population. According to the latest data (14th September 2021) of the Ministry of Health, 5243236 people or 17.4% of Nepal’s 30 million population have been fully vaccinated. The lost ground could still be retrieved if India can ramp up its vaccine producing capacities and resumes providing vaccines to Nepal. It will be in India’s interest to prioritize inoculating the Nepali population because the two countries share an open border and uninoculated people crossing the India-Nepal border on a daily basis could surge the coronavirus cases in both countries. In addition, India should also take lessons from the 2015 border blockade which pushed Nepal into China’s lap and be cautious about China’s attempt to fill the gap in vaccine shortage.

************************************************************************The author is thankful to her mentor, Ambassador Ashok K. Kantha, Director, Institute of Chinese Studies and former Ambassador of India to China, for his invaluable guidance and support in writing this article. The views expressed here are those of the author(s), and not necessarily of the mentor or the Institute of Chinese Studies.

China’s Rendezvous with the Taliban: An Uneasy Alliance

Rangoli Mitra, Research Assistant, ICS

Image: Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, political chief of Afghanistan’s Taliban, in Tianjin, China July 28, 2021.
Source: Reuters

As America’s war in Afghanistan comes to a tragic end and the country experiences widespread chaos following the abrupt and complete collapse of the Afghan army and government in the face of the onrush of Taliban forces, China, an increasingly assertive power in the neighbourhood, appears to have chosen to deal with the emergent crisis in an unusually pro-active though precarious manner. Shortly after the fall of the entire country to the Taliban, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told the media that the Chinese have noted that the Afghan war has come to an end and the Taliban have said that they will “negotiate the establishment of an open and inclusive Islamic government”. Working in tandem with its “all-weather” friend – Pakistan, China’s endorsement of the totalitarian Taliban government has sounded an alarm around the world, particularly, in the West; however, this is not entirely shocking as China seeks urgent political stability in Afghanistan.

China perceives the Taliban as more than just a religious extremist group and a real political force. Over the years, China was never convinced that the Taliban could be destroyed by military means, and in line with this strategic calculation, China had cautiously engaged with the group keeping future objectives in mind. Even though China has termed Afghanistan as the ‘graveyard of empires’ and never sought to entangle itself in the quagmire of the ‘great game’, it has been worried about the presence of the United States (US) on its Western border. As a ‘new great game’ begins, China has made its intentions clear- it will pursue a relationship with the Taliban for achieving its own ends. Thus, the central purpose of the present analysis is to explore China’s relation with the Taliban along with an attempt to understand the particular type of role China wants to play in Afghanistan.

A Historical Overview of China-Taliban Relations

Historically, Afghanistan was on the periphery of China’s diplomacy and China did not have a strong influence there. In 1993, one year after the Afghan communist regime collapsed, China evacuated its embassy  amidst the violent struggle then taking place. China did not establish an official relationship with the Taliban who had seized power in 1996. However, it is interesting to note that efforts to establish a relationship with the Taliban dates back to 1999. In December 2000, China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Lu Shulin, even met the Taliban’s leader Mullah Omar in Kandahar. It is speculated that Mullah Omar assured the Chinese that the Taliban would not host anti-Chinese militants in Afghanistan. For the Chinese, threats emanating from Uighur militancy and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have remained a primary security concern.

After it become clear that the US military surge in Afghanistan in 2010 would not defeat the Taliban, the Chinese gradually started developing ties with the group and seeking a greater role in the peace negotiations that were to follow. In 2015, China hosted secret talks between representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government in Urumqi. The next year, a Taliban delegation headed by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai (then the group’s representative in Qatar) visited Beijing and sought the support of the Chinese for their position in Afghan domestic politics. As Chinese efforts intensified, the next high-level meeting was held in June 2019, when the group’s deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar visited China to discuss issues related to the Afghan peace process and counter-terrorism. In seeking a deeper relationship with the Taliban, China has inherently relied on Pakistan and Pakistani supporters of the Taliban, such as the late Maulana Sami ul Haq, known as the “Father of the Taliban”. In September 2019, when talks between the US and the Taliban faltered, China invited Baradar again to participate in an intra-Afghan conference in Beijing. However, this conference never took place. Apart from these unilateral initiatives, China was also a part of several multilateral initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Coordination Group and the Heart of Asia-Istanbul process.

The heightened significance of the Afghan war in China’s foreign policy is reflected in the fact that for the very first time China assigned a country-specific special envoy– since the creation of the post, there have been four Special Envoys for Afghan Affairs with the present being Yue Xiaoyong whose appointment on 21st July, 2021 comes at an extremely vital time.

Chinese Development Ambitions in Afghanistan

The highly publicized meeting of Taliban leaders (including Mullah Baradar) with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in late July led to several crucial promises being made and Baradar even invited China to “play a bigger role in future reconstruction and economic development” of the nation.


Source: Stratfor

The unique geographical location of Afghanistan – as an important crossroad into Central Asia, Middle East and South Asia – makes it a primal factor in the success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The importance of Afghanistan was noted by the former Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan Yao Jing who stated in 2016, “Without Afghan connectivity, there is no way to connect China with the rest of the world”. Up until the 16th century, Afghanistan played a pivotal role as a regional trade and transit hub sitting at the meeting point of ancient trade routes, known as the Silk Road. In 2011, a new initiative known as the New Silk Road was envisioned by the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. However, this was later replaced by China’s BRI because the American initiative lacked the “Pacific-to-Atlantic scope”.

Afghanistan formally joined the BRI in 2016. Several projects such as the Five Nations Railway, Sino-Afghan Special Railway Transportation Project, Corridor 3 of the Afghan National Railway Plan and the Digital Silk Road, specifically the fiber optic link with China through Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor, have been undertaken by China and the Afghan government. Afghanistan also became a member of the Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) in October 2017 in order to facilitate cooperation on infrastructure development under the BRI and Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA). In September 2019, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan decided to officially extend the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), China’s flagship project under the BRI, into Afghanistan. In China’s calculation, the planned extension of the$61 billion CPEC into Afghanistan could be an essential solution to create a stable and terrorist-free Afghanistan. However, until now Chinese investments in Afghanistan have remained significantly low if compared with other nations such as Pakistan.

Huge investments by China under the BRI in Pakistan and the Central Asian nations neighbouring Afghanistan will in time create a diplomatic pressure from all the stakeholders on the new Taliban government in Afghanistan to ensure the stability of the country and to not allow it to be a safe haven for terrorism.

Conclusion

The Chinese have three complementary national interests and concerns in Afghanistan- first, they cannot see the country turn into a safe haven for terrorism (particularly in the form of ETIM); second, Afghanistan is geostrategically located within the vortex of the BRI; and third, China would like to benefit from the rich mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Moreover since distance matters a great deal in trade and transit, China would be willing to invest in projects to make condensed access a reality, provided the Taliban can guarantee safety of Chinese personnel and assets.

It is vital to note that Afghanistan has required external assistance in meeting not only its developmental programmes but even its basic national budgetary funding requirements. As aid payments from the West have been severely curtailed, the Taliban is looking towards China. Recently, China has announced a $31 million aid package for Afghanistan, in what appears to be one of the first new foreign aid pledges for the Taliban-ruled country. However, as Afghanistan is on the cusp of a humanitarian catastrophe and will need billions in aid to avert the possibility of universal poverty, it will be interesting to see if China is willing to enmesh itself in the murky development aid politics of the country.

China has made two vital gains by recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban: first, China can hold the Taliban accountable for any attack on its citizens or assets emanating from Afghanistan and since the Taliban will be dependent on Chinese investments to a considerable extent, they will have to mend their ways; and second, China’s BRI will inevitably profit from stability in Afghanistan. Thus, China has done a good job of walking the tightrope in Afghanistan. A lot now depends on the Taliban’s policies which will decide China’s future engagement in the war-torn nation. For the present, it would seem like the Chinese strategy of courting the Taliban is paying off; but, whether it actually does, only the future will tell.

The author is thankful to her mentor, Ambassador Vijay K. Nambiar, former Ambassador of India to China and UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Myanmar, for his invaluable guidance and support in writing this article. The views expressed here are those of the author(s), and not necessarily of the mentor or the Institute of Chinese Studies.

China’s CBDC: Cross-border Prospects and Challenges

Raj Gupta, Research Intern, ICS

Image: Speculation is growing that the digital yuan will be launched soon.
Source: Shutterstock

The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) race has begun to pick up pace and almost all the countries are getting into it. Around 86% of the world’s central banks are actively researching the potential of CBDC, which makes it evident that countries all over the world view it as an important development in the monetary domain which they need to be up to speed with. As of now, the Bahamas is the first as well as the only country to have launched a CBDC for nationwide use. Whereas among the major economies, China is at the forefront. China’s CBDC journey started early in 2016 when the Digital Currency Research Institute, the first official institution in the world engaging in research and development of digital currency was established.Early identification of potential, active research of the prospects of CBDC as well as successive pilot trials in major cities brought China to the forefront.

The official name of China’s CBDC is Digital Currency Electronic payment (DCEP), which is commonly known as e-yuan or digital yuan. During the pilot trials, it has so far received a positive response from the public, mostly because of the red packets containing DCEP which was distributed to the public on a lottery basis. It helped create the much-needed hype among the masses and kickstart China’s mission-CBDC. Platforms such as JD.com, Meituan and Didi Chuxing were roped in to participate in such trials as well in order to test the integration of CBDC into different apps. Since its first pilot trial to the integration into apps, the journey has been gradual and smooth. With the amount of control that the Chinese government yields over its institutions, integrating DCEP won’t be a challenge domestically. Getting people to use it instead of their WeChat or Alipay wallets can be a challenge but incentives similar to the red packets at early stages can help build that user base. Recent clampdown on internet giants in China might also soften the resistance from Tencent and Alibaba and make space for the digital yuan.

China also has its eyes fixed on the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 to showcase its first major use case on a large scale and this may also serve as a gateway to wider use of CBDC in the country. Although the PBOC officials claim that they are looking more into the domestic use of e-yuan, many initiatives reflect otherwise.

The first is the Multiple CBDC (m-CBDC) Bridge which the PBOC joined recently. It aims to develop a prototype for cross-border payments with the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, BIS Innovation Hub, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and the Bank of Thailand.The main objective is to study the feasibility of cross-border payments using CBDCs and distributed ledger technology. Being the first-of-its-kind initiative, this has huge potential to solve issues related to cross-border fund transfers. Given the scale and timing, the results of the Proof-of-concept work can perhaps contribute to setting international standards around CBDCs.

The second is, Finance Gateway Information Services Co, a joint venture established by China National Clearing Centre of the PBOC and the SWIFT, which aims to establish and operate local network of financial messaging services to process cross-border Yuan payments through China’s own settlement system. Both, m-CBDC bridge and Finance Gateway Information Services Co. aim to challenge and change the current USD-dominated payments system in the coming future.

There is no doubt that both these initiatives aim to provide solutions and develop the current cross border payment infrastructure but these will also make the currently followed arrangement of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) less relevant. Currently, international payments are facilitated by the SWIFT. The dominant role played by the USD in SWIFT’s payment system is arguably one of the major reasons for the USD’s status as a global reserve currency. China is aiming to change that by trying to build a parallel system. And when that parallel system gets up and running, internationalization of the RMB could get easier by incorporating DCEP into various forms of economic activity in which it participates through multilateral and bilateral arrangements.

There are many avenues through which China would want its CBDC to flow and gain a grip over cross-border payments. From providing financial aid to BRI countries to waiving off transaction fees on repayment of loans, there are a plethora of options China has because of its trade links that make it the largest trading nation in the world. China’s growing integration with the developing world can help China rally countries behind it to follow Chinese standards of CBDC.

DCEP’s success internationally can tend to affect the dominance enjoyed by USD in global payments. The brunt inflicted by U.S sanctions is largely because of the USD’s dominance in international payments architecture. Hence, a parallel network system based on m-CBDC holds the potential to soften that brunt of U.S sanction policies which have increasingly been used against Chinese entities and individuals. Even Hong Kong’s chief executive Carie Lam was left with a pile of cash because banks did not want to deposit her money and expose themselves to the risk of U.S sanctions. This is an example of how strong and effective the U.S sanctions are against companies and individuals. If China can circumvent the sanctions through its system, it is likely to reduce the U.S hard power and will allow China to act with much more flexibility without having to worry about the aftermath of U.S sanctions. It can have far-reaching effects on how China deals with the nations facing sanctions by the U.S.

But all of this won’t be easy for China to accomplish. Cross-border usage of DCEP will likely face headwinds because the U.S and its allies may see the increasing acceptability of China’s DCEP as against their interests. On June 5, a communique issued by the G7 iterated the benefits and potential of a CBDC and underlined its commitments towards transparency and rule of law. It further stated that the G7 will work together towards common principles and will publish conclusions later this year. This communique reflects that the U.S and its western allies have perhaps woken up to the potential threat of e-yuan and are now pooling efforts to study its implications and ensure appropriate frameworks are in place.

There are issues such as interoperability among CBDCs of different countries which can prove to impede the goal of easier cross-border transactions. Another major issue is the lack of digital infrastructure in other countries to transact in digital currencies even if interoperability is achieved. But the single biggest impediment could be the privacy issues related to the DCEP. DCEP follows what has been termed as ‘Controllable Anonymity’ which allows the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to have complete oversight of the data collected from its CBDC. The idea of data collection by a foreign government won’t go down well with democratic nations that have strict privacy laws. Besides, it will likely lead to an increase in scepticism and reluctance in foreign entities. There are rapid developments taking place in the CBDC domain with different countries moving up the ladder. DCEP, clubbed with China’s trade links, growing influence and strategic long-term thinking has the potential to counter Dollar weaponization but that will be a very long and difficult road ahead. China is hoping that someday e-yuan can play a key role in supplanting the U.S Dollar. But for that, there must be a system in place that can be used to gradually increase the tempo when needed. With the consistent pace at which China is developing and testing its CBDC, that system will likely be in place in the near future.

Ecological Civilisation/ Shengtai Wenming: Towards a New Wave of Resilience Thinking?

Annesha Bhattacharjee, Research Intern, ICS

China’s resilience has been typically observed from a civilizational and culturist perspective, so far. Resilience as an organized indigenous systemic concept has yet to be defined by China from an ecological slant. Being an ancient civilisation, the idea of nature was restricted to romantic and spiritual ideation – in literature, philosophy and art, as found in the recorded history of cultural resilience. Often invested in learning the ways of nature, Tao(天) is the dreaded god that cradles human life.  China jumped from being an agricultural civilisation into the Anthropocene, spearheaded by industrial revolution. After learning the ways to ‘exploit nature’, it went on to narrowly focus on accumulating ‘economic resilience’. China, by then had realized that it had reaped economic well-being at the cost of nature’s ‘collateral’ devastation leading to continuous events of natural calamities which became evident with the passage of time. As a result of this, modern China initiates a vision of constructing a civilization that promotes ‘harmony’ between ‘man’ and ‘nature’.

“弹性”(Tánxìng) or elasticity, “韧性”(Rènxìng) or toughness, or “恢复力”(Huīfù lì) or the power to recover. These are the direct translations for the word ’resilience’ in Chinese which however lacks any conceptual rendition or indigenous scientific framing, unlike the West. The president of China, Xi Jinping, earlier this year in the 2021 Earth Summit, reiterated the vision of Shengtai Wenming or Ecological civilisation. China’s ‘economic resilience’ during the pandemic has led to several scholarly appraisals. In 2017, the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement increased China’s willingness to lead global environmental governance. Being one of the biggest polluters in a climate hostile world and an economic power has put China in a tight space for international scrutiny. Thus, achieving ‘ecological resilience’ might be the next big thing for China to prevent any major risk of regime shift that will hurt the developmental state of the nation.

The conceptualisation of resilience in IR discourse began in the West during the cold war period, emerging in various social and natural science fields. As a consequence of rising environmentalism after industrial revolution. Ecological resilience, got popularly defined at the time by ecologists such as C.S. Holling as, “the time required for an ecosystem to return to an equilibrium or steady-state following a perturbation.” Around 1980s, environmentalists in Soviet Union were the first to propose the term ‘ecological civilization’ which was later incorporated by China’s CPC party. Scholars in the West were conceptualising resilience around the same time. The 1972, the Stockholm conference resulted in political effectiveness against environmental issues in China. China’s evolution of political ecology has been marked since then. Repercussions of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and economic liberalism was already showing signs of enviornmental issues. Leading Hu Jintao’s regime, to push forth the idea of ‘Beautiful China’, specifically stressing on the ecological degradation factor irrespective of significant industrial growth in the sustainable sector. This unfolded the imbalanced socio-ecological systems that was systematically observed after President Zemin’s leadership who maneuvered China into becoming a major global producer and user of clean and renewable energy technology. China, a developing nation has largely been a reform and transformation-based society than just being induced by any strong ideological standards. Especially after the cultural revolution in the post-Mao phase where the focus was to ‘grow’ in the neocolonialist world, curating a strong labor force with little to no tolerance for traditionalism. Hence, the ‘laws of nature’ that were once preserved in traditional Chinese literature were significantly discouraged until then. As a rectification, Xi Jinping initiated the party’s intention to build a ‘community life’ together that allows man and nature to co-exist based on the political foundation of modern socialism with a brush of Chinese characteristics. This had been surfacing reluctantly in the party’s political agenda for the past two decades.

Remembering as David Easton once quoted that ‘scientism’ is good, but the ‘mad craze’ for the same is bad that should be avoided. In the past four decades, China had similar bout of lessons  from impelling an intensive industry built on the foundations of capitalism and growth-based sustainability. Thus, choking the boundaries of the biosphere and opening alternatives for energy-based industries. The Western  resilience system has been ‘empirically’ based on typical rational consciousness and minimal ‘value’ inclusiveness. China recognized it’s failure to balance the ecological sphere along with its economic growth despite taking the best developmental lessons from the West. Coercing them to think about creating a balance between being less ‘yang’ and more ‘yin’ until a state of equilibrium is reached, referring to an anti-waste-based society caused by intense globalisation. The Chinese scholars thus, argues that the situation can be altered by imbibing a socialist modern culture coupled with Chinese characteristics while acknowledging the fall of communism in Soviet Russia. China has been striving to defend its integration of a constantly transforming domestic socio-ecological system against the West-inspired, ‘universalism’. Their value system is predominantly based on Confusion philosophy. It promotes the idea of ‘relational self’ in a way where one does not limit oneself to evolve just as an individual entity but transcend that very evolving-self to the extended  virtues of the community. “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others?”, quoted Confucius. Only then one can achieve a harmonious community life together. Thus, trying to align with the traits of socialism by building communal responsibility along with the self.  This ideation of China’s ‘harmony’ towards establishing a political nation based on eco-socialism certainly signals a new wave of resilience thinking that diverges from the existing trends of liberal environmentalism governmentality.

Internationally many critics are however, skeptical of how China is likely to achieve the ambitious dream of stable economic growth as well as an Eco-civilization, simultaneously. As they argue that continuous growth is detrimental to the ecological crisis.  To which, Xi remains hopeful especially after observing its ‘triumphant’ pandemic situation in comparison to the rest of the world, further encouraging growth over 6%, in the post-pandemic phase. Green development (one of Xi’s 6 developmental policies), is likely to induce a possible alternative including green economic reform that shall be introduced along with several other structural changes to suit the 2050 vision of ‘ecological civilization’. Chinese scholars, meanwhile are speculating about the possible challenges the government will have to tackle with the emergence of the upcoming reforms.  Uncertain outcomes might spark social contestations and disruptions – to which, however, the government prefers authority and not democracy.  Successive transformation in the past couple of decades has been slowed down and stalled due to various challenges of such kind. The risks looming around in the post pandemic world will thwart China’s growth in the long term if it does not adapt to the situation and take control while it can. Especially as the industries experience a paradigm shift. Irrespective of Xi’s ability to achieve the ambitious political agenda, it will be refreshing to see how China brings about a new holistic system of green transformation that might stimulate a lot of other developing countries in the future while adhering to the international and domestic standards and stresses.

Shadow Banking and the Real Estate Bubble: Is Financial Crisis a Real Possibility in China?

Anushka Maheshwari, Research Intern ICS

Image: Property-hungry Chinese millennials and shadow banking could fuel a financial crisis
                    Source: South China Morning Post

The Chinese economy, due to the strict measures adopted by the government to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus,  is back on track, with output back to pre-pandemic levels and a surge in credit activity. China’s financial regulators are having a hard time containing risks at home while limiting disruptions from abroad as the economy is opening to foreign investment. The fear of missing out has stoked the investors’ expectations and many people are now buying property for investment or speculative purposes, which Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, termed as “very dangerous”. The household debt in China had reached 150 percent of its disposable income in December 2020 driven by a rise in property prices and seems to be concentrated among the millennials. The youth of China is clearly banking upon the government to sustain this growth in real estate prices, but a major portion of this debt is financed by shadow banking. People’s Bank of China (PBOC) defines China’s shadow banking as “credit intermediation involving entities and activities outside the regular banking system”.Since this sector is outside the formal banking sector, it lacks a safety net that comes from being financially backed by the government through deposit insurance publicly guaranteed or ‘lender of last resort’ facilities by China’s central bank. This raises an important question: Is China on the verge of a financial crisis like the one faced by the US in 2008-09?

China escaped the 2008 financial crisis primarily because of its booming domestic market and little exposure to the overseas market for wholesale funding. But the contraction in capital inputs through foreign direct investment during the crisis and fall in exports made the government announce a $586 billion stimulus package to provide a boost to the economy. Major infrastructural activity, constituting 72 percent of the package was undertaken, and only 30% percent of this was financed by the central government. The rest had to be funded by the local governments, and since they couldn’t borrow funds themselves, local government financing vehicles had to take on debt on their behalf from banks. But banks had severe restrictions in terms of lending such as caps on lending volumes imposed by the PBOC, mandatory bank loans to deposits ratio, restrictions on lending to certain industries, reserve requirements, among others. Due to this, shadow banking activities grew along with an increase in fixed investment, driving economic growth but at a high cost, so much so that the corporate debt to GDP ratio reached a record 160 percent in 2017 as compared to 101 percent 10 years prior to it. 

The Chinese leadership claimed that it had successfully defused the housing bubble that had formed in China by the end of 2014 due to these shadow banking activities. So, in order to uplift the dampening economy in 2015, it eased restrictions on second-hand home purchases and the property market since then has been booming, with more households buying houses and property developers borrowing more to engage in construction activities. There are many factors causing an increase in shadow banking activities, which in turn contribute to the growing real estate bubble. Firstly, Chinese authorities are trying to sustain high GDP growth rates through credit borrowing which puts strain on financial institutions of the country. Secondly, zombie companies that have little to no productive use, are borrowing more and more simply to meet their current obligations. Thirdly, many state-owned and private companies in China have property subsidiaries, and property loans made to these subsidiaries are sometimes presented in the books as going to the parent company. This results in the share of property-related debt being much higher than what is available in the official data. The overall impact was that the amount invested in Chinese housing hit $1.4 trillion in June 2020, while the total value of houses and developers’ inventory, according to a Goldman Sachs report, had reached $52 trillion in 2019.

Image: Shadow banking in China has ballooned into a $10 trillion ecosystem that connects thousands of financial institutions with companies, local governments and hundreds of millions of households.
Source: Bloomberg Quint

The shadow banking system in China works independently of its monetary policy, amplifying increases in the money supply but working opposite when the restrictive interest-based policy is imposed. Thus, it can be inferred that in spite of the Chinese policy changes to curb the real estate sector, the negative role of shadow banking is why the bubble continues to build. President Xi Jinping’s statement in 2017 that “houses are built to be lived in, not for speculation”  clearly indicates that the PLA government is sensitive to this issue. The government in China has adopted stringent measures to stop the rise in property prices over the past few years, and the latest mandate in August 2020, restricted credit supply to both developers and investors. These new regulations that mandate all lending institutions to decrease the quantity of loans given to this sector are going to stay in place until the real estate cools off. There are two forms of shadow banking in China, one is the channel business of Chinese banks that hide some of their lending activities to keep them outside the purview of the auditors and regulatory bodies. The other is P2P(Peer-to-Peer) lending platforms like trust companies, factoring companies, etc. In order to contract both these forms, the Supreme Court in China has lowered the interest rates on microlending, which will make it unprofitable for lenders while the CBIRC(Chinese Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) has forbidden trust companies to finance developers that do not meet the necessary requirements of shareholders and capital or lack necessary licenses.

The PBOC has significant control over lending activity in China as compared to the independent decision-making possible in the U.S. markets, which implies that the situation in China is more stable. There are many structural differences between the shadow banking systems in China and the United States, such as in China, market-based financial instruments do not play as significant a role as they do in the USA. Also, in China, smaller banks went off-balance sheet as they were constrained by liquidity requirements as compared to the larger banks in the US that were constrained by capital requirements. All these factors considerably lessen the chances of a financial crisis like that of 2008-09. Also, the Chinese real estate market has higher-than-normal down payments, sometimes as high as 40-50 percent of the transactions as compared to the 10-20 percent in most western markets. This implies that the debt to transaction price ratio is low, which discourages people from the lower socioeconomic strata of Chinese society to purchase high-priced properties, thereby reducing the risk of defaults. The PBOC and the CBIRC stepped in to take over the Baoshang bank when it collapsed in 2019, whichhas both positive and negative implications.  On one hand, it indicated that the Chinese government may intervene in case of any crisis-related situations caused by defaults in the shadow banking sector, but on the other hand, it may also encourage risk-seeking behaviour from creditors depending on the government to back the financial system. The Chinese government is caught between trying to curb shadow banking activity in order to reduce system risk in the country due to the real estate bubble and ensuring liquidity in the economy. Thus, although the possibility of a financial crisis is low, China does need to reduce risks posed by its shadow banking sector and ensure financial stability.