Sydney:
In a press briefing after his meeting with top business leaders and CEOs in Australia, S Jaishankar mentioned about “something that happened yesterday”, referring to the US election result. Mr Jaishankar said India “perceives this as an opportunity”.
Former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump made a stunning comeback after a 4-year gap to get re-elected as the 47th President of the United States of America. Mr Trump’s win will almost certainly have an effect on the global order and significantly impact policy and trade for most nations.
Mr Trump’s win will have a big impact on globalisation. Sharing his views on this, Mr Jaishankar said there are four aspects on how India views this: Firstly, “There was already a reordering of supply chains which was taking place (globally). It is very likely that this will get accelerated after the election result in the US.”
He went on to say that “I’ll be very candid with you, that some of this will be somewhat disruptive, but we in India perceive it as an opportunity because having kind of missed the manufacturing bus in the 1990s, early 2000s, we do think that this reordering of supply chain gives us a sort of second bite of the apple. And maybe this time around, starting with Apple, we are doing better than we were doing earlier.”
“Secondly, there will be, in a way, more geopolitical hedging. that, what will inevitably happen as a consequence of policies which we can, at least those parts of it we can safely predict, will be that many more of us would be seeking more relationships (globally) to keep life stable,” he added.
The foreign minister went on to highlight the significance of the digital age we all live in, explaining that digital payment platforms will ultimately become very valuable.
“The third aspect pertains to the digital digital side, and the digital side now pretty much covers everything.” Mr Jaishankar said, adding that “What has been happening and will continue to intensify is about trust, and what accompanies the digital aspect of a product or service or technology will come under greater scrutiny.”
He further noted that “Digital payment platforms, for example, would become, in a sense, much more valuable.” adding that “which platform to use and share with whom, becomes an important question.”
The fourth aspect, he said, is mobility. Speaking about it Mr Jaishankar said, “I think the demographic unevenness of the world is beginning to bite us that there would be, economies where the demand would be high. In those countries, the talents may not be plentiful.”
“It could be different in other places, and what will happen, and is already happening is that we will be moving, perhaps in the next few years, to a much more integrated global workplace that many countries — even a United States under Donald Trump — will make a distinction in immigration and mobility for them. An economically-justified mobility will have to be fostered by those countries,” the foreign minister explained.
“Businesses can move as well. We’ve already seen in the last few years,” Mr Jaishankar said.
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