Media Release
Mangaluru, Sep 7: The department of Political Science of St Aloysius College (Autonomous) (SAC), here, organized a national webinar titled 'Covid-19, Galwan and the Vortex of India-China Relations'.
The webinar was held on Friday September 4 from 1.45 pm to 3.00 pm. Fr. Dr Praveen Martis SJ, the principal of the college delivered his message wherein he raised an important question on why the Galwan incident and the escalation of tensions between India and China took place at a time when the world was grappling with the pandemic COVID-19.
Dr Avinash Godbole, assistant professor of School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, Jindal Global University (Sonipat) addressed the students on the above theme. Analyzing the party cadres, centralization of power at the polit bureau and its implications to the political system in China Dr Godbole laid the background of the emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan and how China as a surveillance state controlled the pandemic to bring normalcy, particularly to its economy by April 2020. He linked the pandemic to the current vortex in India-China relations by focusing on the following perspectives: 1) The self-perception of China towards criticism from the global public and its imagery of ‘world all-out against China’ particularly after the COVID-19 spread from the epicentre of Wuhan especially from the US 2) The need to go on a war footing to contain the pandemic to restart its economy that is largely 60% export-oriented and therefore pose as a goodwill ambassador in foreign countries. Its restarting of the economy was further possible given the then policy vacuum across the globe, paralysis in Europe, the inability of the US to enforce the new normal amongst its people etc.
Dr Godbole maintained that Beijing’s behaviour as in the Galwan crisis is like any other aggressive behaviour that the former has displayed with countries across the East China Sea and the South China Sea or Taiwan. This emanated strongly from its perception of being a victim of world politics.
Galwan looks like an exception during COVID-19 times as this has erupted as a crisis that has stalled the India-China relations. This signals a major break in relations as all the procedures broke down with China attempting to change the infrastructure and patrol points, with attempts to reach higher points in Ladakh. Galwan appeared so far as a symptom of border management wherein India and China may not have anticipated causalities.
China has an attitude of the state which wants to establish transactional economic relations, be it with India or others, applying pressure on countries like India by playing with small countries within the neighbourhood. Since the Doklam standoff of 2017, relations between India and China have remained symbolic and have not made much headway ss suggested by the outcomes of the Wuhan Summit between prime minister Narendra Modi and the President Xi Jinping. He argued that China has hardly shown any interest in pursuing any long-term engagement with any Indian corporate units and have concentrated only on training their nationals.
Dr Godbole answered several questions largely coming from the students and the faculty on QUAD, WTO, India-US relations, rising powers etc. The session was moderated by Dr Rose Veera D’Souza, the dean of the faculty of Arts and HOD, department of Political Science. The entire programme was coordinated by the assistant professors of the department of Political Science— Dr Joyce Sabina Lobo (convenor), Alwin D’Souza and Maria Shaila D’Souza. Shaila D'Souza delivered the vote of thanks.