PM Narendra Modi urges other countries to lessen supply chain reliance on China

The Covid-19 crisis has shown that it is risky for the global supply chains to be highly dependent on any single source, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, even as he tacitly asked the other like-minded nations to join India, Japan, and Australia in an initiative to lessen reliance on China.

“We are working together with Japan and Australia for supply-chain diversification and resilience. Other like-minded countries can also join this effort,” Modi told Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a virtual summit.

New Delhi, Tokyo, and Canberra launched the initiative to lessen China’s dominance on global trade and supply chains – in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which started in the communist country, as well as the belligerence of Xi Jinping’s regime in Beijing – not only along the disputed Sino-India boundary in eastern Ladakh but also in the South China Sea and the East China Sea as well as Taiwan Strait.

The trade ministers of India, Japan, and Australia had held a virtual meeting on September 1 and decided to launch an initiative to ensure a trustworthy, dependable, and reliable supply chain in Indo-Pacific. They had underscored the necessity and potential to enhance the resiliency of supply chains in the region in the wake of the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 crisis as well as the other recent changes in the economic and technological landscapes around the world. They had also called upon the like-minded countries to join them.

The pandemic following the trade dispute between the United States and China prompted the international community to weigh options for diversifying the global supply chains.

Modi told Frederiksen that the “events of the past several months” had made it clear how important it was to work together for like-minded countries like India and Denmark, which shared “a rules-based, transparent, humanitarian and democratic value-system”.

The two Prime Ministers on Monday agreed to elevate India-Denmark relations to a “Green Strategic Partnership”. They agreed on the need for strong multilateral cooperation to face the urgency to step up global efforts to combat the global challenges on energy and climate change and on a common commitment to the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and the International Solar Alliance, according to a joint statement issued after the virtual summit.