PATNA: Bihar BJP chief Sanjay Jaiswal has urged the public to boycott China to save Indian industry amid the COVID-19 outbreak and supported US President Donald Trump's call for an inquiry into the role played by the WHO during the crisis.
Defining COVID as "Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease", the medico-turned-politician and BJP MP from Bettiah said the outbreak had its roots in China's Wuhan and had wreaked havoc on the world.
He said that it was high time to move beyond diplomatic niceties and call a spade a spade declaring that COVID-19 was of Chinese origin. "I fully endorse the US president's call for an independent inquiry into the WHO's role," Dr Jaiswal said.
He said that the government of India has introduced a law making separate permission mandatory to invest in businesses with neighbouring countries. "In my humble opinion, one of the steps could be imposing safeguards and anti-dumping duties on products that can be made in India. Market access to India should not be taken for granted and must be scrutinized on a case by case basis," he said.
Citing figures, Dr Jaiswal said that the trade deficit between India and China is still huge though it has decreased marginally from four lakh eighty thousand crore rupees in 2016 to about four lakh ten thousand crore in 2019.
"China has abused various trade tools of the WTO to capture the global market," he alleged, adding that replacement of made in China items would create a good market for India's own products besides generating employment.
"Though India can proudly claim to be the pharmacy of the world, unlike in the past, India now has a crippling dependency on China for APIs. Today, about 70% of the Indian API market has closed shop due to predatory pricing by Chinese firms," he rued.
"It's time that we amend this imbalance and revive our industries," he said.