📰 What are India’s expectations from COP26?
“Huge expectations” include arriving at a consensus on unresolved issues of the Paris Agreement Rule Book, long-term climate finance and market-based mechanisms
•Ahead of the 26th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) next month in Glasgow, there have been several bilateral meetings between India and other countries including the U.S. and the European Union. The big push at the COP will be to have more countries commit to a “net zero” deadline by mid-century. This would mean ensuring that a country’s emissions are balanced out by absorbing an equivalent amount either by carbon sinks (such as forests) or carbon capture and storage technologies. India, the world’s third largest emitter, hasn’t agreed to a net zero deadline.
Why hasn't India agreed to a net zero target?
•India sees a mid-century target upon itself as opposed to the principle of “common but differentiated” responsibility that allows countries to eschew fossil fuel without compromising equitable development. Net zero means that a country must commit to a year beyond which its emissions won’t peak and a point at which it will balance out its emissions by taking out an equivalent amount of greenhouse gas from the air. Even theoretically committing to a net zero by 2050 would require India to retire its coal plants and fossil fuel use overnight and even this wouldn’t guarantee that temperature-rise stays below 1.5C by the end of the century. On the other hand, India avers, most of the countries clamouring for a net zero target for India will continue — even with their national stated reduction targets — to pollute on a per capita basis way beyond their fair share. India says countries responsible for the climate crisis haven’t made good on previous promises to fund mitigation and adaptation projects and so future net zero promises are therefore hollow.
What are India's expectations from COP 26?
•Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, following a meeting last week with U.K. Foreign Minister Elizabeth Truss said the upcoming COP should be “.. the COP of action and implementation”. He said the “huge expectations” in COP 26 include arriving at a consensus on unresolved issues of the Paris Agreement Rule Book, long-term climate finance, market-based mechanisms. The COP26 should also be initiating the process of setting the long-term climate finance for the post-2025 period. India welcomed the UK COP26 Presidency’s five key initiatives on sustainable land use, energy transition, low emission vehicle transition, climate finance and adaptation. India was also hoping to strengthen global climate initiatives including the International Solar Alliance, Coalition Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT Group), Call for Action on Adaptation and Resilience and Mission Innovation.
What are India's core demands?
•India has said it is “open to all options” provided it gets assurances that commitments in previous COPs such as developing countries getting compensated to the tune of $100 billion annually, the carbon-credit markets be reinvigorated and the countries historically responsible for the climate crisis be compensated by way of “Loss and Damages,” and clean development technologies be made available in ways that its industries can painlessly adapt to.
What do independent experts have to say about India's approach to COP26?
•Analyst Vaibhav Chaturvedi of the Council for Energy Environment and Water opines that India needs to focus on three points for success at COP. First, if India should introduce equity in the net zero targets or at least present it as a proposal for discussion. India needs to go beyond the $100-billion demand and focus on tangible deliverables. For the power, mobility and hydrogen sectors, India may only need $12-15 billion per annum which should be given at 4% interest rate subvention. And lastly, India should focus on the development of technology, how to reduce the cost of technology for mitigation and co-development of technology. There should also be progress on Article 6 (that deals with the carbon trading markets).
•Dhruba Purkayastha, Director, Climate Policy Initiative, said there has to be a mechanism by which CO2 is extracted. The world needs to set the price of carbon and it should not be a bilateral discussion point. Private market would put in money only if backed by public money. Only $800 billion finance flows from the trillions of dollars which are talked about is highly inadequate. “If India is pushed to shut down a coal capacity there is a cost to it. Financial and social costs to it which cannot be solved not just with finance but price of carbon has to be linked with it.”
The Government’s objection to the methodology of the Global Hunger Index is not based on facts
•The Global Hunger Report (GHR) has once again made headlines in India for the country’s poor ranking in terms of the Global Hunger Index (GHI). The report ranks India at 101 out of 116 countries, with the country falling in the category of having a ‘serious’ hunger situation. The ranks are not comparable across years because of various methodological issues and so it is wrong to say that India’s standing has fallen from 94 (out of 107) in 2020. However, it is true that year after year, India ranks at the lower end — below a number of other countries that are poorer in terms of per capita incomes. This in itself is cause for concern.
The indicators
•The Government of India, through a press release, refuted the GHI, claiming that it is ‘devoid of ground reality’ and based on ‘unscientific’ methodology. The GHI is ‘based on four indicators — percentage of undernourished in the population (PoU); percentage of children under five years who suffer from wasting (low weight-for-height); percentage of children under five years who suffer from stunting (low height-for-age), and percentage of children who die before the age of five (child mortality)’. The first and the last indicators have a weight of one-third each and the two child malnutrition indicators account for one-sixth weightage each in the final GHI, where each indicator is standardised based on thresholds set slightly above the highest country-level values. Looking at each of these indicators separately, India shows a worsening in PoU and childhood wasting in comparison with 2012. It is the PoU figure of 15.3% for 2018-20 that the Government is contesting.
From official data sources
•The Government’s objection to the methodology, that “They have based their assessment on the results of a ‘four question’ opinion poll, which was conducted telephonically by Gallup”, is not based on facts. The report is not based on the Gallup poll; rather, it is on the PoU data that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) puts out regularly (as has also been clarified by the publishing agencies). PoU, according to the FAO, ‘is an estimate of the proportion of the population whose habitual food consumption is insufficient to provide the dietary energy levels that are required to maintain a normal active and healthy life’. PoU is estimated taking into account a number of factors such as food availability, food consumption patterns, income levels and distribution, population structure, etc. All the data used are from official data sources of respective national governments. In the absence of food consumption data in most countries, this indicator is an estimate based on a modelling exercise using available data; therefore, there is some margin of error. Most of the criticism of the FAO’s PoU data has been about how it underestimates hunger rather than over. Therefore, while there is scope for a valid discussion on the GHI methodology and its limitations, this objection by the Government is not warranted.
Slow rate of progress
•The main message that the GHR gives is to once again remind us that India has not been very successful in tackling the issue of hunger and that the rate of progress is very slow. Comparable values of the index have been given in the report for four years, i.e., 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2021. While the GHI improved from 37.4 to 28.8 during 2006-12, the improvement is only from 28.8 to 27.5 between 2012-21. The PoU data show that the proportion of undernourished population showed a declining trend up to 2016-18 when it reached the lowest level of 13.8%, after which there is an increase to 14% for 2017-19 and 15.3% for 2018-20. Other data also broadly validate these findings. The partial results of the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-20) also show that stunting and wasting indicators have stagnated or declined for most States for which data is available. The leaked report of the consumption expenditure survey (2017-18) also showed that rural consumption had fallen between 2012-18 and urban consumption showed a very slight increase.
A period before the pandemic
•It must also be remembered that all the data are for the period before the COVID-19 pandemic. There were many indications based on nationally representative data — such as from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and various field surveys conducted by research organisations, academics and civil society groups — that the situation of food insecurity at the end of the year 2020 was concerning, and things are most likely to have become worse after the second wave. Many of these surveys find that over 60% of the respondents say that they are eating less than before the national lockdown in 2020. Services such as the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and school mid-day meals continue to be disrupted in most areas, denying crores of children the one nutritious meal a day they earlier had access to. It would, therefore, not be surprising if national surveys (hopefully conducted soon) show a further slowdown in improvement in malnutrition.
•The novel coronavirus pandemic has affected food security and nutrition across the world. In countries such as India — where the situation was also already poor to begin with — the impact is probably worse. The response cannot be one of denial; rather, what is needed are measures to ensure rapid recovery. It has been pointed out by many that the relief measures of the Government, so far, have been inadequate in comparison to the scale of the problem.
Cuts for schemes
•The only substantial measure has been the provision of additional free foodgrains through the Public Distribution System (PDS), and even this has been lacking. It leaves out about 40% of the population, many of whom are in need and includes only cereals. Also, as of now, it ends in November 2021. At the same time, inflation in other foods, especially edible oils, has also been very high affecting people’s ability to afford healthy diets. On the one hand, while we need additional investments and greater priority for food, nutrition and social protection schemes, Budget 2021 saw cuts in real terms for schemes such as the ICDS and the mid-day meal.
•The argument that the GHI is an indicator of undernutrition and not hunger, is only diverting attention away from more substantial issues. Of course, malnutrition is affected by a number of factors (such as health, sanitation, etc.) other than food consumption alone, but that in no way means that healthy diets are not central. There is no denying that diverse nutritious diets for all Indians still remain a distant dream.
📰 The Perils of an Unresolved Boundary
Nirupama Rao looks at the India-China relationship of the 1950s-60s, the border issue, and negotiations on Tibet
•The India-China relationship is in a difficult place, with the past shadowing the present. The period from 1949 to 1962 is crucial as Jawaharlal Nehru sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to establish a workable relationship with the Chinese. Nirupama Rao, former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to China, traces the history of Tibet, the genesis of the McMahon Line, Communist China’s military takeover and domination of Tibet, and the border row between India and China in her new book, The Fractured Himalaya. An excerpt from the book:
•It was to be over a year before negotiations between India and China on relations between India and Tibet opened in Beijing. These commenced on December 31, 1953. Jawaharlal Nehru’s approach to frontier questions between India and China was already well-entrenched by then. Tibet had become more a ‘psychological’ buffer from a political one during British rule — psychological because Nehru was convinced that any military attack on India from Tibet was not feasible. For him, while the status of Tibet and Tibetan autonomy, as also Indian interests in Tibet inherited from the British were issues for discussion with China, the frontier, as his biographer S. Gopal noted, ‘was firm, well-known and beyond dispute’.
•Loosely put, Nehru’s attitude was that there was no room for controversy over the McMahon Line: ‘Our maps show that the McMahon Line is our boundary and that is our boundary — map or no map. That fact remains and we stand by that boundary, and we will not allow anybody to come across that boundary.’ Gopal notes that this assertion of rights was more definite regarding the eastern sector of the boundary.
Flawed advice
•The problem lay in the fact that, except for Sikkim, the border had not been demarcated — jointly with China — on the ground; the boundary in the western and middle sectors had not been defined in detail by treaty and only, as Nehru stated, by custom, usage and tradition. The McMahon Line was shown only on a map that the Chinese government had initialled in 1914 but not subsequently accepted. The Chinese would set their strategy in such a way subsequently, when the officials of the two sides met in 1960, to seek ‘fresh acceptance of every stretch’ of the boundary. K.M. Panikkar, without the benefit of hindsight, only had this advice to give Nehru: the issue would pose no difficulty. Could Panikkar [the first Indian Ambassador to China] have sensed the actual Chinese attitude? In retrospect, his advice to Nehru would have serious repercussions for India. As advice, it was fatally flawed.
•Throughout his stay in China, Panikkar took the stand that the Tibetan issue was a simple one. Leaders like Zhou Enlai, in his view, recognised the ‘legitimacy’ of India’s trade and cultural interests in Tibet and only suggested that the political office in Lhasa, ‘an office of dubious legality’ in Panikkar’s words, should be regularised by its transformation into an Indian Consulate-General. Other posts and institutions like the telegraph lines set up in the British era, the military escort at Yadong in the Chumbi Valley, ‘were to be abolished quietly in time’, and the trade agents in Tibet and their subordinate agencies brought ‘within the framework of normal consulate relations’. In his seeming obsession with the big picture of two big Asian nations forging deeper understanding and cooperation, Panikkar was content to say that he left ‘no outstanding issue’ pending at the time of his departure. It was a strategic miscalculation which would have serious consequences.
•When Zhou Enlai told Panikkar in September 1951 in a ‘shrouded sentence’ that the question of the stabilisation of the Tibetan frontier — a matter of common interest to India, Nepal and China — could be settled by discussion between the three countries, it was assumed, in diplomatic guesswork, that stabilisation meant that there was no territorial dispute between India and China.
‘Cunning’ move
•Many records indicate that the view of the officials in the Ministry of External Affairs was that while negotiations for an agreement between India and China on Tibet were necessary, they should also include a border settlement. There should be a quid pro quo for India’s recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. A note by the Foreign Secretary, K.P.S. Menon on April 11, 1952 observed that the Chinese government’s attitude was far from straightforward, and could, in fact, be termed ‘cunning’. A child could see through the game, said Menon. Zhou Enlai had suggested in September 1951 that India’s position in Tibet should be regularised and the ‘boundary with Tibet stabilised’. India had said immediately that ‘we were ready for discussions’ but there had been no response from the Chinese. The latter were saying that ‘they [the Chinese] have been in Tibet only for a short while and want more time to study the problem.’ Menon was suspicious of Chinese irredentism, and a whispering campaign was already doing the rounds in Lhasa that not only Tibet, but Sikkim and Bhutan, and even the Darjeeling-Kalimpong area ‘would soon be liberated.’ This would encourage the Tibetans to lay their hands on Tawang and other disputed areas to the south of the McMahon Line. ‘The Chinese have long memories; irredentism has always played a part in the policy of the Chinese government whether imperial, Guomindang or Communist.’ India was clearly inviting trouble when it was decided that the border issue would not figure in the negotiations on Tibet. Responding positively to the Chinese move for an agreement on Tibet was seen essentially as a means of reducing Chinese pressure on the border, and as ‘helping’ the Tibetans within a larger policy framework of coaxing the Chinese out of their isolation.
Piecemeal solution
•The ‘knight-administrator’ (called thus because of his British knighthood and being a member of the Indian Civil Service) Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai was by now the Governor of Bombay. He continued to be in the picture regarding Tibet. He had noticed that the list of pending issues proposed for discussion with the Chinese did not include the question of the frontier with Tibet. His view, as expressed to the Foreign Secretary, was that ‘This business of Sino-Indian relations over Tibet, would, in my judgement, be best handled comprehensively and not piecemeal’, implying that the question of the border should not be left aside. Perhaps, as a result of Bajpai’s letter, the Prime Minister in a note to the Foreign Secretary on 23 July, expressed his inclination that the frontier should be mentioned in the talks with the Chinese. Panikkar’s reasons for not advancing this subject, be what they may, were appreciated but Nehru felt ‘that our attempt at being clever might overreach itself’ and that it was better to be absolutely straight and frank about the issue with the Chinese.
Nehru’s misgivings
•This was not the first time that Nehru had expressed some misgivings on the issue. In June of the same year, he had in a message to Panikkar said it ‘was odd’ that Zhou Enlai had made no reference to the frontier in his discussions with the Ambassador. He did not like Zhou’s silence in the matter, he added, since the Indian government had made it clear in Parliament that not only the direct frontier with Tibet, but also the frontiers of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim, should remain unchanged. Panikkar’s response was to state that the Chinese were aware of India’s interest in the integrity of Nepal and had not raised any question about it. Neither had they objected to the PM’s public statements on the issue. Panikkar said he did not want to make this a subject for further discussion. India should stick to the position that the frontier had been defined ‘and there is nothing for us to discuss’. It would be legitimate ‘to presume that Chou En Lai’s silence on this point and his NOT having even once alluded to Sikkim or Bhutan at any time even indirectly during our conversation would mean acquiescence in, if NOT acceptance of our position.’ The Prime Minister did not demur further.
📰 A festering crisis in the Palk Strait
A moratorium on bottom trawling and support to the fishermen is a good first step towards a solution
•Rajkiran, 30, from Tamil Nadu’s coastal Pudukkottai district, is the fifth Indian fisherman to lose his life in the Palk Strait this year, after Samson Darwin, A. Mesiya, V. Nagaraj and S. Senthil Kumar from Ramanathapuram, who died in January. The boat that Rajkiran was on, with two others, sank late on October 18 after reportedly colliding with a Sri Lankan Navy patrol vessel. The two other fishermen were remanded in Sri Lanka until November 1, while Rajkiran was reported “missing”, until his body was recovered by the Navy a few days after the incident. Tamil Nadu fishermen’s associations have accused the Sri Lankan Navy of brutally attacking Rajkiran, while Sri Lanka has denied the allegations.
•In both instances this year, what we know is that the fishermen died while trying to earn a living. In both cases, they reportedly crossed the International Maritime Boundary Line, an invisible demarcation between India and Sri Lanka. They were intercepted in Sri Lankan waters by the Sri Lankan Navy for “illegal fishing”, following which some of them returned dead.
•New Delhi conveyed a “strong protest” to Colombo after the death of the four fishermen in January, allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan Navy. But there is no sign of a full inquiry since, let alone a credible one. The distressing incidents are neither peculiar to this year, nor inevitable.
Unresolved conflict
•The fishermen’s deaths serve as a stark reminder of the unresolved fisheries conflict festering in the barely 30-mile-wide (at its narrowest point) Palk Strait. The problem has existed for more than a decade now, from the time Sri Lanka’s 30 year-long civil war ended in 2009. That was when the island’s northern Tamil fishermen, who were displaced and barred access to the sea, began returning to their old homes, with hopes of reviving their livelihoods and resurrecting their lives. Their return, however, marked the beginning of a new tension with Tamil fishermen on the other side of the sea. This has posed a serious threat to their livelihoods, fishing gear, and the marine resources they rely on.
•In Tamil Nadu, daily wage fishermen are only too aware of the risks that come with working on mechanised fishing vessels used for ‘bottom trawling’. Their wage depends on the catch they bring back. Using the bottom trawling fishing method, they drag large fishing nets along the seabed, scooping out a huge quantity of prawns, small fishes and virtually everything else at one go. The practice, deemed destructive the world over, has ensured sizeable profits for their employers — the vessel owners — and a small income for the fishermen taking the highest risk.
•Incessant bottom trawling along the coast of Tamil Nadu over the years has meant that the fishermen are drawn to the relatively resource-rich Sri Lankan waters. This pushes them into a cycle of arrest, remand, release, or in some unfortunate cases, violence or death at sea.
•The Sri Lankan state’s response to the problem has been largely a military and legal one, tasking its Navy with patrolling the seas and arresting “encroachers”, banning trawling, and levying stiff fines on foreign vessels engaged in illegal fishing in its territorial waters. Little support has been extended to war-affected, artisanal fishermen in the Northern Province by way of infrastructure or equipment. Despite accumulating big losses, the fishermen received no assistance even during pandemic-induced lockdown months.
•The hefty penalty on foreign vessels proved a deterrent, at least temporarily. But over the last few months, northern fishermen have sighted Indian trawlers frequently, especially when the Sri Lankan Navy relaxed its patrol, fearing import of COVID-19 infections.
Urgent solution
•India and Sri Lanka have held many rounds of bilateral talks in the last decade between government officials as well as fisher leaders. The outcomes have mostly ranged from deadlocks, with Tamil Nadu refusing to give up bottom trawling, to template responses from the governments, with India seeking a “humanitarian response” from Sri Lanka. The closest that the two countries came to reaching a solution was in November 2016, following a meeting in New Delhi led by the Foreign and Fisheries Ministers from both sides, with other key interlocutors. A Joint Working Group was constituted to first and foremost, expedite “the transition towards ending the practice of bottom trawling at the earliest”.
•The Indian government’s attempt to divert fishermen to deep sea fishing has not taken off as was envisaged, even as profit-hungry boat owners in Tamil Nadu stubbornly defend their trawler trade. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu fishermen continue to allege that the Sri Lankan Navy is unleashing violence on them; Sri Lanka denies this. Five years since, we are at a rather low point in the fisheries conflict, with a rising human cost.
•Meanwhile, this could be the biggest test yet to the solidarity that Tamil Nadu continues to express with Sri Lankan Tamils who bore the brunt of the civil war and still await justice and a political solution.
•By now, it is evident that bottom trawling has maximised not only the profits made by vessel owners in Tamil Nadu, but also the risk faced by poor, daily wage fishermen employed from the coastal districts. The rich owners and those employed by them for a meagre wage ought not to be clumped together simply as “Tamil Nadu fishermen”, without recognising that their interests and risks differ enormously.
•It is equally well known that the relentless trawling by Indian vessels has caused huge losses to northern Sri Lankan fishermen. Their catch has fallen drastically and they count vanishing varieties of fish. They are dejected as their persisting calls to end bottom trawling have not been heeded by their counterparts in Tamil Nadu, or “brothers” as they repeatedly call them.
•For politicians and activists in Tamil Nadu, the death of fishermen is understandably the most outrageous, emotive dimension of this complex problem — especially since no past case has been probed or perpetrator held accountable. All the same, seeing the conflict merely through the prism of Tamil Nadu fishermen and the Sri Lankan Navy may not yield a solution to the problem, although that might keep its most deplorable symptom in focus.
•At the heart of the conflict is a tale of competing livelihoods in a narrow stretch of the sea, amid a looming environmental threat, and a glaring asymmetry of power — be it in numbers, equipment, or political backing — between two Tamil-speaking fishing communities. The growing trust deficit between them does not augur well for the prospect of a solution.
•India and Sri Lanka must urgently refocus their energies to address this crisis. As the first step, Tamil Nadu must consider a moratorium on bottom trawling in the Palk Strait. Such a move must be accompanied by both New Delhi and Colombo substantially supporting their respective fishing communities to cope with the suspension of trawling on the Tamil Nadu side and the devastating impact of the pandemic on both sides. The time must be used for evolving a lasting solution. Strong bilateral ties are not only about shared religious or cultural heritage, but also about sharing resources responsibly, in ways that the lives and livelihoods of our peoples can be protected.
📰 A ‘bubbles of trust’ approach
This offers a middle path between the extremes of technological sovereignty and laissez-faire globalisation
•An asymmetric globalisation favouring China allowed Beijing to attain power. It is now using that power to undermine liberal democratic values around the world. The Chinese market was never open to foreign companies in the way foreign markets are to Chinese firms. This is particularly true in the information and communications technology sector: foreign media, technology and software companies have always been walled out of Chinese markets. Meanwhile, Chinese firms rode on the globalisation bandwagon to secure significant market shares in open economies. President Xi Jinping now formally requires Chinese firms to follow the political agenda of the Chinese Communist Party. But even before this, it was not possible to tell where private ownership ended and the party-state began.
•We are currently witnessing a global retreat from the free movement of goods, services, capital, people and ideas. But this should not be understood as a reaction to globalisation itself, but of its skewed pattern over the past four decades.
Quad’s advantage
•The Quad countries – Japan, India, Australia and the U.S. – have an opportunity to change tack and stop seeing engagement with China through the misleading prism of free trade and globalisation. The roots of every member’s prosperity and power lie in international trade. It will be to their advantage to create a new form of economic cooperation consistent with their geopolitical interests. Indeed, without an economic programme, the Quad’s geopolitical and security agenda stand on tenuous foundations.
•The popular backlash against China – exacerbated by the economic disruption of the pandemic – is pushing Quad governments towards policies of self-reliance. But while reorienting and de-risking global supply chains is one thing, pursuing technological sovereignty is inherently self-defeating. When it comes to critical and emerging technologies, no single country can replicate the combined genius of the world. Worse still, inward-looking policies often acquire a life of their own and contribute to geopolitical marginalisation.
•There is a better way. A convergence of values and geopolitical interests means Quad countries are uniquely placed to envelop their economies inside bubbles of trust, starting with the technology sector. Complementarities in capabilities can power innovation and growth.
•The U.S. is a global leader in intellectual property, Japan in high-value manufacturing, Australia in advanced niches such as quantum computing and cyber security, and India in human capital. This configuration of values, interests and complementary capabilities offers unrivalled opportunities.
•The idea of ‘bubbles of trust’ offers a cautious middle path between the extremes of technological sovereignty and laissez-faire globalisation. Unlike trading blocs, which tend to be insular and exclusive, bubbles tend to expand organically, attracting new partners that share values, interests and economic complementarities. Such expansion will be necessary, as the Quad cannot fulfil its strategic ambitions merely by holding a defensive line against authoritarian power. We need a common approach to counter the hacking of minds, more than the mere hacking of networks and devices.
•The Quad’s Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group, announced in March 2021, is well placed to develop the necessary ‘bubbles of trust’ framework, which could be adopted at the next Quad summit. Such a framework would allow the scope of the cooperation to be limited to information industries – semiconductors, network infrastructure and connectivity, operating systems and platforms, and content – avoiding the long and complex negotiations typical of trade agreements.
•To be successful the Working Group must seek to strengthen geopolitical convergences, increase faith in each member state’s judicial systems, deepen economic ties and boost trust in one another’s citizens.
•There are fundamental differences between authoritarian and liberal-democratic approaches to the information age. But there is no consensus among the latter. The Quad cannot allow differences of approach on privacy, data governance, platform competition and the digital economy to widen.
•This agenda cannot be about substituting China. Each Quad nation imports more from China than from its three partners combined. Rather, the approach would allow Quad countries to manage their dependencies on China while simultaneously developing a new vision for the global economy.
