Following the recent standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at the border, there has been a nationwide call for a ban on Chinese products altogether. While that might not be possible in its entirety, a new survey suggests just how much proportion of the Indian population is willing to give up Chinese goods.
A recent survey, conducted by LocalCircles, recorded 32,000 responses from citizens across 235 districts of India. For a particular question ¡°Would you boycott buying Chinese products for next year?¡±, 8000 responses were noted. An overwhelming majority of them were ¡°yes,¡± as 87% of the respondents were ready to stop buying Chinese goods for the next one year.
The respondents were given a clear distinction between boycotting the Chinese-made products immediately or restricting the use of Chinese products to those already bought by them.
Citizens were asked if they would boycott buying/using products & services of Chinese companies including the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, One Plus, Club Factory, Aliexpress, Shein, Tik Tok, WeChat etc. effective immediately.
To this, 58% of those surveyed said ¡®yes, won¡¯t buy from now¡¯, while 39% opted for ¡®yes, won¡¯t buy from now but have to use what I have already purchased¡¯.
So in total, almost all the respondents - 97% - are ready to boycott major Chinese brands for their products and services. The citizens want to instead focus on Indian brands, helping the country be self-reliant under the ¡®Aatmanirbhar Bharat¡¯ mission.
The survey goes further in-depth with the questions on boycotting Chinese goods. It asked if the Chinese goods being imported to the country should be needing Indian standards certification. A majority of the people voted yes to this. While 90% of the people surveyed said that Chinese products should have BIS, CRS, CDSCO, and FSSAI certifications, only 5% discarded the need for such a certification.
In the past, India has brought in trade restrictions with countries like Pakistan post the Pulwama attack. The restrictions included a 200% import duty on goods from Pakistan. The survey asked if a similar import duty should be put on Chinese goods.
The responders were divided on this question. Since India procures a large quantity of both goods and raw materials from China, only 42% of the respondents said 'yes' for the 200% import duty.
36% of the responders said that the import duties should be imposed but not on raw materials. The remaining 20% said no import duty should be imposed at all.