Minister Jaishankar bats for “re-globalisation” at B20 Summit

New Delhi: India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Sunday emphasised on the need for “re-globalisation”, as the world recovers from shocks caused by the coronavirus pandemic and conflicts.

Speaking at the B20 Forum on Sunday, Jaishankar said that this new globalisation will rely on distributed production centres and resilient supply chains. India’s top diplomat stated that the earlier iteration of globalisation, which took place over the last four decades, concentrated economic power and production in certain countries.

“For a variety of reasons that range from scale, subsidies, technology, human resources and strategic choices, the Global South was largely reduced to being a consumer rather than a producer. Their contribution, very often, was to provide resources for manufacturing elsewhere,” said Jaishankar.

These countries did not benefit from economic growth and have increasingly been saddled with debt, which has snowballed into a major crisis for developing countries after the shocks caused by the pandemic and the Ukraine war.

Jaishankar’s call for “re-globalisation” involves a vision for a more democratic economic order, with multiple centres of production and not just consumption. This would also reduce volatility and improve resilience in global supply chains.

He also spoke of India's push to assist the Global South in a time of need. From vaccine supplies and development partnerships to capacity building, Jaishankar spoke extensively of India’s support to developing countries. His remarks were in line with New Delhi’s ambitions to project itself as a leader of the developing world. In January this year, India hosted the “Voices of the Global South” Summit.

“Today's India is one where the world simultaneously witnesses experimentation, scaling up, deployment, innovation, and breakthroughs. The models in India not only solved many of India’s problems but also provided replicable models for the rest of the South,” he said during his remarks.