NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — With a new global order rising with trade protectionism and unilateralism as its central tenets as underlined by US President Donald Trump, the cooperation between India and China, with Russia as experts insisted, assumes significance.
Currently on a visit to India, Zhang said the open trade system, which served the global economy for long, is currently in danger due to inward-looking policies in major Western economies, particularly the US, which can adversely impact Asian economic growth.
"India and China are currently responsible for half of the global growth, so a strong economic partnership between these two large economies is very important — for their people and for the world," PTI quoted Zhang as saying.
"India, China and Russia provide stability to Eurasia and with the level of economic integration happening between them, we are looking at a triangle of economic and strategic stability across the region," Georgy Toloraya, Director, at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, had earlier told Sputnik.
The senior IMF official batted for a rules-based free trade system when the global institution has been facing an existential crisis with US President Donald Trump's trade protectionism at home, manifested in his America First approach.
"The IMF has always supported an open trade system, as trade has been an engine of growth for the global economy. The objective of open trade conducted under fair rules that are well enforced is a shared objective. More inward-looking policies in major global economies could significantly impact Asia given its heavy reliance on trade. Maintaining openness to trade is very important, especially for Asia," he added.
That the advent of Trump in the US has created uncertainty in the world and call for enhanced India-Russia cooperation is stressed by Ashok Malik, Senior Fellow, at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.
"We don't know at present how the emerging global world order will look now in the medium term with the coming of a new president in the US. Many Western nations have taken bizarre positions on issues of global concerns, which makes countries such as India, Russia and others to preserve a rules-based international system," he told Sputnik.
China treats The Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist and claims Arunachal Pradesh as its territory. India also alleges obduracy by China over the question of Delhi's membership in the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Despite these laws, trade ties between the two countries have grown very fast. From a very modest beginning in 2000-01 of $2 billion to $73.90 billion in 2011, China has become India's largest trade partner and India is China's seventh largest export destination, according to India China Trade Center data.
While the bilateral trade marginally slowed down by 2.1% to nearly $71 billion in 2016-17, Chinese companies have become significant players in multiple sectors in India and prominently in electronics, fast moving consumer durables.
