Diverse world was ‘distorted’ by West: Jaishankar on ‘weaponised’ globalisation

Union external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Monday highlighted the negative side of globalisation while acknowledging its benefits.

He said globalisation has designated currency, trade and tourism as “weapons” and stressed that those in control of the world order established in 1945 are reluctant to create more opportunities.

He pointed out the drawback of globalisation when he emphasised that it has concentrated the economic power in a few regions, making much of the world dependent on them.

“Today, the currency is a weapon, trade is a weapon, tourism is a weapon. They may be dominant as producers, they may be dominant as consumers and often, with very little hesitation, leverage their market shares on the global system for their particular national purpose. We know very well this is a world order that was devised in 1945 when the members of the United Nations were roughly 25% of what they are today This world order continues obstinately because those who are in the driving seat don’t want to create more seats for other people to be at that engine,” EAM Jaishankar said addressing the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos.

The Union minister observed that the world order, which was at its natural diversity, was distorted by Western domination.

“The world was diverse and it was distorted by the period of Western domination and in a post-Colonial world today, restoring that natural diversity is actually a collective objective. Now what are the challenges to that process one, of course, is while many of us attained independence, we have all built our Nations and societies,” he added.

Jaishankar further highlighted the challenges to bring the world to its natural diversity and said those who dominated the world for the last 200 to 300 years continue their dominance with new instruments and techniques using new regimes.

“While globalization has had many positive results. It has also undeniably led to such deep economic concentrations that much of the world today depends on the production of a few geographies,” he said.

The EAM is in Nigeria where he will co-chair the 6th India-Nigeria Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) with his counterpart. He will also inaugurate the 3rd edition of the Nigeria-India Business Council meeting.