The G20 summit is over but the hard work begins now
trade deal. India’s ambassador in London, Vikram Doraiswami, went public recently to pacify UK’s anti-immigration lobbies (tied umbilically to the Rishi Sunak government) and to re-emphasize nuances in India’s demand for visas, intended to serve as a placatory gesture. Doraiswami’s statement raises concerns whether India is walking back from its stated position on movement of professionals, which is now part of the New Delhi G20 Declaration also, in its eagerness to conclude the trade deal.
India has been dogged in its opposition to the developed world’s barriers on movement of professionals, otherwise known as Mode-4 services exports under the General Agreement on Trade in Services. This might be India’s moment to take advantage of the G20 momentum. The second issue relates to the AU’s admission to the club.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out because it is individual countries, and not the AU, which are members of important global platforms such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO is important because India’s stand at the trade body, despite being frequently aligned with the interests of many African nations, has found few supporters. Often, African support for India was sacrificed at the altar of curious trade deals with the West.
The AU inclusion now provides India with additional bragging rights in the continent. This becomes doubly urgent in the light of China’s incursions in the continent and the sovereign indebtedness it has spawned in pursuit of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Michael Bennon and Francis Fukuyama write in Foreign Affairs that many African countries have been seeking loans from multilateral and bilateral lenders in their quest to wriggle out of the BRI-focused debt
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