Union Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar acknowledged the positive aspects of globalisation on Monday, but he also emphasised its drawbacks. Currency, trade, and tourism have been labelled as “weapons” by globalisation, he claimed, and he emphasised that those in charge of the world order that was put in place in 1945 are unwilling to expand 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 minister of the Union noted that Western dominance has corrupted the naturally diverse world order.
“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 went on to emphasise the difficulties in returning the globe to its natural diversity, pointing out that the people who have ruled the world for the past 200 to 300 years have just used new tools and methods under various regimes to maintain their domination.
Globalisation has yielded numerous benefits. Unquestionably, it has also resulted in such extreme economic concentrations that the output of a small number of regions now powers a large portion of the global economy, he added.
The EAM is currently in Nigeria, where he and his counterpart will co-chair the 6th India-Nigeria Joint Commission Meeting (JCM). In addition, he will open the Nigeria-India Business Council’s third meeting.
