Coronavirus & Global Economic Panic: A Double Whammy From China

With Coronavirus killing so many, the world is realising how much China matters right now. India must take note too.

Yeh Joh India Hai Na: Coronavirus

(Photo: The Quint/Shruti Mathur)

Video Editor: Vishal Kumar & Purnendu Pritam
Video Producer: Rupsha Bhadra

This is the Coronavirus, it is scary with over 5,000 dead and many more expected.

China, Korea, Italy, Iran and several other countries with massive outbreaks. Tom Hanks, Iranian and British ministers all testing positive! No cure available. The world in lockdown. Borders being sealed. Entire countries in quarantine! Airports, stadiums, malls, schools, colleges, cinema halls shut or empty, IPL postponed, Olympics may be scrapped. Panic at a never-before world scale.

But let's rewind to some other recent panic events – 2008 saw a market and financial crash, SARS, MERS, Ebola – these epidemics were health emergencies. What’s unique and new and extra scary about the Coronavirus crisis is this – that perhaps for the first time – your life and your livelihood, the world’s health and the world’s economy is under threat, it’s a DOUBLE WHAMMY and so, panic bhi dugna hai!

China At The Heart Of The Double Whammy

To understand the double whammy, we need to look beyond the Corona crisis and look here – this is the World Economy. Which is in an IDENTICAL state of PANIC! On 12 March, the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange BOTH saw their WORST single-day drop in stock prices in 33 years! On the same day, Indian investors LOST 11.4 lakh crore at the Mumbai Stock Exchange… in one day, the Sensex fell almost 3,000 points... it’s the worst day EVER! Tokyo’s Nikkei, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, Shanghai, Singapore, Frankfurt, Paris – at all these stock exchanges, the same headlines: bad news today, and worse news expected.

But why? Iss Why ka jawaab yahan hai... here... CHINA!!!

China is at the HEART of BOTH the crises, it is at the heart of the Double Whammy the Coronavirus pandemic started in China and it is today ALSO the nerve centre of the World’s economy, which is why, today, when China has the incurable flu, it’s put the world into one giant ICU! Both health-wise and economically!

You could call it a back-handed compliment but this crisis underlines ke Yeh Jo China Hai Na… it really matters today!!

Next To China, India Looks Very Tiny

While on the other hand Yeh Jo India Hai Na, here this little guy... while we too have grown, the fact is that next to China we are tiny. And you know what, we should be fairly embarrassed about this.

And here’s why – just 29 years ago in 1991, India and China had almost the same per capita income on average. An Indian earned 300 dollars a year, a Chinese person earned 333 dollars a year. And in March 2019, what’s the comparison? An average Indian earned 2050 dollars a year but a Chinese person... earned 10,100 dollars a year!! Almost 5 times MORE! And while we talk about becoming a 5 Trillion economy by 2025 we are at 2.9 Trillion TODAY while China today is already a 14.4 Trillion dollar economy!

Why China Matters – Fun Facts

Here are some more – Why China Matters.

1. 28% of ALL goods manufactured in the world are made by China, more than 1/4th OF EVERYTHING made in the world so, naturally, when Coronavirus forces China into lockdown, 1/4th of the world’s goods vanish from shops, markets, warehouses, shipping containers, from everywhere. Factories around the world come to a halt because of the components they need from China, which are not coming.
2. And China doesn’t just produce, it also CONSUMES! In HUGE quantities! So more fun facts – China consumes MORE than half of ALL the cement and steel used in the world. And almost half of ALL the coal in the world.
3. In 2011, 12, 13 – in just 3 years – China used MORE concrete than the United States used in the ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY!! So if China stops buying all this cement, steel, coal and thousands of other goods… THAT again brings thousands of factories around the world to a standstill!

China Matters & India Matters Less

So if China is NOT producing AND China is NOT buying AND you don’t know for HOW LONG China will stay that way AND on top of that, thousands of people are either infected or dying due to the Coronavirus for which there is NO CURE yet, you then REALISE that your wealth and your health is at risk like NEVER BEFORE. Therefore, we have a CRISIS and a level of PANIC that we’ve never seen before – all because CHINA MATTERS.

And Yeh Jo India Hai Na, somewhere, this fact that China matters and India matters LESS should bother us, should make us envious, should make us want to get our act together, should make us want to compete, compete better so that we also start mattering a lot more!

India VS China – Not-So-Fun Facts

To hammer home the point some more, here’s INDIA vs CHINA.

• Super Computers – India has made 3 Super Computers since 2015, China has made 8 in the last 6 months. China has 227 among the world’s top 500 Supercomputers, India has ONE!
• Aamir Khan’s film Dangal earned 540 crore rupees in India, in China Dangal earned 1400 crores!
• Rice Productivity – India produces 2,700 Kgs of Rice per Hectare, China produces 6,700 Kgs of rice per hectare.
• Fastest Train – India’s fastest train runs at 180 kilometres per hour, China’s fastest train runs at 317 kilometres per hour.

Yeh Jo India Hai Na, if it REALLY wants to try and catch up with China to hum sab ko baatein kum aur kaam zyaada karna padega!