NEWS DESK
India’s Ambassador to China Vikram Misri on Friday said that a more sustainable path is required to address current realities in a pandemic hit world. The Ambassador of India, who was among the speakers at an international forum in Beijing drew particular attention to the plight of students who had been hit hard by the controls that the pandemic had brought on. He said, travel restrictions had hurt the student community particularly badly.
Ambassador Misri also expressed his views on various other relevant contemporary issues at the forum which was organized by a prominent Chinese think tank Centre for China and Globalization.
The Ambassador highlighted the current lack of trust and transparency in the international sphere and recalled Foreign Minister S Jaishankar’s observation about how the pandemic had induced narrower definitions of self-interest globally. Calling for greater international cooperation in an environment where countries were concerned about risks to their critical supply chains and worried by their over-dependence in certain areas, the Ambassador advocated the need to stabilize supply chains and make them more resilient by investing in diversification and redundancy.
The Ambassador clarified that the solution was not a turn away from globalization, but in addressing the challenges facing it and taking into account the capacities and capabilities of all actors in a multipolar and shifting environment.
Noting the importance of trust and transparency, the Ambassador said that if all the pandemic ended up doing was to enhance suspicions among countries and damage cooperative habits built up over time, then not only would human lives have been lost, but humanity itself would stand diminished.
Ambassadors from other countries like Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia and Australia also echoed similar sentiments and called for more trust in the global system and reduce the barriers in mobility and global trade.