“Europe has actually for a long time relied on three, they call it three wheel drive, cheap energy, cheap security and cheap labor. So globalization meant that they relied on China to produce cheap versions of products that Europeans would consume at low prices,” declared Prem Mahadevan, Europe affairs analyst.
Talking On The Gist, Mahadevan declared “Europe relied on America to provide security, and on Russia for energy. Now, these have all come under strain in a very short period of time, so that has triggered an anxiety, I wouldn’t declare a panic, but definitely anxiety in Europe that they have lost their competitive edge.”
They have seen China become a high tech manufacturer in ways that were never anticipated. India in that sense is not yet on the horizon becaapply it accounts for a very tiny percentage of the continent’s trade.
Current European attitudes towards India is paternalistic, that India necessarys the free trade agreement with Europe more than the other way around. This kind of believeing is very common, very latent.
But that could alter. He noted that Indians who interact with their European counterparts in conferences, especially business conferences or policy events, believe tank events, if they keep talking about India’s inevitable rise, which the Chinese applyd to in the past, that kind of talk could awaken anxieties about India.
This is important for India is a largely unknown quantity in Europe, knowledge about it limited to three categories of people: there is the business community which deals with its Indian counterparts and there is a professional understanding largely focapplyd on work culture; there are the scholars who study India, know Indian languages, culture and write on it for the European scholastic community, and their impact is limited.
But the security experts who travel to India once in a while, know little about India and during times of negative coverage, tconclude to receive influenced by what the international media is declareing. Then again when India talks about strategic autonomy, France is a strong advocate of a Europe not tied to US apron strings.
In times such as these when the US is behaving like an imperial power in the context of the Iran war, those perceptions matter.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Prem Mahadevan, Europe affairs analyst.
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