A ‘Bubbles of Trust’ Approach- A Middle Path between the Extremes of Technological Sovereignty and Laissez-faire Globalization

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A ‘Bubbles of Trust’ Approach- Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: International Relations- Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests.

The world is currently witnessing a global retreat from the free movement of goods, services, capital, people and ideas.
However, this should not be understood as a reaction to globalisation itself, but of its skewed pattern over the past four decades.

Asymmetric Globalization: Favoured China and allowed Beijing to attain power.
- The Chinese market was never open to foreign companies in the way foreign markets are to Chinese firms (particularly true in the information and communications technology sector).
Undermining Democratic Values: Chinese firms rode on the globalisation bandwagon to secure significant market shares in open economies.
- Now, China is using its accumulated power to undermine liberal democratic values around the world.
- Chinese firms are now formally required to follow the political agenda of the Chinese Communist Party.

Changing the rules of Engagement: The Quad countries must stop seeing engagement with China through the misleading prism of free trade and globalisation.
- Quad Countries: Japan, India, Australia and the U.S.
New Economic Program: Quad countries should establish a new form of economic cooperation consistent with their geopolitical interests.
- Without an economic program, the Quad’s geopolitical and security agenda stand on tenuous foundations.
Balancing self-reliance with technological cooperation: as reorienting and de-risking global supply chains is one thing, pursuing technological sovereignty is inherently self-defeating.
- In the area of critical and emerging technologies, no single country can replicate the combined genius of the world.
Cooperation in the Technological sector: A convergence of values and geopolitical interests means Quad countries are uniquely placed to envelop their economies inside bubbles of trust, starting with the technology sector.
Complementarities in capabilities can power innovation and growth:
- S.: a global leader in intellectual property.
- Japan: a global leader in high-value manufacturing,
- Australia: a global leader in advanced niches such as quantum computing and cyber security, and
- India: have advantages in human capital.

Creating ‘bubbles of trust’: It offers a cautious middle path between the extremes of technological sovereignty and laissez-faire globalisation.
Advantages of ‘bubbles of trust’:
- Unlike trading blocs, which tend to be insular, bubbles tend to expand organically, attracting new partners that share values, interests and economic complementarities.
- Such expansion will be necessary, as the Quad cannot fulfill its strategic ambitions merely by holding a defensive line against authoritarian power.
Develop ‘bubbles of trust’ framework: Quad’s Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group should develop this, which could be then adopted at the next Quad summit.
- The framework would allow the scope of the cooperation to be limited to information industries avoiding the long and complex negotiations typical of trade agreements.

Quad countries should manage their dependencies on China while simultaneously developing a new vision for the global economy.
Member countries of the Quad cannot afford to allow differences of approach on privacy, data governance and the digital economy to widen.