The Indo-China relations have taken a huge toll. They will never mend, with China's misadventure on June 15 costing the precious lives of 20 bravehearts of the Indian Army. In the wake of the unprecedented border clashes, several commentators have called for a ban on the products of China.

Social media influencers feel that a complete, phased ban on China-manufactured products is the only go. Columnist Rajeev Mantri says, "After the US, India is the country with whom China has the largest trade surplus. $52B in 2017. If this requires citizens to pay higher product prices, so be it. India should trade freely only with friendly allies - which now includes the Five Eyes countries, practically all of Europe as well as Japan, South Korea and many others."

Swarajya editor-in-chief R Jagannathan opined that India can no longer "continue trade with China and gift it a trade surplus". He added, "We have to start blocking Chinese products and trade. We can't gift $50 bn to China every year so that it can continue to nibble our territories."

However, some feel that it is neither practical nor desirable to boycott China. Columnist Rupa Subramanya argued, "The old Soviet mentality lives on in India: hurt Indian consumers and producers who rely on foreign inputs. If there were high-quality Indian made goods competitively priced, you wouldn't need to browbeat or morally blackmail people into buying Indian. As simple as that."

Social media user Devashish Mitra said, "If this kind of a ban leads to India’s impoverishment by reducing real incomes of Indians, then the Chinese would regard their incursions 10 times more successful than they had expected. India is a small part of China’s world market for their products."

In summary, Indians will have to make sacrifices. Yes, goods will become costly. If we go for a phased ban on Chinese products, ramp up our capabilities and start producing quality goods, we will be in a position to teach a lesson to China. A surgical strike on its economy is not ruled out if we have the resolve!