#
Before you listen to this episode of The Scene in the Unseen, I have a recommendation for
#
Do check out Pullia Baazi, hosted by Saurabh Chandra and Pranay Koteswane, two really good
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Kick-ass podcast in Hindi, it's amazing.
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A few days ago, Xi Jinping met up with Narendra Modi in Mamallapuram, also known as Mahabalipuram,
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in the south of India, displaying both traditional Indian hospitality as well as standard diplomatic
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Modi took Xi around a guided tour of Mamallapuram's famous temples and also gave him an introduction
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to Kathakali and Carnatic music.
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One expects that both leaders would have hit upon a common theme of Indian and Chinese
#
leaders, which is how both India and China have been great ancient civilizations that
#
And yet, these two nations have been intertwined together for much longer than most people
#
realize, around 180 million years ago, in the early to middle Jurassic period, the super
#
continent of Pangaea began to break up.
#
Pangaea itself began to move west, splitting up into multiple fragments and as a result
#
creating new oceans out of the super ocean that surrounded it, Panthalasa.
#
The tectonic plate that contained what is today India, severed itself and sped northeast
#
across what would later become the Pacific and Indian oceans.
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I say sped in a geological sense, of course.
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It took about 115 million years, and about 65 million years ago, this plate containing
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what we now call India, crashed into the Laurasian plate, which contained Eurasia and what later
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Imagine in your mind's eye what happens in a time lapse spanning millennia as these two
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enormous landmasses collide together and the violence of earth, sand and water as their
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edges rise up from the impact high up towards the sky till the landmasses finally slow down.
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Still moving, but a bit more still.
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And these battered grotesque edges, mountain ranges that rise up with the coming together
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of two ancient landmasses, how do we know them today?
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We know them as the Himalayas.
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They lie between India and China.
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That's how old our business is.
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Welcome to the Seen and the Unseen.
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Our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral science.
#
Please welcome your host, Amit Verma.
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Welcome to the Seen and the Unseen.
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Xi Jinping, the president of the People's Republic of China and Narendra Modi, the prime
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minister of India, met recently at Mamalapuram.
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Besides the feel-good courts and the photo op in front of a giant rock that did not turn
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into Mick Jagger, what exactly was at stake for both sides?
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What is the China-India relationship anyway in an age when China is fast becoming a superpower
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if it isn't already one and India aspires to get there?
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What are our common interests and what are the conflicts that we must resolve?
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In fact, to ask a question that many people around the world want to know and which has
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made the title of this episode, what does China want?
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To examine that, I've invited my friend Manoj Kewalramani, who works at the Takshashila
#
Institution in Bangalore and who I regard as our finest China expert.
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Manoj has been on the Seen and the Unseen before in a superb episode about China itself
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and I'll link to that from the show notes.
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He has also shed much insight on another show called the Pragati Podcast hosted by my buddy
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Pawan Srinath and I'll link to those episodes as well as also to relevant episodes of All
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Things Policy, the in-house podcast of the Takshashila Institution.
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Before I begin my conversation with him though, let's take a quick commercial break.
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Hey, I want to thank Intel for supporting the Seen and the Unseen.
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For more details, head on over to Intel.in slash V Pro, that's V-P-R-O, smooth computing,
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Manoj, welcome to the Seen and the Unseen.
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Thank you so much for having me, Amit, and thank you so much, that was a wonderful introduction.
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That image of that giant rock will not leave my head.
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Before we get on to China and India and so on, tell me a little bit more about yourself.
#
Your route to becoming a foreign policy expert is quite interesting.
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I've taken a really strange route.
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I was a journalist for much of my career.
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The first time I visited China was in 2001, but the first time I went there alone was
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in 2005, and it was a really strange experience.
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I knew where I was supposed to go, but I didn't know where the bus was going.
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I didn't know the language, I didn't know anything, and the bus drops me in the middle
#
of the night at about half past three in this small tiny town and this tiny little bus stop,
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and at about 3.30 a.m. in the morning, I have cab drivers coming and asking me where I want
#
Obviously, I didn't understand a word of what they were saying, and my first reaction of
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sitting in that bus stop for the next two hours waiting for somebody to come and pick
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me up was of absolute horror, wondering whether I'm going to become a fisherman lost in some
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But that was my introduction to the country.
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Since then, the love affair has just grown.
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I've gone back repeatedly.
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So as a journalist, I went back to China in about 2011 after having spent about six years
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I was always interested in foreign policy.
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I studied international relations.
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I went to China, I did some freelance work, and then I worked with Chinese state media
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for a few years, which gave me an interesting insight into how the country operates.
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What are the structures?
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What are the processes?
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I mean, there's a real divide between how people think in China about themselves and
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how the world outside views them, and yeah, and that was the way I got into studying China
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and foreign policy broadly.
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And given that you'd already studied international relations, I guess you must already have had
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you know, conceptions of what China was like, what the Chinese were like, what they wanted,
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what their objectives were.
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Did actually spending time, you know, working in that country change your mind and if so
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So yeah, I mean, you know, going into the country, you obviously have this image, particularly
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when you come from India and in India are sort of the the frame that we look at China
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And even at our sort of points of time where we talk about heady cooperation, whether it
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was in the 50s or whether it was in the early 2000s when you were talking about this notion
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of Chindia, there was a sense of yes, euphoria, the ratio is rising, but there was also there's
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also always a sense of suspicion.
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So obviously, as an Indian going there and having studied in the West, you go with the
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deep sense of suspicion, not just from a realist perspective of Indian interests, but also
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from a value based perspective of, you know, being from a liberal democratic country in
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ethos to going to a country which is authoritarian, communist and all of that.
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But when you actually visit the country and live there for a significant amount of time,
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you do realize that authoritarianism comes in shades like a shade card of a paint company.
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You know, there are elements which are deep red and then things start to sort of become
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Criticism is allowed on different things and criticism takes place on different things.
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People are people like they're everywhere.
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They're looking for a better life.
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People are looking for more space to voice their opinion in public and just basically
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express themselves much more.
#
And you see that even in China, it's and you see a diversity of opinion, which often does
#
not get reflected in news coverage of the country.
#
And also what also always happens in news coverage of the country is that we tend to
#
impose our own biases and our own perceptions without having understood why a country is
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What are the sort of historic drivers?
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What are the economic drivers?
#
What are the political drivers of certain action?
#
Everything gets sort of clubbed together in this notion of authoritarianism and therefore
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And therefore that framework defines everything, whereas there is much more push and pull happening
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between society, businesses, government, party, which don't necessarily get reflected in broader
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And it's very interesting, like, you know, you were talking about these nuances and I
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found the two episodes, the two part series you recorded with Pawan for the Prakriti podcast
#
very illuminating where you bust eight myths about China and those myths are all about
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nuance in the sense that most of them are partly true, but not quite.
#
For example, does China own, does the state own all the land?
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Well, yeah, kind of, but they give leases and you know, so there is private property
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in the terms of what is built on those lands.
#
Similarly, you talk about how, you know, the media is fettered to the extent that they
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will not directly, you know, criticize a premier or whatever, but they will talk about the
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policy and within that marketplace that exists, you know, they will try to carve out niches
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with the presentation of the news.
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So you know, that it was kind of eye opening to me and you're right that, you know, many
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Indians sort of think of China as this whole monolithic beast and it isn't quite that.
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Yeah, it isn't quite that.
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And I mean, I think there is justified reason for, in many ways, the Chinese media and the
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Chinese messaging is to blame for this.
#
They would like to emphasize that, you know, that there is a strong central command over
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things and on many things that is strong central control.
#
But this messaging that they also tend to deliver and it varies from time to time.
#
So if you look at the early 2000s to the till Xi Jinping comes to power, there is a sense
#
that the Chinese themselves are delivering this message to you that there is greater
#
diversity here and there's much more happening here.
#
But once Xi Jinping comes to power, things begin to consolidate and the messaging also
#
changes because you want to message to the outside world of a strong leader, because
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you also want to bring political legitimacy for his control within the country.
#
So there are multiple reasons why this messaging goes out and therefore there is a strand of
#
truth that yes, the central government controls a lot of things, the central leadership and
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the party across the board from center to provinces to villages has a significant role
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to play and has an increasing role to play under Xi Jinping.
#
But the fact that there is societal pushback is missed quite frequently.
#
And one of the sort of classic cases of this is legislation on domestic violence.
#
Recently, there's been lots of controversy in China about a domestic violence bill, which
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And the bill creates more room for women to sort of file for divorce on grounds of domestic
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violence, yet often the judiciary is conflicted between protecting women's rights and following
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the parties dictate that family issues are also a matter of broader social harmony.
#
So therefore you see judges giving these misguided judgments where sometimes you will acknowledge
#
that there is violence, but not grant divorce because it might impact the broader social
#
fabric, which is absurd.
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But there is still pushback against this and people end up winning cases once sort of the
#
narrative begins and this one particular case in Sichuan, which was recently reported, the
#
lady ends up going in appealing this verdict of not granting her divorce and there is a
#
bit of a public narrative that builds around this and eventually the courts have to grant
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So this is a sort of pull between state policy, party desires to individuals pushing back
#
I guess, you know, what I often say about India that we sort of inhabit different centuries
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at once, 19th, 20th and 21st is in a sense true of China as well and you know, the kind
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of these tussles around modernity that you mentioned in the judicial case is something
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that you see in India as well, where you will have judges telling rape victims, why don't
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you marry your rapist and things like that.
#
So I guess that's one thing that's common to both countries.
#
You know, one interesting difference between India and China, which we discussed in our
#
last episode as well, is that in India, the idea of India or the battling ideas of India
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are all relatively recent.
#
I mean, we were basically many nations started coming together perhaps because of the East
#
India Company and the British Empire and you know, now we are what we are and you know,
#
because memories are so short, there seems to be the sense of permanence about it.
#
But the ideas of India are relatively recent.
#
The idea of China on the other hand, stretches back centuries and you know, you'd use this
#
phrase Tianxia to describe it, you know, all under the heaven.
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The idea of China is a middle kingdom with the rest of the world revolving around it.
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Tell me a little bit about that and how that idea has found expression through the ages.
#
So this notion of Tianxia sort of goes back a couple of thousand years actually.
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So if you look at China, one of the things that at least even the current government
#
in China and the Communist Party sort of tries to project is of the sense of a continuous
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civilization and that allows you to trace yourself back to about a couple of thousand
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So about say 1500 BC or do you have a dynasty called the Shang dynasty and the Shang dynasty
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has sort of, it's the territory they control is nowhere close to what modern day China
#
It's a very small chunk of territory, but that's seen as the dynasty and that begins
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with controlling a lot of narrative and the Shangs believe in a certain deity, which is
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the supernatural entity, which is bestowing the emperor with certain authority.
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The Shang dynasty goes and you have the next dynasty come into place, which is the Zhou
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and the Zhou essentially believe in something called the heavens and they believe that,
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well, it's not necessarily an individual deity type of sort of personification of God.
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It's the heavens are a system and an order and the word for heaven or sky in Mandarin
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is Tian and the idea is that, well, it's everything is under the set of heavens and there is an
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order that has to be maintained and the emperor and the dynasty is maintaining that order
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as some sort of an agent of heavens and the heaven has given a mandate to the emperor
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Fast forward, this dynasty also collapses as a brutal sort of period of wars between
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different fiefdoms, which is called the warring states period and then you have finally the
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Qin dynasty, which unifies this, you know, the entire these sort of warring states and
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then this idea of, well, we need a deity, but we also need an orderly system and it
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sort of usurps both these ideas and it creates this notion of everything under the heaven
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and the emperor being the son of heaven and therefore you get Tianxia, which essentially
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means everything under the heaven and the emperor becomes the son of heaven.
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Now in this sort of a world view over the years, over the centuries, the world starts
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to get structured largely ethnically, but also based on territory in terms of, you know,
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the central realm and then you think of, imagine concentric circles around one central circle
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and what you will see is that the inner realm is the realm of the emperor.
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The rest of it all is of course under the heavens and the emperor's grace and the emperor's
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rule radiates from the center outward, but as you go outward, you find the inner subjects
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and then you find outer subjects and then you find people at the furthest realms of
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the concentric circle, sort of the furthest concentric circle, which is the barbarians
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and the emperor's job is essentially to sort of expand his realm and to be able to bring
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civilization to these different realms, whereas the barbarians, well, you can, you might not
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be able to civilize them, that's up for debate, but that's essentially the sinocentric world
#
view where China becomes the center and therefore the phrase the middle kingdom again, which
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has much more to its origin.
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It was related to that second dynasty that I mentioned, the Zhou dynasty, which was in
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the center of these multiple warring states, but essentially the idea that at the center
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of it all is China today and the world sort of is around it and the realm of the emperor
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is sort of, the grace of the emperor is expanding to these different realms and at the outermost
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edge of the barbarians who you potentially can't civilize, but they aren't necessarily
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And that's this notion of Tianshiya where you create a set of tributary states whom
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you sort of associate with other inner subjects, which are your subjects that are outer subjects
#
and then there are tributary states and then there are barbarians and the tributary states
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are countries that you sort of subjugate in some sort of a relationship where their leaders
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can kowtow before you and acknowledge your superiority and your authority.
#
That does not mean that you annex territory.
#
Over the centuries, the relationship with the Chinese dynasties and their tributary
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states has not necessarily been about annexing territory.
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It's basically about acknowledging the civilizational superiority of China, which meant sometimes
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adopting the calendar, adopting the language, adopting the script, adopting certain cultural
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It meant preferable trading relationships.
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It meant that you would get access to the Chinese market.
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In return, obviously you come in kowtow, which is a long ceremonial process where you basically
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come and kneel before the emperor and acknowledge his superiority over you.
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And you can see reflections of somewhere reflections of this in modern Chinese behavior.
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I wouldn't say it's necessarily modern Chinese foreign policy is directly derivative of this,
#
but this is a cultural strand which continues within the broader DNA.
#
And you can see that today when Xi Jinping greets foreign leaders who visit China, there's
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a long red carpet, he stands at the edge of it as the emperor greeting somebody who's
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Usually when the person who's sitting next to him is turned towards him in the photograph,
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usually a reportage of it will talk to you about how a visiting dignitary came and told
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Xi Jinping about how great his reform process has been, how wonderful China's development
#
is and how much they can gain from China's development by partnering with China.
#
And all of that sort of tells you a little bit about this mentality of the Middle Kingdom
#
and the emperor and the son of heaven, who's this benevolent ruler, who's scholarly, benevolent,
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powerful and therefore commands respect.
#
And you know, the Qing dynasty of course fell in 1911 and in 1949, the Communist Party finally
#
takes over and Mao takes charge.
#
But you know, the period between 1839 and 1949 is also referred to sometimes as a period
#
of China's national humiliation, quote unquote.
#
And as John Gower writes in Protracted Contest, one of the books you recommended on the Indian
#
India China relationship, quote, as constructed by modern Chinese nationalism during the period
#
between 1839 and 1949, China was bullied, oppressed and exploited by foreign imperialism.
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One dimension of this humiliation was a seizure of Chinese territory by aggressive imperialist
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And these terrorists, of course, include places where there were ethnic Chinese, like which
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is a Han people like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, but also those populated by non Han people
#
like Vietnam, Mongolia and Korea.
#
So when Mao comes to power in 1949 and this more than a century of humiliation, as it
#
were, has ended, what is the sort of response to the world that emerges from there?
#
So there is, I'm just going to sort of trace back a little bit and talk about the century
#
of humiliation, because it's an interesting sort of trope which continues to play a role
#
even in today, present day Chinese foreign policy, right?
#
I mean, one of the things that the Chinese side has been talking about in its negotiations
#
with the US in terms of this trade deal is that we will not sign up to unequal treaties.
#
And this unequal treaty sort of conception goes back to the opium wars, where the first
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opium war, the Qing dynasty lost and that launched the century of humiliation.
#
Essentially the idea was this, that the strong Qing state had begun to collapse and foreigners
#
had come to take a stake in it.
#
There was a lot of gunboat diplomacy, which led to say Britain signing this lease for
#
a hundred years with Hong Kong, manacing more territory and all of this was done for trading
#
purposes and trading rights.
#
And the Empress, the Qing Empress starts to concede trading rights, not just to Britain,
#
but to many other European powers.
#
Germany eventually occupies a large part of Shandong province.
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And there's a lot of this that happens, that China's coast begins to be forcefully opened
#
up and the Qing Empress sort of have very little control over this.
#
And there's this sort of number of reasons, I mean, historically, if you look at the literature
#
in China, what they will tell you is that it was our folly.
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We were weak and we were weak because we were stuck to certain dogma and certain processes
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of the past without looking to modernize.
#
So in that period of following the first opium war, actually even before the first opium
#
war, but following that more so, there's this movement called the self-strengthening movement.
#
And that's a bunch of people who are learned, who have some of whom have attempted the civil
#
services exam, but failed it because the exam is so driven by rote learning and understanding
#
of the classics, but not about say modern systems, like what's a modern financial system,
#
like how do you develop new trading links?
#
How do you do modern banking?
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What sort of technology do you need or how do you invest in modern weaponry?
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But it's actually looking at sort of Confucian classics, which you need to memorize, which
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have been standardized for decades and decades and centuries before.
#
So the relevance of that is in question.
#
And these guys are essentially saying, look, we need to change.
#
And in many ways, we need to learn from the West because if we have to survive in a world
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which is changing, and that was a changing world with the industrial revolution, we need
#
to adapt and we need to educate ourselves.
#
And for that, we need to learn from the barbarians who are coming over.
#
And there goes your trope for the Tianshiya concept.
#
And that movement sort of builds, but it doesn't really achieve critical mass because there
#
are so many internal pushes and pulls.
#
And the fact that the Europeans are sort of way ahead of the Qing in terms of just their
#
material capacity and also the political will to go and extract rewards from the Chinese
#
empire by force, that the Qing dynasty sort of starts to begin to unravel.
#
Once it unravels, China goes through this massive period of turmoil where initially
#
there is warlordism, there's a weak central government.
#
All of this sort of culminates into this sort of 1919 movement called the New Culture Movement
#
or what is today known as the May 4th Movement.
#
On May 4th, 1919, after the First World War, you end up seeing a massive protest in Beijing
#
and many other cities, but in Beijing predominantly.
#
And this protest is about the Treaty of Versailles, the fact that the Germans had been defeated.
#
The Chinese felt that this would mean that their territory held by the Germans would
#
be given back to the Chinese government.
#
But that territory stayed off to the Japanese and that angers a lot of people.
#
This is search for a new system to hold China together, a new philosophy, a new idea.
#
So you're searching for this idea of China.
#
And in that, there are some people who are going to modern day nationalism, sort of driven
#
by European nationalism.
#
There are some people who are going back to the classics and saying, we need to go back
#
And then there are others who are looking at new ideas like communism.
#
And therefore you have the Communist Party from 1921.
#
Again, the next 30, 35 years are a period of turmoil with the Japanese invasions, civil
#
war between the Communist Party and the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek.
#
And eventually you come to 1949, which is after the World War and after Japan has been
#
defeated and Japan sort of starts to recede from, so give up control of the territories
#
of China that they had control.
#
You end up with Mao Zedong taking charge and Mao Zedong takes charge as sort of Chiang
#
Kai-shek flees because after 1945, after the Second World War ended, there was another
#
period of three, four years of conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists, which
#
the Communists eventually win and Chiang Kai-shek flees Taiwan, setting up the Republic of China
#
And when Mao takes charge, he essentially looks at this.
#
He looks at two broad priorities.
#
The predominant thing that we today take away from Maoism is the idea of revolution and
#
people's war and promoting a communist revolution around the world.
#
But he blended that with this notion of China being the middle kingdom and also China being
#
a nationalistic entity.
#
So Mao was very clear that this is a system of states and yes, as much as we would like
#
global revolution, we realized that in this system of international system of states,
#
we need to become a powerful state and therefore he invests in sort of nuclear weapons.
#
He invests in science and technology, invests in the missile program.
#
He undertakes very flawed policies like the Great Leap Forward to sort of industrialize
#
and mechanize China very rapidly and that sort of falls flat on his face by doing that.
#
He also sort of harks back to history, which is like you mentioned Gawa's book.
#
In Gawa's book, he tells you that in 1954, China puts out a map which identifies territories
#
of Chinese interest and that talks about, you know, the sense of nationalistic Chinese
#
It's a nationalist vision as opposed to a world vision for a revolution.
#
Mao Zedong's first speech talks about China standing up.
#
That's a clearly a nationalistic statement.
#
He talks about the century of humiliation.
#
He talks about the classics of the past.
#
So he's very cognizant of China as a civilization, as a state and also as a revolutionary actor
#
and he tries to blend that together by saying that China needs to be the middle kingdom
#
at the heart of this revolution.
#
So that's broadly how Mao Zedong sort of looks at history.
#
And you know, that blending of nationalism with communism, you know, which otherwise
#
typically doesn't take so much recourse to nationalism seems to me also to, you know,
#
in later years, what they say today about socialism with Chinese characteristics.
#
So it almost seems like you cannot really use any other lens to look at China because
#
a key part of how they have constructed what they are lies sort of in their past.
#
So how does sort of foreign policy evolve through the Mao years leading on to Deng?
#
And how does it then change with Deng in the late seventies?
#
I have this framework, right?
#
You know, I teach a course on China and in that I talk about this idea that there are
#
three distinct phases of Chinese foreign policy.
#
I mean, you can divide and people can slice history as they want to.
#
I've sliced it in three distinct phases.
#
The first phase is this revolutionary era, which is characterized by high levels of control,
#
a lot of elite friction also, although Mao is supreme, yet there is a lot of elite friction.
#
And one of the reasons for this elite friction is because there is a focus on mass agitation.
#
Mao believes in people's wars and people's movements and people's revolutions.
#
Growth fluctuates radically.
#
So there are years where you will grow at, you know, 9% or double digit growth also.
#
And then suddenly the next year you might, a year or two later, you might end up with
#
sort of negative growth.
#
And that's problematic because it causes much more chaos.
#
Foreign policy for Mao predominantly was ideological.
#
He saw ideology as not just, like I said, in terms of the revolution, but also in terms
#
If you look at his early years, he was very close to the Soviet Union.
#
And I learned a lot in the Soviet Union, not just in terms of the organizational structures
#
of a Leninist party-state structure, but also in terms of say technology, weapons development,
#
agricultural organization, and those sorts of things.
#
And he sort of followed the Soviet Union to a certain degree until there came a split.
#
And that split had a lot to do with also internal dynamics within China, where Mao felt that
#
his position was being threatened by so-called revisionists who didn't believe in the ideology
#
as he did, and those revisionists were linked to sort of changes in the Soviet Union.
#
And therefore there goes, there's this period of seeing a Soviet split.
#
And during which around the same time, you also see Mao going through, launching the
#
Cultural Revolution domestically, which therefore means that his foreign policy objectives become
#
secondary in many ways, because he's focusing on the Cultural Revolution at home, which
#
is this tremendous violent period with millions and millions dying as student red guards take
#
You're burning books, you're attacking academics, you're attacking elites.
#
Xi Jinping's father, who was a senior party member, was one of the targets of the Cultural
#
Xi Jinping as a student was sent to work in a small village, and he lived in a cave,
#
as the famous story goes, as part of the Cultural Revolution.
#
So his education was sort of truncated at that point of time.
#
So that revolution still holds much sway in China today in terms of the historical memory
#
But that was Mao's foreign policy.
#
He looked at promoting revolution and he looked at China at the heart of that revolution.
#
There was very limited success.
#
Some of his gains were essentially about strengthening China's national power capacity through weapons
#
development, which gave China a seat at the table predominantly.
#
When it came to India, his approach was slightly mixed.
#
At some level, he saw India as potential partner, but also a hegemonic successor to the British
#
He saw the Indian state as being, the Indian leadership at that point of time, being capitalist
#
in their orientation, Nehru particularly.
#
He saw them being Western educated and therefore being driven by those sorts of agendas.
#
He saw them as the mindset of the Indian foreign policy as being one of desiring hegemony over
#
what is South Asia and also territories which the Chinese were interested in, which is places
#
like Sikkim, Bhutan, Tibet.
#
And therefore, there was a sense of friction between these two countries, not just at a
#
level of territorial disputes, but also in the context of where they each saw their ideologies.
#
That source of friction sort of persisted over a period of time.
#
Under Deng Xiaoping, what happened was that China went through such a terrible phase in
#
the Cultural Revolution that once Deng Xiaoping took charge, Mao Zedong died in 76.
#
And for two years, there was still a lot of turmoil with the Gang of Four, essentially
#
successes to Mao, sort of lobbying for power and therefore continuing persecution until
#
there's a pushback from other party elites and the Gang of Four get put in, get tried
#
And Deng Xiaoping emerges as this leader.
#
Deng himself had suffered in the Cultural Revolution.
#
He was himself chastised.
#
And he, once he takes charge, he looks at things pragmatically and he says, look, we
#
are millions and millions and hundreds of millions of people in China in deep poverty.
#
We can't be talking about revolution until we address some of these things.
#
We need to be open to the world abroad.
#
Under Mao, some changes had begun.
#
There was an approach from the US, which had begun.
#
And Deng Xiaoping takes that time to nurture that rapprochement.
#
And the early 80s, he travels to the US.
#
He launches what is a reform and opening up policy which says we're going to reform domestic
#
We're going to stream down the state.
#
We're going to pull back this ideological control a little bit.
#
And the party still remains primary and the rule of the party is at the heart of everything.
#
But we need to change the way we do business in order to achieve economic goals.
#
And so economic diplomacy and economic foreign policy becomes his primary objective.
#
And that's where things sort of start to develop with Deng Xiaoping, where he starts to expand
#
the Chinese economy, try and lift people out of poverty and also hash with the US and the
#
And then the Gorbachev with Deng Xiaoping, China and Soviet Union begin to get some sort
#
of a rapprochement again after their sort of tumultuous 60s and 70s.
#
But then the Soviet Union collapses and the ballgame changes entirely.
#
But for Deng Xiaoping, predominantly, and even for the successes thereafter, the objective
#
of foreign policy was to pursue your interests, ensure that your territorial interests and
#
sovereignty remained intact and you didn't sort of succumb and give some of those away.
#
And you expand growth, ease control while maintaining the central role of the Communist
#
And that's how it's been for the next 30, 35 years until Xi Jinping sort of comes to
#
power, actually a little before Xi Jinping, but say around 2008, 2009.
#
And that's what broadly the foreign policy has been about.
#
It's been about economic development.
#
It's been about economic diplomacy while ensuring that you remain fairly tough on issues that
#
are core to you, say Tibet, say Hong Kong, say even Taiwan.
#
And, you know, one of Deng's slogans, of course, was hide your strength, bide your time, stop
#
quote, which is, you know, almost like a paraphrasing of what Sun Tzu said centuries earlier, which
#
is go to subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.
#
And, you know, just the phrase bide your time is very interesting because it almost seems
#
as if what happened in all the Deng years was that China was building its strength and
#
biding its time true to what he said.
#
And then Xi Jinping onwards, they clearly feel that their time has come.
#
Would that be a correct summation?
#
And how has foreign policy changed since Xi Jinping and how much of it is, for example,
#
due to the powerful personality of the man himself?
#
I mean, a lot of, you know, he centralised a lot of power around himself and clearly
#
had his own vision of the world.
#
How big a part does that play in the thing?
#
So yeah, I mean, Deng Xiaoping's logic of keeping a low profile, I mean, the phrase
#
is tau kuang yang hui, which, like you said, means broadly, roughly, hide your strength
#
and bide your time, keep a low profile while pursuing your interests.
#
Essentially, what he wanted to do was what he could do.
#
China was a large country with a lot of problems and a lot of fundamental problems.
#
And to be, and you couldn't, you didn't have the capacity while you might have had the
#
will to sort of achieve certain broader foreign policy objectives.
#
You didn't have the capacity to do that.
#
And your objective predominantly was growth and development, because if you did not have
#
performance legitimacy over a period of time, it would be very difficult for the party to
#
sustain control over such a large population if it continued to remain that volatile.
#
So that was broadly what it was like.
#
His successor, so for example, Hu Jintao, who was a successor, who was after Jiang Zemin,
#
so Deng Xiaoping's leadership.
#
The next big leader that comes out is Jiang Zemin and subsequently Hu Jintao.
#
Hu Jintao had a policy recognizing that China was rising, right?
#
So his policy was about China's peaceful rise and China's sort of peaceful development.
#
And the idea was signaling to the world that, yes, while we are rising, we are not going
#
to be rising with violence.
#
We are going to be rising peacefully.
#
We are going to be rising by trying to lift all the boats together.
#
And in that process of rise, of course, things will change.
#
I mean, Edward Ludwig, in his book on China, has a really interesting analogy to describe
#
He talks about China being this big elephant in an elevator.
#
And while the elephant is continuing to expand, it might not be threatening, it's squeezing
#
And therefore, it will automatically seem threatening.
#
And that was essentially the sort of dilemma that Hu Jintao was facing.
#
And therefore, this narrative of peaceful rise was framed.
#
Under Xi Jinping, what starts to happen is something very different.
#
And it starts a little bit before that, like I mentioned in the past.
#
So around 2008, 2009, you have financial crisis and the world economy is going through a downturn.
#
The US in particular is struggling.
#
The Chinese are particularly cognizant about this.
#
So in one of the strategic economic dialogues with the Obama administration's officials
#
after the 2008 crisis hits, the Chinese are quoted as saying, look, we're disappointed
#
I mean, what on earth have you done?
#
And they're quite annoyed with the US for the particular failures that they've sort
#
of experienced because they feel this causes economic problems for the Chinese also.
#
And it did cause economic problems because China's economy was predicated on export-led
#
And if your biggest export markets are today going through deep crises, you're never going
#
to be able to sustain that growth.
#
So they had to shift to higher investments and more debt and also launch a bailout package.
#
But at the same time, you saw an opportunity.
#
And the opportunity was in the fact that there is greater space opening up in the international
#
And China today has the capacity and can continue to develop the capacity to exploit that space.
#
So starting from 2008, 2009, you see something start to shift.
#
You see them start to build these sort of start to work towards consolidating their
#
strength in the South China Sea.
#
You see the then Chinese foreign minister go to an ASEAN meeting and say something like,
#
you know, China is a big country and big countries do what we do.
#
And I was telling all these ASEAN states that, look, you're small states, you need to listen
#
And that's a different expression from what their normal diplomatic balance is, which
#
is that all states are equal sovereignty is the norm and those sorts of things.
#
And you start to see this sense changing.
#
You also start to see a sense of nationalism beginning to rise.
#
And you start to see increasingly more assertive actions being taken.
#
All of this comes into this framework of a policy discussion that's going on within China,
#
that we should fundamentally shift from this idea in our minds also from being a developing
#
country, which is still keeping its head low and which is not interfering too much, but
#
actually just taking care of its interests predominantly to now saying that, look, we're
#
a big country and we're a rising power.
#
And while we say that, let's acknowledge that to ourselves.
#
And that would mean a change in the way we behave and a change in the way of what we
#
expect from our behavior.
#
And therefore, this discussion sort of starts to take place.
#
So the shift from Deng Xiaoping's Taoguang Yanghui to a modern logic, which is called
#
a Fanfa Youwei, which essentially means striving for achievement or striving to change your
#
external environment in order to suit your interests, sort of actively doing things to
#
change it as opposed to just reacting to keep your interests in check.
#
And under Xi Jinping, this sort of model starts to take far more prominence because he starts
#
to take actions to change the external environment.
#
One of the first things he does is he comes and he announces this idea that everybody
#
needs to pursue a Chinese dream.
#
And that's a very populist framework, right?
#
You come out and you say that every Chinese has a dream and this nation has a dream and
#
that nation's dream is the China dream.
#
And all of your cumulative dreams come together to create this China dream.
#
So that's the first signs of Xi Jinping being breaking away from traditional robotic black
#
dyed jelled head Chinese leaders who are very morose to somebody who's charismatic, who
#
wants to sort of connect with the people and who also wants to present a picture to the
#
outside world of China being different and changing and becoming far more active.
#
So it's a little bit of Xi Jinping's personality himself.
#
When he was nominated as a successor in 2007, 2008, nobody really saw him as this charismatic
#
He takes power in 2012, 2013, you see him launch this notion of the Chinese dream and
#
that is the first sign of Xi Jinping being a man of the people.
#
He subsequently launches a massive corruption crackdown and that corruption crackdown has
#
a lot of public support because of the preceding years, there's a lot of criticism of corruption
#
People are annoyed with sort of venal communist party leaders who are keeping or sort of maintaining
#
concubines, taking money outside the country, living luxurious lifestyles.
#
There are certain scandals which come out and all this sort of builds this momentum
#
Xi Jinping leverages that and like every other Chinese leader launches a corruption
#
campaign is just that his is far more sharper and the edge is targeted at corruption and
#
also at political opponents.
#
Xi Jinping doesn't have a clear defined political opponent because he's not really part of any
#
of the established factions in Chinese political system.
#
So Xi Jinping is sort of an outsider.
#
He doesn't necessarily have, he's not a member of any of the established factions that dominate
#
the Chinese political system and that's one of the reasons why he was a consensus candidate
#
when he was chosen in 2007, 2008 but when he takes power, he sort of starts to take
#
the knees out of both the factions, both the dominating factions.
#
He also starts to take the knees out of the oil grouping, the bureaucrats who are in the
#
oil industry and he takes sort of hate at some of the seriously prominent figures who
#
have just left their positions of power and that sort of sends a chill down the political
#
system and the bureaucracy and allows him to further consolidate his power.
#
His first five years have been extremely, were extremely critical and the fact that
#
he had, he managed to get things done and consolidate himself in the position that he
#
has that he now has his name in the Chinese constitution and the party's constitution
#
right alongside Mao Zedong because Mao Zedong in the constitution has a thought.
#
It's called Mao Zedong thought and Xi Jinping has a thought.
#
Other leaders have theories.
#
In the Chinese parlance, thought is greater than theory.
#
So Xi Jinping is at par with Mao right now and therefore he's got the freedom to try
#
and pursue a far more expressive and expansive foreign policy and he does that, right?
#
He launches Belt and Road in 2013.
#
He establishes the AIIB, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
#
He strengthens the Shanghai Cooperation Organization grouping.
#
Today, India and Pakistan are parts of that grouping and he starts to express himself
#
far more broadly in the international stage.
#
China now has its own narrative on human rights, China has its own narrative on economic globalization
#
and particularly, which has gotten particularly more prominent after Donald Trump in the U.S.
#
And this is where sort of Xi Jinping's foreign policy is leading.
#
It's about establishing China as a big country, not just from an external viewer's point of
#
view but also internalizing it within the Chinese system that we are a big country and
#
we need to be there for acting like a big country.
#
Now, you know, on the one hand, it might seem as if China's foreign policy is sort of evolving
#
with the state of the country itself that, you know, first it's not really a superpower,
#
you know, through the 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever.
#
So they bide their time as they gradually build.
#
You know, in 96, Jiang talks about the five principles of peaceful coexistence and at
#
that point, they're not really asserting themselves and then as China gets economically
#
more powerful, they sort of assert themselves.
#
I guess that's one way of looking at it.
#
But you know, just thinking aloud, my question to you also is about how big a role domestic
#
political imperatives play in shaping the foreign policy of Xi.
#
For example, just to sort of draw an analogy, if you sort of look at how Indira Gandhi came
#
to power where she was also like a kind of a compromise candidate, you know, the party
#
senior folks thought she'll be easy to control.
#
They called her a gungi guria and then because of the political imperative of having to distinguish
#
herself, she turned sharply left and, you know, carried out a series of economic measures
#
like bank nationalizations, fair, all those labor laws which came up, which basically
#
devastated the country and those were not driven by that bad economics was not driven
#
by a belief in economics in that, that economics per se, but just to distinguish herself politically
#
from her rivals and carve out that niche.
#
Similarly, I wonder how much of the assertive foreign policy under Xi comes from this necessity
#
for him to also carve out that space in China's new modern mythology, like first, of course,
#
he consolidates power using the corruption campaign, gets rid of his rivals and gradually
#
power consolidates more and more under him till now you say, as you say, his name is
#
in the constitution, but does a lot of this assertiveness also have to do with the man
#
himself and the local incentives which are driving his geopolitical moves?
#
Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question, right?
#
And often this gets missed.
#
So when it comes to the man himself, I mean, it's very difficult, obviously, to paint a
#
picture of the man himself, given that the system is so opaque.
#
But from the sense that we get is that Xi Jinping himself sees himself as a man of destiny
#
He has a strong sense of history and he has a strong sense of the need for the party to
#
So if you look at what is now known as Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy, the first point
#
of Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy is the first objective is to uphold the centralized
#
and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China.
#
The second of those is to pursue diplomacy to realize national rejuvenation.
#
Both of those are essentially domestic objectives.
#
You are looking at maintaining economic growth, ensuring expansion of Chinese national power
#
to be able to not just fuel national pride and all of that, but also to improve the lot
#
of the people in the country, but also through that legitimized party rule.
#
So economic growth, economic development is fundamental to what is foreign policy has
#
And one of the biggest drivers of this Belt and Road Initiative, which is essentially
#
now characterizes entire foreign policy because BRI is everything and nothing in many ways,
#
is that you need to be able to find new markets, you need to diversify your markets, you need
#
to be able to shift capacity from China, economic capacity from China to other places while
#
ensuring that you don't necessarily lose jobs.
#
And in that process, you need to also create China as a consumer market because the economy
#
needs to grow through consumption.
#
So therefore the manufacturing also needs to shift somewhere else because you're also
#
dealing with issues of rising wage labor costs and those sorts of things.
#
So all of these objectives are what define BRI.
#
One of the other objectives of BRI is to ensure that China's energy needs are met and its
#
energy sources are diversified because there's a lot of fear over the years, there's been
#
lots of fear about the sea lanes of communication being blockaded in case of conflict.
#
And that as a vulnerability has also led to some thought of, well, we need to develop
#
pipelines and land routes which are better.
#
So a number of domestic objectives, but the primary domestic objective is to ensure that
#
And the argument that Xi Jinping supporters will give you is that the corruption campaign
#
and the rest of it, the political persecution has been a lot about ensuring that the party
#
survives because the party had become so corrupt and venal that it was extremely difficult
#
So you're losing legitimacy among the public and therefore you have to do something like
#
this in order to create that sense of legitimacy.
#
The nationalism that he's further stirred because Xi Jinping talks a lot about the century
#
of humiliation and he talks a lot about Chinese national rejuvenation, which is his predominant
#
It all sort of harks back to this idea that we were once a great power, we've lost our
#
way and we are now finding a way and the only way for us to head in that direction of becoming
#
this massive international power is by the leadership of the Communist Party.
#
And therefore he puts his record in front of you saying that in 70 years of the Communist
#
Party's rule, we've seen a record number of people being lifted out of poverty.
#
We've seen China's national power increase.
#
So a lot of this also, when you're sort of expressing yourself at the international stage
#
is a signal to your domestic constituency that this is what we have achieved, that today
#
we have a say at that table, previously nobody cared, we were a poor country, but today we've
#
grown and we've grown because the party has been unified.
#
So the domestic drivers of his foreign policy are predominantly these.
#
In terms of his own sense of his own history, he brings that into play on occasion when
#
So just in the last year, you had lots of celebrations leading up to the 70th anniversary
#
of the PRC, which was on October 1st.
#
You had lots of museums which were hosting sort of exhibitions.
#
And you could see that Xi Jinping's father was prominently displayed, particularly at
#
the National Museum in Beijing.
#
And his role in leading economic reform in the 1990 was played up because often when
#
we talk about Deng Xiaoping, we forget about some of the other people who came in the picture
#
and who led some of these things.
#
And Xi Jinping's father's work in Southern China was extremely important to kickstarting
#
economic reform in the 1990s after what happened in Tiananmen Square.
#
And that was prominently displayed.
#
This idea of him being a princeling, not necessarily princeling in the context of somebody who
#
comes from a well-off background, but somebody who has deep connections with the party's
#
original aspirations is played out quite frequently because Xi Jinping does this, right?
#
So in the last one year, you've seen him repeatedly talk about an education program across not
#
just society, but also the party about upholding and reaffirming our original aspirations.
#
Remember the original aspiration of the Communist Party.
#
And him going to these old Communist Party foundation sites and paying homage is basically
#
signaling that I am in line with these ancestors, with these guys who came in the past.
#
I am a man of history who understands this.
#
And this is my historic mission that China has stood up.
#
And today under me, it will grow strong.
#
And that's where we can gauge how he sees his place in history, right?
#
And is it fair to say that in the last few years, as China has grown economically and
#
as markets have functioned there within the parameters set for them and people have been
#
empowered within those parameters, is it also fair to say that one, the party has also grown
#
stronger within China and two, that Xi himself has grown stronger within the party?
#
So the bit about the party growing stronger in China is a little bit of a tricky question
#
because in many ways the party's reach has expanded, whether the legitimacy expanded
#
The reach has definitely expanded.
#
So Xi Jinping has made sure that the party now is supreme.
#
I mean, in his speech at the 19th Party Congress, which is a five-yearly meeting of the leadership
#
of the party across the country, one of the things that he said was that party sort of,
#
I'm paraphrasing, but essentially what he said was that the party makes sort of has
#
control over all corners, the north, east, south and west.
#
He emphasizes the primacy of the party over the primacy of the state, which in many ways
#
is sort of a slight bit of a shift from what was happening since Deng Xiaoping's reform
#
Under Deng Xiaoping's reform, you were trying to create a division between the party and
#
state while maintaining certain linkages.
#
The division was a state acts as an executionary authority, which executes things, which does
#
things professionally, whereas the party pursues ideology, some degree of control and those
#
But you wanted to create more professionalism as opposed to more ideologically driven operations.
#
Under Xi Jinping, he started to sort of remove that bit of linkage, that bit of discrimination.
#
He started to create a deeper linkage between the party and the state.
#
So more party organs now take care of more state institutions.
#
Xi Jinping himself sort of commands a number of central leading groups, which end up creating
#
policy which the state then implements.
#
So the state from being a policy actor in many ways has been increasingly reduced to
#
Under Deng Xiaoping's reform, the state had some role to play in policy formation, policy
#
acting, state institutions were doing that.
#
Today, the state is far less important in that sense and the party is far more important.
#
His control in that sense has increased, but not just at the state level.
#
But if you look at, say, private enterprises, under Xi Jinping, there's been a greater
#
focus on establishing party cells in private enterprises.
#
Party cells always existed, but their role was sort of, you know, acting as this sort
#
of licensing authority between a private company and the government and sort of the political
#
If you think of it at a, say, local city level, I'm a private company's CEO, I run a technology
#
business and it's useful for me to have a party cell because it can help me get some
#
sort of political patronage within my local government and that sort of things.
#
But increasingly, there was a role that they were traditionally performing, you know, trying
#
to build certain party building activities and act as a link between the party and enterprises.
#
But increasingly, there has been effort to change the articles of association of companies
#
to make sure that the party cells have far more decision-making role to play in these
#
They guide, provide guidance and direction far more.
#
And that sort of led to some degree of backlash internationally also today.
#
This conversation that we see around Huawei and, you know, Chinese private companies being
#
state actors essentially has to do with this assertion that Xi Jinping has made where the
#
party cells have become far more active in private enterprises.
#
Across society also, yes, you will have party groupings, party meetings, and they've become
#
far more ideological, far more active in that sense.
#
So in that sense, yes, the party has regained far more control.
#
It's become far stronger, far more rejuvenated.
#
But the issue is, can this sense of centralized rejuvenation of the party and reaffirmation
#
of ideology really enthuse your grassroots workers?
#
It's not necessarily the case, right?
#
There's an old saying in China, which is, the heaven is high above and the emperor is
#
And therefore, it tells you, right, that people at grassroots level, at provincial levels,
#
at village levels, at district levels, you realize that, well, yes, okay, you know, he
#
wants me to do some of these things and he's pushing for this.
#
And this is the party's direction and guidance.
#
But I have my interests.
#
So, you know, therefore you get things like data being faked.
#
You get information being misreported.
#
And therefore, if you see, often the central leadership of the party sends a lot of inspection
#
teams around the country.
#
So on things like pollution, on things like business report, business data, on things
#
like whether certain policies of central government have been implemented, you have constantly
#
inspection teams from the central leadership going across the country and conducting inspections.
#
You wouldn't need to do that if everything was functioning so smoothly and everybody
#
was so ideologically and interest wise aligned.
#
And repeatedly, if you look at Xi Jinping's speeches on domestic politics, he is constantly
#
talking about the need for party branches across all levels to follow the bottom line
#
and the unified leadership of the central leadership.
#
The reason that you emphasize it again and again is because it's not happening.
#
And that's a challenge for him.
#
And but that's his objective, right, to expand central control, to ensure that the party
#
becomes stronger than the state, which it has, and also to expand the party's reach
#
beyond its traditional spheres of influence.
#
And on the question of foreign policy, would it be fair to say that while he is more assertive
#
of, you know, China's interests and so on, it is also the case that he sees the world
#
not in a zero-sum way as some geopolitical actors might see it, as for example, the US
#
President Trump certainly seems to see it.
#
But in a more non-zero-sum way that, you know, let's help each other, we can all grow.
#
And as long as, you know, we get what we want, we'll try to help you along the way as well.
#
Is that sort of more of how he sees the world?
#
Yeah, I mean, I think Chinese foreign policy, when you compare him to Donald Trump, of course,
#
he's a saint, he's far more nuanced, but he's far more thoughtful, far more nuanced.
#
And his approach has been far more adaptable in many ways.
#
So if you look at India's relationship with China or China's relationship with Japan over
#
the last six, seven years, there was a steady downward trend until things with the US and
#
China became far more prickly.
#
And then you see China adapt, it's adapting to its neighbors, it's starting to become
#
Its foreign policy rhetoric is constantly about win-win relationships and denying the
#
To me, that's a lot of rhetoric.
#
There is a sense of win-win broadly means, yes, you can win, but I must win more.
#
And that's how it usually functions.
#
And it's very cognizant of the fact that it's a large player.
#
So there is some strand of thought in China, which talks about the fact that, look, as
#
a growing power, we need to also be far more cognizant of the fact that we can't be, you
#
know, only winning all the times, there are times where we need to be a little bit more
#
benevolent in our approach.
#
And there are times where we need to give on some things.
#
But it's really difficult, given the sort of mercantilist sort of culture where you're
#
looking at gaining much more from each transaction.
#
If you look at the belt in the road over the last couple of years, what you will see is
#
that there are two strands of conversation.
#
One is about China strapping people in debt, trapping states in debt in order to then extract
#
strategic or geopolitical advantages, geopolitical concessions.
#
Hamantota is one example that people will keep talking about.
#
The other strand of thought is that, well, you might have given all this debt and the
#
state has to pay you back so much, but what if the state doesn't pay you back and then
#
trials up nationalism to say that, you know, we're not getting, you're not giving back
#
territory, we're not doing this.
#
And given the sort of pushback that some of these things are happening, what is your negotiating
#
capacity with that state?
#
And in many cases, what we've seen, particularly in Africa, is that the Chinese have had to
#
undergo debt restructuring again and again, and they've had to sort of forgive and let
#
go of certain amount of debt.
#
They've had to restructure certain debt.
#
They've had to expand time periods for loan payments while forgiving certain percentages.
#
So the question of what their capacity would be and whether they are looking at singularly
#
I win and you lose, or whether they're looking at partnerships in which they can also gain
#
in the long term is to be sort of seriously thought about.
#
And to my knowledge, to my understanding, the Chinese are looking at it from a long
#
They're looking at, you know, their investments abroad, they're looking at, you know, BRI,
#
they're looking at their competition with the US from a long term perspective.
#
In that, you will be making tactical shifts, you will be making short term adjustments.
#
But you're looking at a long term perspective saying that if we need to establish our sort
#
of presence across this broader Asia Pacific to begin with, and then going forward globally,
#
caution, we need to act with a certain degree of sense.
#
And in that, they've made a lot of mistakes.
#
So Huawei is a particular mistake.
#
The focus on communist party cells in private companies is a particular mistake.
#
And it's a far more aggressive diplomatic attitude.
#
Chinese diplomats have become some of the most brutish individuals in the diplomatic
#
community, whether it was the former DCM in Pakistan, who took to very sort of very limited
#
diplomacy, or the former ambassador to Canada, who in the case of this Huawei CFO, had been
#
particularly harsh, particularly undiplomatic in his language, or others, they've been changed
#
their attitude has changed to becoming far more aggressive, and one thing that they wouldn't
#
see it as zero sum, there are certain places where you see it as zero sum, but the long
#
term vision is that we need to be doing things to expand our presence, our scope of interest
#
and our capacity to deal with challenges around the world.
#
Because our interests are now truly global.
#
And in that, you will see times where they've made serious mistakes.
#
During DOCLAM, they've made serious mistakes with India, but you will also see an adaptability.
#
That's a little mixed record, I'd say.
#
Let's go in for a quick commercial break now.
#
And when we come back from the break, let's talk about the China India relationship in
#
particular, how that has evolved and where we stand today.
#
Welcome to another awesome week on the IVM Podcast Network.
#
If you're not following us on social media, please make sure you do.
#
We're IVM Podcast on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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I also kind of wanted to make a couple of other announcements, right?
#
So first, as I think I mentioned last week, I just want to kind of reiterate, we're going
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to be closing our SoundCloud channel at the end of this month.
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So if this is where you're hearing us, please maybe try and listen to us on something else.
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Maybe the IVM Podcast app, maybe another app.
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We're on all kinds of different platforms.
#
The other thing is a little happier, right?
#
So for the first time ever in Asia, we have a podcasting award for shows made in Asia.
#
And we're very happy to announce that a number of our shows have been nominated.
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Vesa Vesa, Tech Careers in the New, Varta Lab and Chunniwan have all been nominated for
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Please go to the website asianpodcastawards.com and go vote for our shows.
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Come on, make us win, guys.
#
Ansari says this week, check out the episode we did with the cast of The Upstars, the new
#
On the empowering series, Zarina is joined by stand-up comedian Shrija Chaturvedi.
#
On this episode, Shrija talks about her journey as a stand-up comedian, the way she perceives
#
her struggles and what makes her feel the most empowered.
#
You thought Simplified were done with celebrating their 150th episode?
#
But Chuck, Naren and Triket are back with the third part of their 150th episode.
#
Make sure to tune in to see if your questions are featured.
#
On Gaby CD, Farhad and Sunetra talk about the evolution through college life and their
#
experiences that changed them forever.
#
This week on Boundless, Natasha reads the poem calling out all aunties who pressurize
#
us to be a certain way and shares her idea of a charming prince.
#
On Golgappa, host Tripti is joined by actor and contestant on Big Boss Marathi, Neha Shetole.
#
She talks about her experience in the Big Boss house and the politics in it.
#
On Feeding 10 Billion, Ramya and Varun talk to food historian Kurush Dalal.
#
They delve into the history of our food and how it dictates our future.
#
On Agla Station, Adulthood, Ayushi and Ritasha talk about celebrating girlhood on Girl Child
#
Together they talk about the situation of women and girls in the country and how important
#
it is for them to have powerful role models, a sense of freedom and the ability to exercise
#
On The Habit, coach Ashton talks about daydreaming and how one must engineer their imagination.
#
With that, let's get you onto your show.
#
Welcome back to The Scene in the Unseen, I'm chatting with Manoj Kewal Ramani on the question
#
of what does China want and specifically what India-China relations are like.
#
And Manoj, I guess it's only meaningful to talk of India-China relationships from the
#
time that India actually existed.
#
So shall we sort of go back to independence and talk about the contrasting approaches
#
of Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru to foreign policy where Patel was more a practical
#
real politic kind of guy and Nehru was sort of not.
#
Can you sort of elaborate on the differences between the two?
#
Yes, I mean if you look at how India and China both became, you know, how we became the Republic
#
of India and how they became the People's Republic of China, China sort of emerges from
#
a very violent, India also has deep violence, but the violence is different as compared
#
to the Chinese violence.
#
In China, you see that the Communist Party takes charge and it sort of comes to power
#
with the barrel of the gun through a civil war, apart from all the colonialism, there
#
is a civil war which leads to the Communist Party taking charge with a very clear ideology
#
I mean in contrast in India, you do have some sort of a civil war in some senses, but it's
#
little bit different and the violence that you see is based out of partition, you get
#
divided into two countries and but yet when you see the Indian government, it sort of
#
under Jawaharlal Nehru, we see ourselves as an international power and we see ourselves
#
as an international power not just from the point of view of our size and our capacity,
#
but also in the sense of how we got our independence.
#
The idea of the Indian independence movement being an example, a methodology that others
#
can emulate across the world as decolonization begins to happen is something which is sort
#
of deeply ideological for India and we seek to even some ways export that.
#
We sort of talk about this idea that India provides this non-aligned idea eventually,
#
but eventually this is anti-colonialism, anti-imperialistic idea of India which is deeply rooted in our
#
culture and in Gandhi and values and so on and so forth, Ahimsa, Satyagra and whatever.
#
In comparison in China, you see the notion that strength, the gun is extremely, extremely
#
So there's a slight divide in firstly how we approach these things.
#
Secondly, the fact that like I said in the previous bit of our conversation that the
#
Chinese view India with deep suspicion because they view the modern Indian state as a successor
#
of the British rule in the region and therefore they have this sense that this state is firstly
#
of capitalistic origin with leaders who are capitalist in their mindset and leaders who
#
are also keen on expanding a hegemonic presence whether it be by annexing territory, but expanding
#
the kingdom, expanding the British Raj essentially going forward, but the name today is the Republic
#
of India and that's their deep suspicion that they harbor.
#
In contrast, India harbors a mixed sort of approach towards China.
#
So Nehru is realist in many ways, he's a realist.
#
He also sees the fact that there is a state system internationally and the Chinese are
#
along our borders, but he also has this fundamental sense of Asian civilization and Asian solidarity
#
and even before India becomes independence, we hold this Asian relations conference and
#
if you listen to Nehru's speech in that conference, it's sort of a wishy-washy ideologue who's
#
saying things like Hinduchini Bhai Bhai or you know, the Asian civilization is one and
#
He is essentially leveraging that to pitch India as a leader in the region and he's obviously
#
in that speech is recognizing the fact that there is a state system, there are state interests
#
there are different civilizational appeals within the region and there is a sense of
#
conflict also yet there is a broader thing that brings us together.
#
So he's not completely ignorant of the fact that there are strands of conflict and history
#
has told us that Nehru while he believed in certain things, he was also a realist.
#
The distinction between Nehru and Patel comes from the fact that Patel saw the world far
#
So once the PRC once the Chinese sort of army, the People's Liberation Army moves into Tibet
#
was first in 1950, Patel is extremely worried about that.
#
He's extremely concerned about that and because with that he sees a fundamental alteration
#
He sees the buffer of Tibet which was essentially a buffer state going away and he sees the
#
Chinese now at our doorstep and Patel is very suspicious of that because he's a hard-nosed
#
realist who believes that India needs to be pursuing its interests as opposed to looking
#
at cooperation in this sense.
#
You can work with partners but you have certain core interests and security is fundamental
#
to that and that comes a lot with the job that he's done leading soon into independence
#
and after that very sort of integrating states and looking at that and that sort of plays
#
out in his perception of China where he talks about China being a potential threat to India
#
and he sort of warns Nehru in a letter that he says that you know, we've never really
#
faced the Chinese directly on our border.
#
The Himalayas have always been this barrier that have prevented civilizations from clashing
#
and therefore that barrier today seems to go away and this is going to be problematic
#
for us going forward in the future and that's quite a visionary thing to say at that point
#
Nehru believes that there is ways that we can work with the Chinese together and in
#
that he is taken in by some of the ideas of vision solidarity and he's sort of and that's
#
predominantly because he's looking at this outside world and he's looking at India as
#
He sort of ignores the immediate threat that could develop and because you've ignored the
#
understanding of China or the Chinese leadership of India, if you had a deeper sense of what
#
the Chinese actually think about or thought about the Indian administration at that point
#
of time, you'd have probably been far more circumspect in not not cooperating with them,
#
but at least recognizing the fact that there is a distinct threat that they pose because
#
they view you with hostility because they view you fundamentally as problematic the
#
value-based proposition of the Republic of India led by the Congress Party at that point
#
of time was seen as problematic.
#
So I think that's where the sort of essential break happens.
#
In fact you were talking about how China sort of viewed India and it's very interesting
#
in Gaurav's book I came across another excerpt which I'll just read out quote an authoritative
#
classified 1990 Chinese study of the 1962 war traced that conflict to Nehru's assimilation
#
of the British imperialist mentality and strategy.
#
Nehru's core ambition was to establish a greater Indian Empire within the realm of the old
#
British Empire and stretching from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Afghanistan, Burma
#
and Tibet were to be buffers within this imperial framework.
#
The countries around India were to become subservient to Indian power.
#
Indian security strategy under Nehru was premised on achieving this empires stop quote and and
#
this is obviously not true I mean Nehru definitely did not have this imperialist mindset.
#
In fact you know if anything it was the sort of the opposite and in the context of how
#
they obviously viewed him and they viewed India it's sort of ironic that his policy
#
through the 50s after Patel died and that real politics sort of went away has often
#
been you know described as appeasement and and how he's often been blamed for the 1962
#
Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
#
Yeah I mean look at the end of what was happening was that I mean to me yes the Indian government
#
has started realizing what was happening with China and Tibet despite whatever was being
#
said and whatever was being done there were these state visits that were happening with
#
Zhou Enlai and Nehru talking about building a deeper relationship and there was a lot
#
of warmth it was still I don't think Nehru did was completely like I said he wasn't not
#
cognizant that the Chinese pose a threat it was just about the nature of threat and whether
#
you can contain the threat and I think that's where there were a couple of things right
#
Nehru's forward policy leading up to the 1962 war was seen by the Chinese as provocative
#
there was one thing the other thing was that there was a lack of understanding within India
#
about domestic processes in Beijing.
#
Ma Zedong was under tremendous pressure after the failure of the Great Leap Forward which
#
is 57-58 onwards and that pressure had meant that he had been sidelined in the party despite
#
him being the tallest leader and this was an opportunity for him to launch a conflict
#
where the party would sort of rally behind him and he could sort of teach India a lesson
#
and this notion of teaching India a lesson comes from the fact that India is a pretender
#
power in some ways you know it's not a real power it's this conglomeration of states which
#
is pulled together with an imperialistic design and this notion of this imperialistic Nehru
#
or imperialistic Republic of India comes from the fact that you know while we became independent
#
we were also assimilating princely states and some of them we did by force so all this
#
was read by the Chinese as seeing India as imperialist power leading up to the conflict
#
essentially yes there was appeasement I think we could have taken a much tougher position
#
on the Chinese but the question is within the geopolitics of the time what sort of a
#
position could you have taken which would have been tougher you adopted a policy to
#
buttress your borders and that was seen as confrontational the mistake to me was not
#
necessarily the appeasement as what is defined as appeasement the mistake to me in 1962 was
#
in some ways there was a fundamental belief that there would be no conflict because these
#
two countries have a shared history of anti-colonialism which was problematic firstly because you
#
did not recognize the strands of nationalism that and the strands of domestic political
#
turmoil that were developing within China the second mistake was not to actually focus
#
on what I'm preparation and to invest in that and you can take that back to again this broader
#
sense of conflict receding because colonialism is happening things are changing although
#
the world may still be a volatile place and India having to sort of be a beacon of that
#
hope in that sense I think there were a couple of strands which led to that but a lot of
#
it to me leads down to a lack of understanding of Chinese domestic politics and the systems
#
that were underplayed the sort of the pulls and pushes underplayed within the Chinese
#
system itself I don't think it was appeasement which led to the conflict the Chinese had
#
very clear objectives we just didn't understand those objectives because if the Chinese had
#
territorial objectives they predominantly they went they walked back from most of the
#
territory that they conquered they kept some chunks but they essentially walked back from
#
most of it so the objective was essentially like they said later on was to teach India
#
a lesson and that has a lot to do with Chinese perception of India back then and some of
#
those strands of perception continue even till today although lot has changed since
#
then and all of this of course is playing out in the geopolitical context of the Cold
#
War which is also evolving like the way sort of China was forced to look at the world was
#
through this prism of you know the communists versus the imperialists on one side Soviet
#
versus the USA East versus West and so it's a very bipolar kind of view of the world but
#
India isn't exactly fitting into this framework because you know Nehru is trying to be non-aligned
#
and he's trying all of this other stuff and during this time in the 50s in China also
#
cozies up to Pakistan how is all of that evolving and during that period?
#
So what you see at that point of time is that again one of these things which is often not
#
remembered is that in the 1950s China wasn't cozying up to Pakistan China was cozying
#
up to India in fact they were looking at some sort and there was another stand of thought
#
where Pakistan wanted to work with India in order to sort of balance China so there were
#
these multiple different stands of thought up in the air there were lots of different
#
things happening for the Chinese the broad perspective was this right you had just emerged
#
from a brutal period to having a unified state again and some of those things in some of
#
the further territories you needed to still unify a lot of things you need to conquer
#
some lands also you had a partner in the Soviet Union but your partnership with the Soviet
#
Union has started to increasingly become far more shaky from say the mid 50s going on till
#
the Cultural Revolution is launched and that starts to become your primary threat and that
#
threat in more than say the West that becomes your primary threat and in that subsequently
#
you end up developing a partnership with the US with regard to India this is what you see
#
right you see Asia essentially you begin to see Asia as your sphere of influence and you
#
see an active India as problematic in that sense I don't think at that point in time
#
Mao Zedong really had this sense of broader Chinese domination over Asia he was looking
#
at consolidating the state that he'd got he was looking at promoting revolution he was
#
looking at promoting an ideological foreign policy while keeping China intact and in that
#
sort of a sense he starts to do things like supporting revolutionary movements in different
#
parts of the world even in India so post the 1962 war also through the cold war China supports
#
a number of revolutionary Maoist terrorist movements in India secessionist movements
#
in India through small arms through training a lot of it has to do with the northeast of
#
India and they work on this policy with India because the idea is that you can't have two
#
really strong powers dominating Asia Japan is recovering from devastation so you're not
#
really immediately worried about Japan but all this sort of starts to change as the cold
#
war begins to wind down as the 70s and the 80s come into play and China's relationship
#
with the US changes but this relationship with India still continues to remain very
#
very difficult because of this long persisting boundary dispute and the sense of each other's
#
anxiety and the sort of suspicion with each other's broader motives China sees India as
#
somebody who does not want to sue does not want to see any extra regional power playing
#
any role in South Asia particularly the Chinese and India sees China as his block as China's
#
relationship with Pakistan develops as a power that is not just threatening on its
#
own border but is also supporting a rival state which is hell-bent on bleeding India
#
eventually so I think that's where the fundamental battle lens get drawn going forward.
#
I want to therefore take that opportunity to move on to sort of the first flashpoint
#
between India and China which was really Tibet in which you know both the countries had a
#
strategic interest so there's this famous 1956 talk by Mao Tse Tung which is widely
#
quoted in which I'll also quote from where he sort of giving while he's against Han chauvinism
#
Han of course are the majority people of China while he's against Han chauvinism he's giving
#
a rationale here for what appears to be a kind of imperialism where he says quote the
#
national minority areas are extensive and rich in resources while the Han nationality
#
has a large population the national minority areas of riches under the soil that are needed
#
for building socialism the Han nationality must actively assist the national minorities
#
to carry out socialist economic socialist economic and cultural construction and by
#
improving relations between the nationalities mobilize all elements both human and material
#
which are beneficial to socialist construction stop quote where basically he's using you
#
know socialism as a rationale for what basically seems to be imperialism sort of like you you
#
spoke about the middle kingdom with concentric circles going outwards and this probably seems
#
to be the first of the circles and at the same time India has a bit of an interest in
#
Tibet as well because I see it as part of their sphere of cultural influence you know
#
Buddhism was carried to Tibet to begin with by missionaries from India so this is not
#
something that you know the Chinese invasion of Tibet doesn't really go down well and this
#
is an issue that festers for decades can you tell me a little bit about the evolution of
#
you know this this whole issue yeah I mean I think from a so from a Chinese perspective
#
some of the areas of ethnic minorities or the national minorities as they call them
#
have to do with resources have also got to do with frontier security so for example Xinjiang
#
is one area where again you've got resources of gas and energy but you've also got frontier
#
security as one problem with regard to terrorism and so on and so forth but say in the specific
#
context of Tibet again the Chinese state sort of saw Tibet as a part of Qing China it was
#
seen as a part of Qing China and there were periods of time where Tibet was sort of you
#
know in some ways a tributary state and there were periods of time where it was far more
#
dominant than what the Chinese dynasty was so there was there was never really a part
#
of okay this is the empire and Tibet is well integrated into the empire so there were different
#
times in times where there was an ebb and flow in the history of Tibet but there were
#
deep linkages with say the Chinese dynasties and therefore you saw this as a part of broader
#
China and as a part of the modern Chinese state and you wanted to exercise direct control
#
over this once they started doing this in the very early on soon after taking power
#
in 1949 in 1950 when this first sort of conversation began then you start to create some sort of
#
PLA presence in Tibet to try and annex it subsequently in 1959 you crush everything
#
and you take full control of Tibet and you establish communist party rule in full sort
#
of capacity in Tibet and then what that does essentially is that it creates sort of there
#
are two strands of conflict which are created one is with India where this traditional buffer
#
which was sort of an easer which sort of ease the tension and ease the sort of standoff
#
the face off between the two massive states in the region goes away and therefore they
#
are now face to face and that will inherently bring its own frictions the second is that
#
the fleeing of the Dalai Lama to India and India giving him refuge creates long term
#
unsustainable problem between the two states where the Dalai Lama essentially eventually
#
you set up this Tibetan government in exile in India and that becomes a source spot of
#
friction India post the 1962 war with China continues to support the Tibetan movement
#
through covert means and there is enough documentary evidence to suggest that with the help of
#
the US we try to support Tibetan revolution in China and the Chinese don't stick that
#
well they are obviously also doing their own sort of nefarious activities in the east of
#
India but so are we so is the Indian state doing certain things and that's the problem
#
continues till today because these despite India having recognized that Tibet is part
#
of China formally we do recognize that we did that under Jawaharlal Nehru himself yet
#
that led to a conflict and the fleeing of the Dalai Lama was a crucial part of that
#
conflict because it deepened this suspicion that India has designs over Tibet because
#
it would then say that this is part of our cultural influence and while it can be independent
#
yet it becomes sort of a protectorate of India in one way or the other and this suspicion
#
sort of grows deeper right you sort of India signs these treaties with Bhutan eventually
#
we annex Sikkim and Sikkim becomes a part of the Republic of India India has a treaty
#
with Nepal which sort of essentially creates Nepal as this Bhutan and Nepal becomes sort
#
of junior partners to India in many which ways and that is a sort of sense that fuels
#
Chinese anxiety that this is Indian imperialism which wants to enter and which wants to target
#
Tibet particularly because of its deep cultural linkages the fact that they are now hosting
#
the Dalai Lama is a bigger problem for the Chinese and therefore the Chinese see this
#
see Tibet as historically a part of China and therefore it must be integrated and historically
#
while the linkages might have been weak it was a part of China that is a sort of historical
#
narrative that the PRC holds firm to the reality is that there were historical linkages but
#
it was not Tibet was never necessarily a part of the Chinese Empire and I think that's the
#
reason why this continues so far is again this sense that the PRC has struggled to maintain
#
its control over Tibet they have securitized the region heavily they have tried to undermine
#
religion they have tried to undermine language they've lied to undermine the sense of autonomy
#
in many ways to try and promote integration that periodically has led to backlashes the
#
14th Dalai Lama has been extremely popular internationally in his ability to mobilize
#
public opinion and the fact that he stays in India and there is a Tibetan government
#
in exile in India continues to be a sore spot between the two countries because the Chinese
#
then believe then argue that well you're not respecting our core interests and the Indian
#
argument in return is that look he's a refugee who's living in India he's a religious leader
#
it's a religious movement which we can't stop with a democracy politically we recognize
#
that you know we abide by the one China principle so we therefore acknowledge that Tibet is
#
part of China also so we politically we're not really saying anything against that but
#
he's living here as an exile it's part of our policy that he can live here and it's
#
a religious movement so we don't interfere in matters of religion the Chinese obviously
#
don't buy that argument and therefore it continues to be a sore spot and in fact it's going to
#
probably be once again one of the most difficult issues between the two sides given the Dalai
#
Lama's failing health there's going to be issues about succession and there's going
#
to be issues about religion politics colliding with each other and whether you have a new
#
Dalai Lama who is appointed as a successor by the current Dalai Lama whether he's in
#
Indian national whether he's born in India whether he's living in India or whether it's
#
a he or she and whether the Chinese would want to therefore have their own system of
#
succession which they've clearly told India that we will have our own system and you must
#
respect that so therefore it continues to be a massive issue between the two sides maybe
#
it can be like the world boxing championship where you have like five six Dalai Lamas and
#
they can combine belts and all of that you know as an aside you mentioned the 14th Dalai
#
Lama were recording this on Monday the 14th of October and there was a nice Twitter thread
#
which I noticed today morning I don't know if it's from today morning by Amitav Ghosh
#
where he gives this interesting nugget on Nepal where he talks about how in the 18th
#
century when the British Empire was thinking was invited by the Pancham Lama to take Nepal
#
under their wing you know they were voluntarily giving themselves up to the Empire the Britishers
#
decided not to do so because it would piss China off and they wanted to maintain their
#
trade with China which was at that time mainly in opium and tea tea of course came from China
#
though many Indians won't accept this but that is just how it is and that's interesting
#
and you sort of mentioned you know and I want to segue from this into our other territorial
#
disputes and a good way to do that is you know you mentioned how Nehru accepted China's
#
jurisdiction over Tibet and the former Foreign Secretary J N Dixit wrote a book in 1999 where
#
he wrote about this I'll quote from that quote the first occasion when we could have negotiated
#
a realistic deal with China was when Nehru acquiesced with the Chinese resuming their
#
sovereignty and jurisdiction over Tibet we could have told the Chinese that in return
#
for our accepting their resumption of authority over Tibet they should confirm the delineation
#
of the Sino-Indian boundary as inherited by them and us from the British period we could
#
have and should have demanded the quid pro quo of their not questioning the delineated
#
boundary of British times and asked them not to revive any of their tenuous claims on what
#
was Indian territory we did not utilize the opportunity stop quote and this partly again
#
plays through the point of perhaps Nehru not being hard-nosed enough had he had that sort
#
of real politic and practical wisdom of say a Patel he he might have just cut that hard
#
deal but tell me a little bit about I mean from what I understand correct me if I'm wrong
#
we have broadly two ongoing territorial disputes with China one of course is in the northeast
#
Arunachal Pradesh and so on and the other is Aksai Chin and at one point the proposal
#
that they put on the table is that they don't fight over the northeast anymore and they
#
accept the British boundaries by the Macmahon line and all that as long as we give them
#
Aksai Chin and we apparently sort of did not agree to that and then that offer is no longer
#
on the table take me through the complicated history of the territorial disputes that we
#
have with them so yeah like you rightly identified there are so across our eastern boundaries
#
starting from the top in the northeast so we've got from say from Aksai Chin and not
#
just Aksai Chin which is a part of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir which the Chinese
#
control but also there's a certain part which the Pakistanis ceded to China the suction
#
valley which is with the Chinese and that's being controlled by them so that's the dispute
#
around the northern part of India then we come to the middle sector around you know
#
the boundary around Nepal and that area again we have territorial disputes over there with
#
the Chinese on certain plots of land but those are sort of much better managed and less strategically
#
significant in many ways and then we come down to the northeast where we've got you
#
know Arunachal Pradesh and the Macmahon line which is the matter of dispute interestingly
#
early on Chinese didn't necessarily have a big issue with Arunachal Pradesh they didn't
#
really raise that as a major dispute in fact in the early negotiations there was lots of
#
back and forth about sharing maps understanding each other's areas of dispute and understanding
#
each other's claims India in the 1950s published a map which outlined certain claims the Chinese
#
didn't take kindly to that map because they felt that it was excessive in terms of what
#
they were claiming as Indian territory and you need to think of maps in the context of
#
they're not just sort of empty pictures they create imaginations of territory they create
#
imaginations among the public and therefore then to negotiate something away it can become
#
very very complex and the Chinese were sort of annoyed with that and even but they never
#
sought to provide clarity on their key claims very often this idea of what you spoke about
#
a package proposal so after the 1962 war in the 1950s there was some conversation about
#
sharing maps sharing details and about settling our boundary issues which obviously didn't
#
work out very well eventually from 1962 onwards this conversation stopped and there was some
#
stress at the border while each side didn't want to raise the pitch and one of the last
#
sort of conflicts that happened where a shot was fired was 1967 but since then the border
#
has been maintained peaceful because both sides had other interests the Chinese looked
#
internally we looked at other interests externally and internally post the late 60s and 70s and
#
therefore the border has by and large remained calm but in terms of settling this dispute
#
so first real movement comes towards this package proposal that you're talking about
#
the first substantial conversation on this that comes out is in the 80s when Deng Xiaoping
#
actually offers this package proposal that you're talking about that you know in the
#
northeast we sort of gave up what we are claiming whereas you gave us Akshay Chin and we just
#
let things end and in the middle sector whatever little bit adjustments need to be made we
#
can make but we can let this end and this is to do a lot with Deng Xiaoping's approach
#
of you know economic diplomacy you want to sort of end political problems and you want
#
to start looking at economic diplomacy once India sort of says no to this and there is
#
a reason why India says no to this because India's approach to the boundary dispute has
#
been more process driven it's been more legalistic and process driven and that's quite interesting
#
because our ability to gather historical archival documents and to present them as matters of
#
our claims is extremely poor compared to what the Chinese have done the Chinese have over
#
the years done far greater archival management far better archival management and therefore
#
often you will see Chinese diplomats and Chinese foreign ministry spokespeople and even politicians
#
quoting from archives far more frequently quoting documents quoting accords far more
#
frequently and accords going back to far far many more centuries behind and data going
#
back to many more centuries behind in contrast our ability to be able to do that is very
#
very limited because we don't necessarily our sort of historical records divisions are
#
very very poorly managed also we need to be declassifying some of our archives that people
#
can actually do better work on them but that's another story in terms of the boundary dispute
#
what starts to happen is that things essentially get ossified in 87 88 we had another sort
#
of confrontation in Sundaram Chu which is famous now because after that confrontation
#
Rajiv Gandhi visits Beijing and that's when you start this new period of the Indochina
#
relationship where both sides essentially say formally that our objective is to maintain
#
the boundary peaceful while we both focus on other things that we can work together
#
on and also on internal development issues and I think that's where this sort of dispute
#
is even today ossified today also the issue from our point of view predominantly is this
#
that we would like this to be resolved but resolution would mean somebody's taking tremendous
#
amount of political capital in the 50s even when Nehru was talking to the parliament for
#
the political capital that even he commanded it seemed extremely difficult from Nehru to
#
give away territory which had become part of this identity of India and that's what
#
happens once you start to early once start to very early issue maps is that you create
#
this idea and identity of this imagined community and that becomes very very difficult to then
#
sort of give away right within the broader public when you create this identity but if
#
he couldn't do it back then there wasn't really a concrete proposal on the table there
#
wasn't enough trust to do that back then in the 80s there was a proposal on the table
#
we didn't want to give it up because you were following very process driven legalistic
#
processes saying that no but by this statement and by this logic this is ours and that is
#
ours and the Chinese were saying look we're not interested in the details the details
#
can be worked out let's agree to a political settlement and we'll move forward yet we were
#
very suspicious of that partly because he has actually has strategic value but you know
#
there are certain losses that you need to cut at certain points of time and at that
#
point in time we decided we didn't want to cut those losses today we're in a position
#
where the Chinese to my mind have very little incentive to settle this they enjoy a massive
#
power asymmetry with India they are the economy is five times larger there are they've rapidly
#
modernizing their armed forces there are far larger far stronger far more equipped armed
#
force than ours and I think that poses challenges to us and therefore there is very little incentive
#
for them to settle because they can continue to keep using the border maintain it peacefully
#
but you know raise tensions as and when needed in order to ensure that political message
#
is sent to India that India needs to stay in line and realize that the Chinese are the
#
bigger power and why would you when you enjoy such an asymmetry want to settle by giving
#
up some territory when you no longer need to know and one of the points you made is
#
extremely fascinating because and you know I start to wonder about how we can actually
#
be imprisoned conceptually by the maps that we make because that once we have made maps
#
which show you know Kashmir to be a certain way and Aksai Chin to be part of India then
#
it becomes very difficult and we get hardened into those positions is it true that Aksai
#
Chin also like POK is not actually under our control it's basically under Chinese control
#
it's under Chinese control it's not in our control there are two chunks of the former
#
state of Jaipur and Kashmir which are no longer in our control and in some ways I mean this
#
current abrogation of article 370 whatever else one can talk about it at least from a
#
Chinese point of view whatever the reaction has been and it's been played up in the media
#
about being you know aggressive and pro Pakistan and all of that which it's true it is pro
#
Pakistan in some ways but the Chinese also see a possibility there right you're redrawing
#
maps you're redrawing imaginations you're segregating what is the Kashmir issue with
#
Pakistan with what is the Kashmir issue with China you're creating new identities which
#
can then go and negotiate some of the solutions so it opens up certain new possibilities whether
#
those possibilities will lead to a resolution of the different ballgame but it opens up
#
new possibilities because you're redrawing imagination and what another thing you said
#
which also struck me was about how now China being in this massive position of power has
#
no incentive to settle so is it I mean obviously one of the mature things that both nations
#
have done is that they've done that boundary conflict management where you know battles
#
at the border won't get out of hand which is great but also that it is in China's interest
#
to sort of hold what is happening in the northeast as you know a strategic wedge they can use
#
or maybe do the same in with Kashmir for example where it is not in their interest to resolve
#
Yeah in the near term it's just not in their interest to resolve the issue I mean you've
#
got an India which the Chinese fear would drift into an American orbit although that
#
would have its own cause for India and its own sense of perception of itself as a major
#
power but the Chinese fear is that in India that can drift into an American orbit but
#
also in India that can become vibrant that can grow rapidly and therefore based of provide
#
a value-based challenge to the Chinese model right the Chinese model is that a single-party
#
unified rule works it's provided economic growth and for that you need to make certain
#
political compromises in terms of political liberties and so on and so forth social liberties
#
a vibrant democratic thriving India with sort of the similar amount of people in it you
#
know 1.3 1.4 billion people thriving growing economically also prospering while having
#
this democracy which has its own frictions and everything within it being a desirable
#
alternative right next door process the value-based challenge to the Chinese state also an ideological
#
challenge to the Chinese state so it's useful to keep in India which is got border disputes
#
which is slightly conflicted which has to therefore keep a watch on certain security
#
imperatives not just on one side of his border but on both sides of its land border whereas
#
you'd want that sort of friction to remain so that you can constantly send India a message
#
saying look if you're going to try and drift in somebody's orbit which is our competitor
#
there are other things that you need to worry about directly and you need to then think
#
whether that partner of yours will come and stand by you the other thing is that when
#
you keep this land boundary dispute alive with India you make sure that India invests
#
its limited resources in defense on ensuring protection of the land boundary because that's
#
what your private threat is that leaves the oceans open and again that leaves limited
#
investment limited focus on the maritime domain and that's where the Chinese today on their
#
focus to be their naval development is among the biggest in the world they're pumping money
#
by the billions they're building new vessels carriers and all of those are to operate around
#
the world and initially in their near regions in their near seas and the Pacific Ocean but
#
increasingly in the Indian Ocean which is where a lot of Chinese trade and energy comes
#
from so there would you want an India which is stronger which is focused on naval development
#
which is focused on naval partnerships or you want India which is slightly unbalanced
#
because it's worried also about its boundaries land boundaries and therefore investing there
#
and I think those are sort of reasons why there is no incentive to actually settle the
#
dispute right so your objective is to keep it calm to keep the border calm but still
#
keep it sufficiently hot but not live so that India is focused over there and when time
#
comes when you know push comes to shove you can talk about you know trying to move forward
#
towards resolving it and you can also talk about trying to take certain steps forward
#
to keep it calm and tranquil while you keep India engaged so it keeps pumping its resources
#
on the land boundary as opposed to looking at the maritime domain and you keep sending
#
India message every time you feel that it's drifting too much away from you know challenging
#
your interests whether with regard to the US or whether in the Indian Ocean region or
#
whether in broader South Asia by sort of creating a mini crisis which you know that is in your
#
interest and in India's interest to manage because also you know the Chinese know Beijing
#
knows that conflict with India is also not in its interest India is not a small country
#
India is a powerful country with substantial capacity and push comes to shove Beijing will
#
have to suffer substantial damage and you don't want to suffer that damage so that's
#
the objective since you mentioned broader South Asia let's kind of talk about the
#
neighborhood now I'll quote another bit from an analyst called Colonel Gurmeet Kanwal
#
writing in 99 and again this was quoted in Gaurav's book which is where I've picked
#
the quote from where he talks about the Chinese policy of strategic encirclement and he writes
#
quote while China professes a policy of peace and friendliness towards India its deeds clearly
#
indicate that concentrated efforts are underway aimed at strategic encirclement of India for
#
the last several decades China has been engaged in efforts to create a string of anti-Indian
#
influence around India through military and economic assistance programs to neighborly
#
countries combined with complementary diplomacy Pakistan Bangladesh Nepal and Sri Lanka have
#
been assiduously and cleverly cultivated towards the send stop quote and what's happening is
#
India is kind of aware of this and in a diplomatic way India fights back Maldives was a recent
#
sort of you know battleground so to say of diplomatic efforts to this end where you know
#
both the parties concerned want a government that is friendly to them how has this been
#
playing out over the years because you know Gaurav also says elsewhere in his book where
#
he talks about the attitude of these other countries quote the most common response represented
#
by Pakistan Iran Bangladesh Myanmar and Sri Lanka is to see China as and again a quote
#
within a quote a benign state whose power and independent role enhances their security
#
by balancing other major states such as India or the United States or Russia that are the
#
pivotal concern stop quote so in one sense a lot of these countries also welcome Chinese
#
influence because of you India as a neighborhood bully tell me a little bit about how the dynamics
#
of this has been playing out over the decades yeah I mean I think Gaurav's point in that
#
book is well made and look I think this is a lot to do with which perspective you want
#
to look at it from if you're a strategist sitting in New Delhi and you're seeing China
#
investing in ports roads infrastructure projects finance you know across South Asia in sort
#
of military to military diplomacy in countries in your neighborhood you're bound to get concerned
#
and you're bound to see it from your prism saying that this is a string of influence
#
or more recently as this conversation has been a string of pearls which is being put
#
together to contain India so I can see that very logically from a Delhi strategist point
#
of view but if you look at it from a Chinese point of view this is a region which is underdeveloped
#
unconnected with potential for growth with massive population Bangladesh is a very largely
#
populated country Pakistan is a largely highly heavily populated country there are other
#
countries which have significant strategically Sri Lanka Myanmar and you and Maldives increasingly
#
and you can see opportunities to build your support systems over there because so much
#
of your trade and energy is reliant on the Indian Ocean so the Chinese are looking at
#
this also from the point of view of markets and opportunity and also some degree of strategic
#
security because they feel threatened that their sealings of communications can be disrupted
#
in the Indian Ocean from an India from and particularly if you were to see India as a
#
dominant power in the Indian Ocean region and that India wants to keep away extra regional
#
powers and there's a history of India wanting to do that our efforts in the Maldives in
#
the late 80s our attempt at sending the IPKF in Sri Lanka our recent sort of engagements
#
in Sri Lanka and in the Maldives again our engagement with Bangladesh more recently there
#
is an attempt at trying to build you know India trying to ensure that India remains
#
a dominant power in the region although increasingly the rise of Chinese capacity and the rise
#
of Chinese overall national power driven by economic growth has begun to challenge that
#
so from a Chinese perspective if you look at in India which it uses fundamentally hostile
#
or potentially hostile as the largest power in this region which is getting increasingly
#
closely aligned to the United States which is a geopolitical rival and which now is partnering
#
in you know although differently interpreted but the Indo-Pacific as an idea which the
#
Chinese see as increasingly step moving towards containment of China you can see why they
#
want to sort of why this is a scope for greater hostility between the two sides because your
#
interests are sort of rubbing against each other far more vigorously and you're worried
#
about this becoming a bigger issue from the but the third perspective of this is from
#
the point of view of these individual states I'm going to leave Pakistan out of it because
#
Pakistan is very different objectives but if you look at Sri Lanka the Maldives Bangladesh
#
Myanmar these are states where there is a deep development deficit these are states
#
which have had complement complex domestic history Sri Lanka has gone through a domestic
#
has gone through a civil war Bangladesh has deep issues and party and infrastructure deficit
#
the memories have been dealing with the civil war and national isolation for a very long
#
period of time to then becoming a democratic country after serious after a prolonged dictatorial
#
sort of army junta rule these are countries that are looking at opportunities for development
#
and the Chinese are increasingly saying that yes we want to invest we have the money we
#
have the political will we want to invest we want to pursue development projects for
#
these countries this is an opportunity not just to balance against India as the court
#
that you said pointed out that you know you see it as an opportunity to balance Indian
#
influence but you also see it as an opportunity to ensure that you develop so you're hedging
#
with India but you're also accepting certain influence to develop but that does not mean
#
that you necessarily give away your agency you still as a small state command significant
#
agency to be able to maneuver between larger states to achieve your foreign policy objectives
#
and increasingly if you see how the Chinese at least publicly and how India also publicly
#
is now talking about some of these countries there's a far more so today you see India
#
talking about things like non-reciprocal foreign policy gestures in the region where you're
#
being the bigger actor which is not really demanding things although yes you are demanding
#
certain security interests be kept in mind the second thing is that you're looking at
#
promoting democracy you're looking at talking about India sovereignty of states being respected
#
the Chinese have played this game for a very long time where they keep talking about the
#
importance of sovereignty whether you are large or small and particularly in the context
#
of India and India's role in the region they keep emphasizing with some of these other
#
countries that you know we respect your sovereignty as opposed to you know this bully India and
#
but India sort of beginning to adapt to that thing so I think there are these three perspectives
#
from which you need to look at Chinese investments and the rise of China in the region India's
#
policy under this current government with regard to Nepal a couple of years ago when
#
we imposed that blockade opened the scope for China to expand its reach in the country
#
right just this week we've had Xi Jinping visit Nepal he's the first Chinese president
#
to visit the country in 23 years Nepal is an ally of India in many ways it's got such
#
a deep relationship with India its trade with India is about six to seven billion dollars
#
its trade with China is about a billion dollars but that's picked up in the last few years
#
and yet China has been able to make increased inroads part of that is because Nepal is looking
#
for newer opportunities and newer financing but part of that is also because increasingly
#
our influence has been seen as problematic by Nepal and that's punctuated by the last
#
blockade that we imposed which created more complications so there are ways in which these
#
states will also act so my sort of broad takeaway to anybody looking at this particular issue
#
is that yes from a Delhi strategist point of view and from an Indian interest point
#
of view some of these Chinese investments are a matter of concern and yes I can see
#
why one would think of a string of influence being stretched together from a Chinese point
#
of view there are many more imperatives than just encircling India that are going into
#
this approach and thirdly from the point of view of these states which have their own
#
individual agency which often gets lost in the conversation about two great powers challenging
#
each other in the region is that these states have their own agency and it's not really
#
easy to push around and influence and manipulate them into action because they might be small
#
states in some ways but they command large populations they are Bangladesh particularly
#
is an increasingly growing fast growing economy and they have strategic significance so while
#
you still see contests being played out their own agency is not insignificant.
#
So you know moving on from the elephant in the elevator let's talk about the elephant
#
in the room which is you know which we haven't met the neighbor we haven't mentioned so
#
far which is Pakistan you know China's become friendlier with Pakistan in the past they've
#
invested more there they have more leverage there to influence matters their incentives
#
have changed Pakistan's incentives have changed how is all this sort of affecting the neighborhood
#
and is it good for us is it bad for us?
#
I guess it's in terms of it being good for us or bad for us I mean that time will tell
#
you but I think there are certain changes that are happening which we need to keep in
#
So China's relationship with Pakistan starting from the late 50s and the 60s when they start
#
to cozy up with each other much more until they eventually develop this bond which is
#
higher than the highest mountains and sweeter than honey and deeper than the deepest seas
#
until they develop this iron brother bond predominantly militarily driven is predominantly driven
#
by a common sense of threat perception with regard to India and from a Chinese point of
#
view Pakistan is a useful partner in keeping India unbalanced increasingly the security
#
element sort of develops so from 60s 70s 80s you see predominantly this being a security
#
partnership China assists Pakistan in its missile development program and its nuclear
#
program today that's expanded to actually even assisting Pakistan in joint development
#
of fighter jets joint submarine programs to increasingly even supporting its new sort
#
of security propositions in terms of you know city security citywide sort of policing grid
#
and those sorts of things.
#
So the security engagement has deepened over the years and that primarily led the partnership
#
but starting sort of from the 2000s onwards to CPEC being launched in 2013 2014 you start
#
to see this economic engagement becoming far more important the military to military partnerships
#
to dominate this relationship but increasingly the economic engagement has become important
#
that has to do with a couple of reasons the Chinese see a desire in necessarily expanding
#
their stake in Pakistan directly because there are strategic interests involved Guadar we've
#
often often spoken about Guadar is a potential Chinese base or Jeevani in Pakistan is a potential
#
Chinese base those could still come to be yes there could be potential bases if not
#
a formal full-fledged base soft basing could happen if increasing Chinese vessels are manufactured
#
or sold to Pakistanis you will have maintenance depots and spare parts systems being put up
#
in Pakistan which could therefore be a synthesized Pakistani Navy providing support to Chinese
#
vessels in the sea because you've got enough spare parts and you've got enough systems
#
in place to service those vessels.
#
So you're going to see that increase but the economic aspect through CPEC where China has
#
presently invested about 20 22 billion dollars in Pakistan and those investment is not directly
#
in terms of actual equity investments they're sort of loans there are preferential loans
#
there are really steep loans at very terrible interest rates terribly opaque investments
#
but that's gone across the board in energy infrastructure roadways railways agriculture
#
more increasingly sort of SME sector and they're doing all of that so essentially you're embracing
#
each other far more tightly that brings with from an Indian point of view there are a couple
#
of things that that brings one is that you know the closer you are the closer you are
#
on a daily basis the more sort of you know distance what's that saying that distance
#
generates fondness proximity will generate friction so the closer you are there will
#
be friction and we've seen some of this right some Chinese workers who are in Pakistan have
#
sort of abused people and there's been violence there's been cases where you know Chinese
#
people have been accused of you know human trafficking where women in Pakistan particularly
#
Christian women in Pakistan have been married to Chinese men and then taken to China and
#
then sold either into you know prostitution or they've been abused and that's become
#
a problem socially where there is an investigation that is launched by Pakistani police forces
#
although the Pakistani government and even the legislatures across the country sort of
#
say things like well this is all external propaganda while essentially police forces
#
in Pakistan have filed these complaints and are investigating hundreds of such cases but
#
there is this sort of gives you a sense that there is social friction that's going to increasingly
#
happen the other thing is that if you go back to a couple years ago not a couple of years
#
ago but quite a few years ago when that Lal Masjid siege happened during Musharraf's raid
#
in Pakistan the reason for those terrorists to go and take over that Lal Masjid was essentially
#
because they were fed up with Chinese presence because of the cultural clash with Chinese
#
you know massage parlors in the cities violating cultural norms in Pakistan so I think that
#
those kind of frictions are going to increase and that proximity will breed some degree
#
The other broad thing is that because China is far more greatly invested in Pakistan and
#
now many more Chinese actors from state firms to private firms are invested the matrix of
#
interest and the actors were interested changes and that might influence potential government
#
China would be far more keen to see stability in Pakistan and also stability in the India
#
Pakistan relationship because that will impact its economic gains in Pakistan its investments
#
in Pakistan so increasingly because of this expanded role in Pakistan you're seeing the
#
Chinese act essentially as colonial powers the Chinese ambassador holds meetings with
#
provincial leaders across the country tries to broker solutions and you don't see ambassadors
#
in other countries play such roles but the Chinese ambassador is doing that he's essentially
#
become a governor general in some ways and that would also lead to its own sense of friction
#
within society over the course of time because you suddenly see a sense of loss of political
#
authority loss of sovereignty and as people start to feel that while the economic gains
#
that are promised don't necessarily materialize as rapidly as they are promised that could
#
potentially lead to friction.
#
Like I said from an Indian point of view what you're seeing is that China is far more invested
#
in stability in Pakistan that could result in some degree of cooperation between India
#
and China on issues of terrorism not just in Pakistan but also because of Chinese additional
#
interests across the Middle East and the fulcrum of terror that Pakistan is it links to the
#
Middle East and therefore you could see greater Indian Chinese cooperation on terrorism but
#
my hopes are not very high on that but there is a possibility of doing more in that regard.
#
The other broad thing is that increasingly China's interest becomes in managing the mistrust
#
in the conflict between India and Pakistan.
#
So you might potentially see China wanting to play a greater role as a broker between
#
India and Pakistan and there are some signs of that in the last couple of months you've
#
seen the Chinese despite going to the UN Security Council say things like India and Pakistan
#
are both friendliest partners of China and we wish that you both could leave historical
#
issues and work on development and we will help you with that.
#
So you want to play the big brother the balancer but the challenge is can would India ever
#
accept something like that would India use China as an instrument at certain times to
#
talk to the Pakistanis perhaps would you see the Chinese as a mediator or as a balancer
#
in the region highly unlikely that India would accept such a thing such a proposition.
#
So that's how the Chinese role is evolving and its attempt Beijing's attempt would predominantly
#
be to ensure that yes there is this conflict can sustain but the mistrust and the problems
#
between the two sides can be managed and it has a role to play in managing that.
#
So and while we may not accept them as a mediator I think from the Indian point of view it just
#
strikes me as a very good development because one as you pointed out China's incentives
#
change they want to stable Pakistan they don't want to Pakistan which is indulging in all
#
the kind of cross border terrorism they do across different borders and from Pakistan's
#
point of view their incentives to you know to hasten their own economic development is
#
to sort of toe the China line and get stability so that's that sort of also seems very welcome
#
My next question is about both India and China being nuclear I mean for example there is
#
you know a popular perception in India that hey we went nuclear in the late 90s because
#
it was Pakistan we were worried about but you know Wajpai himself justified going nuclear
#
by writing a letter to Bill Clinton at that time which later got leaked where he said
#
that he was responding to China's threats and it is those elliptical threats from China
#
which made him sort of go nuclear.
#
What's your take on this?
#
Yeah I mean I think we went nuclear because of China I think we went nuclear because of
#
China because I don't think our primary concern was Pakistan Pakistan plays a role in this
#
in the sense that we see it as I think we went nuclear not necessarily just because
#
of China also China so Pakistan was a factor China was a bigger factor but the biggest
#
factor was to my mind was the sense of aspiration in India of achieving a certain kind of power
#
status I think that is what predominantly drove that policy from a security threat perspective
#
yes our security threats are Pakistan and China more so increasingly China was seen
#
as a threat given that India had started to begin its sort of growth trajectory and China
#
had also started its sort of growth trajectory but that was a period of time 1998 where China
#
was actually in a fairly China was sort of very reluctant to be aggressive because it
#
was looking at the possibility of entering the WTO so it didn't like the idea of it
#
being painted as this aggressive entity and there wasn't any immediate sort of threat
#
but it was important for us to go nuclear on multiple fronts after we went nuclear the
#
Kargil war happened and when the Kargil war happened you saw the Chinese being very circumspect
#
and how they reacted to Pakistan you saw the Americans very clearly telling the Pakistanis
#
what they should be doing and telling Bill Clinton very clearly telling Nawaz Sharif
#
that he needs to step out and take responsibility for this and pull back so I think going nuclear
#
therefore was important from not just maintaining changing the dynamics of the conflict with
#
Pakistan but also signaling to the Chinese that you know any misadventures will be handled
#
you know we've got the capacity to handle anything that escalates and you need to think
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twice before escalating anything and I think the concern has to do a lot to do with the
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fact that you know how would Beijing react in a conflict with Pakistan also I don't think
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we immediately saw ourselves in a conflict with the Chinese because the Chinese were
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pursuing very different economic very different foreign policy and economic agendas but the
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threat was via Pakistan potentially China and how do you deter China and I think that
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was predominantly what was going on.
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So I did an episode on the India Pakistan conflict with Srinath Raghavan where we discussed
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the game theory of it and all of that and also an episode on India going nuclear with
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your colleague General Prakash Menon and one of the points both of them made was that before
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we went nuclear you know our conventional army was obviously considered to be much better
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than Pakistan's but both sides going nuclear sort of put them on parity and it also means
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that when India deals with Pakistan there is a certain line we cannot cross because
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we don't know how they will react yeah is that also the case between India and China
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except that now we are the weaker side but being nuclear helps it means they can't you
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know push us around too much exactly yeah yeah it makes a difference right I mean what's
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fascinating is that both India and China are subscribed to the no first use policy so both
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sides expressly state that we are committed to not using nuclear weapons first but from
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a signaling point of view for the Chinese I mean look at 1998 I don't see the disparity
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between India and China in terms of its armed forces being that massive but the potential
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of that being a big problem going forward particularly with India facing threats on
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two fronts at any point of time is where to my mind this decision comes into play from
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a security threat perspective that you will signal to the Chinese that there will be escalation
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from our side if this is happening although you are saying that you know we are subscribed
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to no first use to me a lot of our reason to actually go nuclear had to do with our
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desire for power and power in the sense of national power as that you know we wanted
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to express ourselves as an international power with a certain kind of capacity it had security
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it has signaling value to our immediate adversities but it has a lot to do with our own internal
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sense of power because if you remember the narrative and the reaction of the country
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upon going nuclear it was about us arriving at the world stage and to me as much as the
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security sort of aspect of it was important that was one of the underlying motives that
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we need to be doing this.
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Right and you know we have spoken for more than two hours and we have yet to reach the
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sort of the current situation where we stand today and you obviously have written a wonderful
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paper for Takshashila on this just before the current meet the recent meet happened
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between she and Modi which are linked from the show notes but sort of sum up for me briefly
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that what are the issues now at stake where does a relationship now stand you know what
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did the previous Wuhan the meet achieve and what can the two sides realistically achieve
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So okay so what did Wuhan achieve now Wuhan came at an interesting time right it was April
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2018 we had just gone through a very difficult period in the bilateral relationship and with
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the Doklam standoff sort of punctuating the difficult period there were tensions between
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India and China over the listing of Masood Azhar as a terrorist of the United Nations
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there were tensions about India's entry into the nuclear suppliers group which China had
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been blocking so India got a sense that terrorism which is a core interest of ours the Chinese
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are not respecting that given the overwhelming evidence that exists on aspirational interests
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which is a nuclear supplier group the Chinese are not respecting our aspirations and then
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we have entered into this punctuated conflict in Doklam in which sort of the fundamentals
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that were keeping us stable like India's argument was that in 2012 we had an agreement that
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in places where there's a tri-junction between India China and a third country on the boundary
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you know status quo would be maintained and Chinese then the Chinese by building that
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road in Doklam were violating that status quo and therefore we had to the Chinese were
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being far more assertive and not respecting our interests and our aspirations at all and
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therefore we had to do what we had to do that standoff eventually led to some sort of a
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de-escalatory mechanism where both sides start to realize that we need to be talking before
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the spirals into something bigger and we need to be talking at a leader level because we
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need to set up some sort of a protocol of how do we see our relationship because things
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have changed from the last time we had this big conversation which was 1988 when Rajiv
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Gandhi visited and we created a template for this relationship saying we'll put the
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difficult issues aside we'll try and negotiate confidence building measures and we'll try
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and maintain peace on the boundary while focusing on economic development and things have changed
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since then and that there was a point of time where we were at relative economic parity
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in fact India was probably a little bit ahead in terms of its GDP and you know things have
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changed since then today the scenario is completely different both of us have broader interests
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now so in Wuhan when they met when Xi Jinping and Modi met essentially the conversation
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was about how do you set up a new template and what was the new template that they came
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up they basically said that okay look we need to advance this relationship by keeping a
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long-term perspective in mind and not letting short-term issues derail this we need to respect
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each other sensitivities and aspirations we need to also pursue deeper and broad-based
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engagement so we need to meet more regularly not just at a leader level but we also need
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to make sure that engagement is broad-based so people to people and that's absolutely
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great because you know we have about 200,000 Chinese tourists that come to India every
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year China sends about 130 million tourists to the world and we have 200,000 of them visiting
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India India should be having far more Chinese tourists coming in there should be far greater
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educational linkages there should be movies and all that that linkage should happen so
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that this deep abiding sense of lack of information with each other and suspicion therefore can
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start to go away you should have far more scholarly exchanges to understand what the
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other side is thinking or what drives the other side's actions because that was one
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of the reasons why we sort of went this down went through this downward spiral in the 50s
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and the 60s so those are good ideas the third big thing was to maintain peace and tranquility
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along the boundary while trying to identify specific confidence building measures to do
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that and in the course of the year since Wuhan there were steps taken on the boundary patrols
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became staggered decided at certain time periods where you would patrol certain areas because
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each side perceives a different area as well as the LSE lies and you would not sort of
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enter into eyeball confrontation you'd sort of keep distances you'd inform each other
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a little bit more about what you're doing and that has meant some degree of stability
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because since Wuhan there were no major incidents at the boundary until September this year
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when there was a bit of a flash point in Ladakh which also because the protocols that were
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set in place was addressed within 24 hours in the past they have gone on for days and
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days and weeks even so that was what Wuhan was and the broader dictum that sort of underlined
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all of this was this idea that differences must not be allowed to turn in disputes to
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me this is an extremely interesting statement because it says that knowledge that there
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is there are differences is an acknowledgement there and there is a hope that policy will
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ensure that this does not escalate and therefore that it calls for action for policy to not
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let this escalate and the action is in this context by maintaining peace at the border
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through different protocols by expanding clear engagement at across levels and by ensuring
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that you build the economic relationship and talk about some of these prickly issues the
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prickly issues that persist are the same are the border are our aspirations are each side's
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aspirations China's in the Indian Ocean and broader geopolitically with regard to India's
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relationship with the US India's with regard to China's relationship with Pakistan but
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not just Pakistan which has role in the broader South Asian region China's policies of limiting
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India's rise in the international order whether it is the NSG whether it is the UN Security
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Council reform issues of new technologies how do you mitigate some of the threats what
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is the threat that China poses and in cases of say 5G and Huawei and how does India mitigate
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that yet partner with them on science and technology cooperation because China is increasingly
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a powerhouse when it comes to science technology so the idea is to be able to find spaces where
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you can work together while manage the risks that you each perceive from each other and
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that's broadly what this process of informal summitary is supposed to do that could be
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in trade that could be in technology that could be on security issues the problem that
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I have with informal summitary is that it is informal so you don't necessarily formally
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commit yourself to some targets we've been talking about addressing the trade deficit
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with China for a nearly seven eight years to a decade very little has been done and
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very little has been done because there is no target there is no clear policy direction
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apart from a rhetorical commitment that yes this is something that we need to do we need
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to achieve more balanced trade there are structural reasons why there is a trade deficit but there
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are also very clear political reasons which are China's market restrictions where our
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pharmaceutical companies find it difficult to go over there our exporters find it difficult
#
to sell products over there because of restrictions that are placed through non-tariff barriers
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on say things like inspections customs and those sorts of things and I think the informal
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summitary is great to set the big picture agenda but I'm really hoping that we don't
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continue with this mechanism although I'm I know that after this recent meeting in Mamalapuram
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they have decided that there's going to be another informal summit next year I'm really
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hoping that increasingly we see more delegation level talks happening even at these summits
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thankfully at this summit there was a day of delegation level talks hopefully these
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will now become more concrete going forward because the optics will soon become stale
#
and what will matter is you know whether you actually achieve some policy objectives and
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for that you need to actually be talking specifics Maruj I've taken a lot of your time thanks
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so much for talking to me today it was as usual I learnt a lot from you thank you so
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much I mean it's been a pleasure talking to you.
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If you enjoyed listening to this episode do check out the show notes which links Manoj's
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paper for Takshashila as well as all the other episodes of the scene and the unseen and the
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praghati podcast and all things policy that he's appeared on much wisdom there you can
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follow Manoj on Twitter at the China dude you can follow me at Amit Verma A M I T V
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A R M A you can browse past episodes of the scene and the unseen at scene unseen dot
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I n think praghati dot com and IVM podcast dot com the scene and the unseen is supported
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by the Takshashila institution their postgraduate course in public policy starts in January
#
admissions are open now do check it out at Takshashila dot org dot in thank you for listening.
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