 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. We will discuss today India-Sri Lanka relations in the context of the current visit of the Foreign Secretary Harshvardhan Sringala to Sri Lanka. He is still there. He is supposed to return on Tuesday. This visit has a lot of symbolic meaning as well as practical importance. The COVID, as in other cases, has affected diplomacy too in various ways. And one, of course, important factor is that the exchange of visits which used to take place has not been regular in recent years, this last year and a half. Normally the Foreign Secretary takes special care of neighbors and he normally visits these countries at least once a year. When Mr. Sringala is not new to Sri Lanka because he has worked in the Ministry of External Affairs before, I joined Secretary dealing with Sri Lanka and therefore he knows the people. He's an expert, but at the same time he has not been able to visit Sri Lanka or foreign minister visited last year. There are two or three objectives in this visit. First and foremost to indicate to Sri Lanka that India has a major interest in India-Sri Lanka relations. With the whole background, the whole history of our relationship, Sri Lanka still occupies an important place in our international relations. From Sri Lanka's perspective, Sri Lanka is facing the worst food and foreign exchange crisis since independence in 1948. This is a factor which has to be addressed by Sri Lanka's friends, including India. So he is visiting basically to renew acquaintances to meet the leadership and exchange ideas on the changing global situation. Many things have happened in year and a half. China, Afghanistan, United Nations, Spar occurs, number of things. So there will be many ideas to be exchanged. That is the first objective. Then he already visited some parts of Sri Lanka. He has been to the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. He has been to various monuments, particularly he was there on a weekend. Today and tomorrow he will be meeting the President, the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister. There are three of them, three brothers are running the most important jobs in Sri Lanka, the President, Prime Minister and the Finance Minister. And he will also meet the Foreign Minister. So we will know the real outcomes after the visit, but one visit itself is not going to come to an understanding on these issues. This is a continuing process and therefore we will have to look forward to what exactly has taken place during this visit. One place he visited was Trincomali, where there are two oil tank farms of Second World War vintage, which is currently operated by Indian Oil Corporation, which has a lease for 99 years for a payment. This has been functioning very well, but of late there have been some discussions about Sri Lanka taking over possession of these oil tank farms. This has not been formally proposed, but there is a Ceylon Oil Corporation, which wants to step into this area. And we are also interested in encouraging Sri Lanka to take on more responsibilities and we have a very fruitful cooperation in the energy sector. But at the same time, we are concerned that we are able to run the oil farms as they are called and make it effectively useful for the country. Because there is always a danger of Chinese lurking around and looking for facilities. So that is only a reservation that we have. But this visit has opened up a discussion on that subject. Other than that, there is an underlying issue which is Sri Lanka drifting away from India towards China. This we have noticed in the last several years. And in some cases, those are very dramatic, the kind of investments that China has made in Sri Lanka. We all know about the Habantota port, which was originally supposed to have been developed by India. But at that time, we did not have the kind of resources to build a major port and China took it over. There is this tendency therefore for Sri Lanka to seek assistance from China for the major projects. But even those which India would not take up with that kind of size and that kind of involvement. So Sri Lankans keep telling us that the Habantota port was in fact offered to India. And now that China has built it into a huge port, there is criticism that this was really not necessary for Sri Lanka's requirements. And these plans have been made by China for their own reasons to be present in the interruption. Similarly, there is now a proposal to build a huge city near Colombo on the seashore with a huge investment. And similarly, there are other projects, very spectacular projects have been built. Therefore, there is a feeling among some circles of Sri Lanka that it is China that they can depend on for their economic development. So on the one hand, they have that interest of fast growth with the help of China. On the other hand, they have religious, sentimental, historic linkages with India. Buddhism, as you know, is a common religion both in India and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is even more than India. And the leadership always visits Indian monuments and others related to Buddhism. So that linkage is very strong and very current. Any new president, new prime minister taking over in Sri Lanka definitely visits Indian holy places. And we are happy that this is being maintained. In addition to that, of course, there is this long history of the tunnels in Sri Lanka, which you must be familiar with, which has gone through a lot of changes over a period of time. It began with the demand of the Sri Lankan tunnels for some autonomy in the region where they live. And there was a resistance on the part of the Sri Lankan countries government to give them more autonomy or even a sense of independence. And this grew over a time and India got involved basically because we thought that the tunnels should get a fair share of autonomy in that region because this almost exclusively Tamil regions. So in a sense, we began the movement or we helped the movement for greater Tamil autonomy in the very early years in the 80s and before. But gradually and slowly the Tamil movement became an independence movement and supported by Sri Lankans all around the world. They started talking about a Tamil elem and you know all about the leadership of Prabhakaran and he gained momentum in this. And it reached a stage of conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamil. So we were in a dilemma as to how to deal with the situation. As far as we are concerned, we would certainly want the tunnels to have their autonomy, freedom to determine their future, decide on what kind of projects, what kind of developments they should have. But India was never in favor of an independence movement. So we wanted the tunnels to operate within the Sri Lankan state and have the privileges for a minority group. And India has great experience in dealing with minorities and making sure that they feel one with the part with the future of the country. And we have succeeded, we have had problems too, but India was supporting the autonomy movement and also working with Sri Lankan government for the overall development of Sri Lanka. But things deteriorated and conflicts arose, many killings, assassinations, etc. happened. And this reached a very, very critical stage when India stepped in. I'm not going to go into all the details of what happened, but I'm just giving you a little bit of history to show how complex the relationship has been. And there was this agreement which was signed by President Devardhani and Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi. A peace agreement in which the Sri Lankan tunnels, who came to be known as LTTE or Tigers for short, had a very difficult situation of soul to certain extent that the Tigers agreed to disarm themselves, participate in the nation building activities, and the idea that the Sri Lankan constitution will have a new amendment, 13th amendment, which would give greater flexibility, greater powers to the Tamil governments in these regions. It was a good moment, great moment for Mr. Rajeev Gandhi we felt, but it collapsed even before it was implemented. Because the Sinhalese felt that this was the most they can give for the Tamils. But the Tamil leader felt that this way they could have got more if India had been more patient and more cooperative. So there was that little tension between India and the Tigers at the time of the signature of the agreement itself. But unfortunately the day on which the Tamils were supposed to surrender their arms to the Sinhalese government, some trouble took place in one of the prisons in Sri Lanka. And the Tamil prisoners felt threatened and they committed suicide. Their traditional way of solving Sinhalese tablets. And this of course upset the whole Tamil community and they simply walked out of the secret and the conflict broke out in Sri Lanka. And the country which was responsible for bringing us about, we felt it was our moral responsibility to make sure that this doesn't become an all out war. And therefore India, like we do in the case of United Nations, we set up a peacekeeping force and send them to Sri Lanka to stand between the two conflict groups. They had no interest in fighting a war, they were not even equipped. In fact, they didn't have the heavy weaponry, etc., necessary to intervene in a war because we thought this was a kind of friendly situation which we could help. But this became again very grave and Indian soldiers got killed and reinforcements had to be sent, weapons had to be introduced. And it became a major conflict. Although we were able to resolve it, this intervention by India left several people unhappy and the Sri Lankan government asked for the Indian peacekeeping force to withdraw even before peace was fully established. And India naturally, since we had gone there with the invitation of the Sri Lankan government, we decided to withdraw when they said that Indian forces are not necessary. And this felt a little bit of bitterness between the Sri Lankan government and us because the conflict took place and India had to intervene. Then it was a long process for consultations, discussions and so on. But everything did not work out well. And the sad thing was, of course, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, which turned the tide against the Tigers as far as India was concerned. And the Sri Lankan judgment or the Tamil Tigers were engaged in terrorist activities was something that we were resisting. We were saying that they are freedom fighters. But with the assassination of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi himself was the architect of peace in Sri Lanka, changed India's position and we declared them as terrorists. And this opened up the opportunity for Sri Lankans to have a major offensive, an anti-Tiger offensive, which creates a lot of havoc. And India simply stood back without interfering in the war. So India's non-interference in the war, in fact, helped the Sri Lanka. And they were very ruthless in destroying the Tamil strongholds. Prabhakaran himself was killed and hundreds of people were killed and the usual consequences of wars and so on. And so the Sri Lankans felt that they had settled the issue by destroying the Tigers. But India had a continuing responsibility to make sure that the Tamil community as a whole, whether the Tigers are terrorists, but the Tamil community as a whole should still have the 13th amendment and should have facility for rebuilding, because it was devastated by those regions. And India supplied a lot of money and equipment, but they were Sri Lankan government was reluctant to make use of them. They would rather use it elsewhere in the country rather than anything. Tamil areas and that created a lot of disquiet that India's help was going, not to the Tamil areas, to the other areas, etc. And the situation did not normalize even after the Sri Lankan army won over the Tamils. But the Tamil autonomous government still continued and the process goes on, but there is still considerable tension and issues of that kind there. And what is India's interest? India's interest is to see that the rights of the Tamils are protected. And so we have been focusing on that. While China's focus was now that they said that there are no more minorities in Sri Lanka, we are all equal. So there is no need for us to give special facilities to the Tamils. That was their policy, which we did not of course accept, but so we insisted on this. So there is an element of difference of opinion between Sri Lankan government on this issue. So whenever Indian countries visit Sri Lanka, we make inquiries as to what is happening. And of course there is a huge case against the Sri Lankan government in the United Nations Security Council for war crimes. And this comes up in the Human Rights Council. It comes up. It can even come up in the Security Council, etc. Therefore internationally also there have been some criticism against the Sri Lankan government. So in all this trouble waters, China was fishing by giving this huge support through the Belt and Road Initiative, which gave them considerable amount of money and projects, etc. But on the plans and the people from China rather than on the priority of Sri Lanka. So huge projects, etc. were built and the expenditure on these projects were not given as loan, but not given as grant but as loans. And so the Sri Lankans discovered that they were getting into a debt trap and they wanted to diversify their economic involvement. So we are now in a situation where many countries other than China also helping out Sri Lanka in the process and some reduction in the Sri Lankan-Chinese involvement and different presidents in Sri Lanka adopted different approaches to both these countries. And now the situation is peaceful generally. But the economic situation has worsened as a result of the pandemic. So India as you know was interested in supporting the SARC countries even though SARC was more or less defunct because summits were not being held, etc. But the Indian Prime Minister called the meeting of SARC to discuss the pandemic and even put forward some amount of money and ask the other countries also to cooperate and support and help all these SARC region countries. And not only that, India had even kept a rapid deployment force of doctors, engineers, you know, medical supplies, health workers, etc. to go if necessary to these countries. And some accepted and invited us. We went to Bangladesh and Kuwait or wherever help was required. But because of the suspicion Sri Lankans were very reluctant. Even though they needed this kind of support, they were reluctant to have Indian forces as they called it. And we had no such intention to send them there but because of the past history because once when they tried to blockade the Sri Lankan in the Tamil areas India had dropped food and medicine, etc. forcibly into Tamil areas. There was a history of that kind. So for that reason, I think there was concern and also the Indian peacekeeping forces so they reminded them of that. And therefore we could not reach them and help them to the extent necessary because of the suspicion. I mentioned it because a relationship is not free of suspicion even though we have had a very close relationship. So this is the background of this visit. So there are lots of things to be sorted out and talked about. China's role is very disturbing because not only do they give them money and build huge facilities which Sri Lankans may not need and getting them into a debt trap but also they have been encouraging the Sri Lankan government not to take any action on international request for investigation of the war practices. So the Sri Lankans are confident that in case this issue goes to the Security Council the Chinese will veto in a resolution and therefore China has become more important to them because India has no veto even if we support them the others, the permanent members and other Western countries will insist on this investigation action against guilty soldiers and so on. So China is giving them economic support as well as political support which is very valuable. And so once in a while they cancel a couple of contracts. I am not going into details which they had agreed with India, cancel it and give it to China once in a while when we feel uncomfortable. And therefore the overall situation is with all good intentions which is not very, what shall we say, placid, not very quiet on the India-Sri Lankan front. But recently we have had visits, the new President Rajapaksha Gautabhaya Rajapaksha has visited India we know each other very well but Rajapaksha is in general have been more friendly towards China. So during the recent General Assembly session our external affairs minister met the Foreign Minister Sri Lanka, Mr. Perez and discussed the present situation in general terms. And therefore the visit of Mr. Sringala, the Foreign Secretary is in that context against this backdrop of what shall we say a checkered relationship between India and Sri Lanka and the fact that we have good feelings towards each other generally. And also the need for Asia and Indo-Pacific in general to be kept peaceful and out of reach of China. So there is a role and then there is this question of a quad, how it will be helpful to other countries and how AUKUS will now discuss an entry pact, how can Sri Lanka and others deal with this new situation. So I'm sure Mr. Sringala has his hands full to discuss this issue of the Sri Lankans and his major responsibility to study the situation and come back and report to political leadership so that appropriate decisions can be done. So I thought I'll share some of these thoughts with you because in the civil service examination there is always accent on India's neighbourhood. Particularly after Mr Modi became Prime Minister he had put the responsibility of the government on neighbours first. You may remember when he was sown in 2014 he invited all the neighbouring countries and they all came at the head of state level. And that was a very good initiative that he took on day one. And he said that India's development will be together with Sri Lankans. It's a first feature on Red Fort, he made this point. So neighbours first was one of the planks of his foreign policy and he did a lot for all these countries but unfortunately it did not make the kind of impact that we had expected. Number one because of the changes in the international situation. Number two because of China's very aggressive attitudes towards these countries. It is aggressive in a friendly way. You know forcing themselves on these countries and making them feel uncomfortable with India. And with all these reasons these neighbours first policy did not materialise the way we wanted it. And then of course idea these things such as we were also distracted by the pandemic but during the pandemic with a lot of work the vaccine might be distributed vaccines to these countries even though we did not have enough and now we have revived that. So on the whole the good intentions are there on both sides but you need to watch the situation. Sarki is more or less dead because they cannot have a meeting unless every country participates in it. And because of Pakistan's behaviour in Sark we have decided not to participate unless Pakistan stops terrorist activities. So it is a mix but that's why I said Mr Shingla's visit to Sri Lanka is very symbolic in the sense that in spite of all that has happened in the past India maintains and wants just to maintain very cordial relations. Sri Lanka and we have a vital interest in the safety of Sri Lanka and peace in the Indonesian region in which India and Sri Lanka have a common stake. In the old days there was a proposal for Indian Ocean as a zone of peace. It was proposed by the non-aland movement and Sri Lanka had taken the leadership and the philosophy of that was that foreign forces should be kept out of the Indian Ocean. But after the Cold War that changed but during the Cold War Sri Lanka was at that time itself was interested in developing the resources of the Indian Ocean with the help of western countries and therefore there was again a slight difference but after the Cold War that issue has disappeared. Now we are seeking foreign participation in the development of the Indian Ocean, the exploitation and other things. So the idea of a zone of peace where we said no foreign forces should be permitted into the Indian Ocean. Now we are seeking a cooperative development of the Indian Ocean, friendly not hostile. Friendly cooperation in the Indian Ocean countries and Quad is going to do that. You know it is going to deal with the pandemic, it is going to deal with trade, it is going to deal with climate change and various very very urgent issues. And the military aspect since India does not want to be in a military pact and Japan also did not want to sign another military agreement. The Americans decided to have a separate security arrangement and that in my view it has helped because the security is kept separate from the Quad but at the same time in the same countries we can develop it together. So that's what I wanted to present to you. Thank you very much. Yes, I refer to that, I refer to specific cases. Sri Lanka has shown the tendency to, so when they feel dissatisfied about a project in which India is not able to do something but fail to do and have in cases like that. Not only in Sri Lanka and Myanmar we have had such cases because we commit and then unable to do it on time or with efficiency. So there these Chinese are waiting to persuade them to cancel it. Like in Iran also it happened. Railway line you are supposed to hand it over to China. Similarly this port thing was also one of those cases but we don't get excited over it. So we accept the Sri Lankan decision and we try to not incur more losses on that account and so we don't hold it against Sri Lanka. We know that this is Chinese manipulation and we accept in cases where China is willing to finance any particular project that they had originally intended. Such accusations have been made but I don't think India has ever acknowledged that. But remember the situation where they went there because they thought there was no war or anything like that. It was just a holiday because peace would be there, they signed an agreement and so they went into a kind of trap and they're caught in that. Lots of people lost lives and at that stage the army may have lost patience and misbehaved. I'm not saying I have no but such accusations have been made and even in the army itself there have been. Because this was a totally unknown territory for the Indian army and therefore they may have behaved in a way they should not have. But this has not been documented or certified or anything like that and people consider it as part of as they say anything is fair in love and war. Everything is not fair but still some of it is tolerated. Yes I suppose so but then we are not in the game of countering BRI. The amounts involved are so huge and the manpower and all that material etc to go into this kind of projects will be very huge. So we cannot really compete with them but wherever there is possible for us to within our own resources able to help Sri Lanka we will. I don't know the details but there could be several projects like that which we are looking at and if there is any shortfall in Chinese assistance because we don't see China as an enemy and they support our neighbors. You know it's a joint effort but we know their objective is to dominate the region. So to that extent we understand them but at the same time we need to discourage them shall we say. I should not say block because we don't have that kind of resources. And so it's a constant battle and that is why our neighborhood is so disturbed. If China was not in this region and we are left to ourselves to deal with these countries probably we would have dealt with them better. But this constant urge for China to win them over the old idea of squeezing us and the string of pearls concept and all that. That's going on for many many years and we are managing it and we'll continue to do so. That is a constant problem because fishermen do not recognize borders just as the fish does not. This is the problem. You can impose all these restrictions on fishermen etc. But when they see fish they follow it regardless of whose waters it is. It's a very constant problem and it is not very practical to control them and that is why this happens. It's not deliberately done by anyone. But when they cross over and there are clashes sometimes with the Sri Lankan Navy then unfortunate things happen. But this cannot be solved by drawing a line on the waters. That's not possible. And so it goes on with more goodwill and here the Tamil government has a major role to play. And from what I understand of the new Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and the leadership they have been much more reasonable and less sentimental about these issues. They have been more practical and things are being sorted out. So the fishermen's rights is a big issue which has come from old days. But a bit of tolerance on both sides are required to deal with the fishermen's issues. So it will continue but with a friendly manner we will be able to resolve it. And since the Ilankan issue is no more so dominant, Tamil Nadu government and Tamil activists will also be quieter on this issue rather than make it into a huge problem between the two countries. Well, Avantotra is a done deal. There's nothing more to affect India-Sri Lanka relations. And Sri Lankan's defences only that we had offered this to you in our toolkit. That's a historic fact. We were not prepared to undertake such a huge project there. So well it is there and it has implications of our security because Chinese submarines are spotted in the region and they may strengthen their presence in the introduction. And so Avantotra is, shall we say, a negative development in our relationship because they have given the Chinese a very crucial position in the introduction. But there's no point crying over it. We have to defend ourselves. We have to make sure that we have the capacity to counter any problems. And that is part of the reason why we are at the point. Because we need to have strong friends, powerful friends to help us maintain. So we have been talking about maritime security by minister of the United Nations to speak about it. Quad has taken it as a mission on itself to keep in an ocean free of foreign powers. And China is the guilty part of that. So India's Sri Lanka relations are still going on smoothly in spite of Avantotra. That's a done deal. This is a whole story of the past. I don't know. We have to look into various books. You know, Mr. Karthikeyan's book on assassination. There's a lot of material on this. So these are not relevant anymore because this intelligence by surveillance are always constant rumors. But it's possible that we had some, shall we say, some signals. But that's always there. That's always threat to prime ministers. And we make that assessment and deal with it in a way. And most of the time it succeeds because when it succeeds, it doesn't make news. We do not know how many assassination attempts have been resisted by the Indian intelligence agencies. But you will not hear about it. You'll never hear about it. But you will hear about it when it fails, you know. And it failed in this account. It's probably the enthusiasm of the prime minister to go through his campaign, even if there were danger signals. It could be that the intelligence assessment was not very strong. They felt that they could handle it. And all these factors come in. The wrong judgments may have been made. But the interesting thing is they were all caught and punished. And that was very, very important. So that, and after that we knew the techniques of Tiger's and probably we have persisted many other attempts. So this has no relevance in the person context. So they did not realize, most of the people who joined the BRI did not realize the extent of the debt. They knew it was a loan, but they were thinking in terms of immediate love. We all take loans for the future. You know, you're able to take money and use it now so that you generate income in the future. That is how people calculate and nations calculate. So they actually calculated that if these facilities are built, then what are the benefits that arrive from it? And therefore they went in there. But when they started looking at the account books, they found that it was increasing by leaps and bounds. And there was no guarantee that it will be controlled. And so they must have done their bit to control it. But not only Sri Lanka and Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for itself has virtually withdrawn because they said that these facilities were not required by us. And so we don't want to. So, so with the kind of optimism, many have joined and with experience, they have realized that it was not as innocent as it looked when they accepted them. And therefore many are trying to get out of it and looking for alternative resources. But like the Pakistan corridor, for example, it's huge. And now with Afghanistan situation, Chinese may even put in more money and Afghanistan and Pakistan etc will accept it happily because they are in dire straits. And then they will discover at the end of it all that this was a huge hoax and they will suffer on account of what they are doing today. It's quite possible. But the immediate attraction, this is the whole idea of debts. You know, Shakespeare said, neither a borrower nor a lender be for off loan loses both itself and friend. So that's the advice that we all have to take. Never take a loan, never lend money to anyone. And that is the most sensible position that we can take, particularly young people like you. I don't think so. That's not reviewed by international institutions. That we are all doing, all countries are pointing this out to them in various ways. So not that they are unaware of it, but we cannot take any formal action. The dangers of the debt track is quite clear. And international financial organizations must be warning them. So they're all involved in various projects in these countries and the extent of it will be known only at the latest stage. So by then it may be too late for them to get out of it. Then they'll have to struggle, take loans from others or get assistance from other countries. Then they may have to, you know, let off sell off some of these in order to mean the debt. All these are processes. So unless the country is concerned, take a very, very major interest and make sure that they don't fall into this trap. That's why it's called a crack. You don't realize it when you jump into it. And so now people are realizing it and that's why there's not so much enthusiasm for the BRI as it was before. Because all countries in the world have joined, even the United States has joined. India was the only country which had not joined BRI. Of course, you don't sanction the military. That is no such a that in the case of Cuba, the Americans sanctioned some individuals, but that UN does not do that. You know, they were saying that these individuals have been causing trouble in Cuba and therefore they impose sanctions against specific individuals by name. But the UN does not do that. UN sanctions and sanction will be against the country. But here, as you know, the problem is that you cannot impose actions against Pakistan, even if they deserve it because of the Chinese veto. So that is the strength that they have. So if there is a veto in your favor, then you can carry on things without regard to without concern about any punishment from the UN. And this is the weakness of the UN, because the UN is unable to act without the unanimous consent of the parliament members. Well, that was legally became required because President Trump had hidden it for political reasons. But the public opinion in the United States cannot always be controlled except free nation and the demand comes from the Congress and other places. And even if it will affect the relationship in Saudi Arabia, President Biden cannot rule it out. He can delay it, but he decided to release it. And that was the pressure from public opinion. But President Trump looked at it differently because he said if they are buying $360 billion, what the box from me? How does Khashoggi matter? You know, that was his approach. But the US, that is the problem. Everything comes out eventually. You heard about the recent Senate hearings. You know, major senior military, US military officers are going to the Senate and confessing we made a mistake. So that is American system. That's a big question. It's simply because they want to dominate the world. See, in 1962, when we were shocked by this attack aggression against India, we don't know where they did that. And you know what the explanation they gave to teach India a lesson. And that's the same explanation they are giving now in 2020. And what is that lesson? The lesson is that China is the leader of Asia and the world. And so India should not stand their way. That is a message. And that is the only reason why if we are willing to accept a secondary position in Asia, which we are and concede that China is the overlord of this region and behave accordingly, then they will accept you. But as long as you don't accept that and you resist it and fight for our rightful place in Asia and the world, then we have to face these challenges. And everything revolves around the border. If the border can be demarcated and agreement signed, then there will be no excuse. Now they excuse that the line of actual control is not defined and they can come in and go out and say that, sorry, is this your land? Sorry, we made a mistake. And then keep on bothering us and not solve the border issue. The border issue is being discussed for years together and they are not in a hurry to resolve it. So by using the non-demarcation of the border, China is trying to exert pressure on us to subdu us and make us out of them. So very clear strategy. Well, that is why we need to be very alert and very active in this region. There is constant danger, there is no question about it and we are aware of it. And how immediate is the danger? We don't know. In 2020, it aggravated with China flexing its muscles all around. And so we were cautious and that is how Quad was formed in 2007 and was lying dormant. So Quad came up because we felt that we needed to defend ourselves and so on. And now we have the machinery, we have the instrumentality and how we use it and will the Chinese be restrained as an account of this? Will it be a deterrent on there? Is the question. But if it doesn't work as a deterrent and they go ahead with their aggressive attitude, then naturally there will be countermeasures on the part of what occurs or Quad or whoever else is involved. So it's a constant, that constant struggle of assessment, threat assessment, how much do you invest to meet it? How much you take action through other means, you know, friendly gestures to China. So it's a mix of many things. And that is why in spite of all the intelligence and all the machinery, the human mind has to exercise an option at a particular moment in time. And that is what we are constantly doing. That's what everybody is doing. So judgments have to be made on the circumstances as they develop. Well, there are people in India, strategists and thinkers who believe that we should join because they see this as the future. So when there are these roads and belts and everything goes from left and right of India, and we stand in the middle like a traffic inspector, you know, is that a practical position? But that was on the presumption that BRI was a huge success. But now we are seeing gaps in that and people are not so enthusiastic about it. So probably that additional enthusiasm that we should also join has waned somewhat because if you take the balance, it will not benefit us. It will only hurt us in some ways. And therefore we are not thinking of joining. Initially I remember quite a few of our commentators were writing that we don't let this slip away from us. But now there is greater conviction that this is not going to work the way the Chinese wanted. So disadvantage is this, that they will all build all kinds of things and we will be right in the middle without the connectivity that we need. And that would be disadvantage. But if we can have an alternative situation through quad, etc., through the supply chains and telecommunications and all that. So if we have a kind of alternative to BRI, that is the way to go. But they have plenty of money. They have a 15 trillion economy. So they have plenty of money to invest and spend and that is why they are five times more than us. So they have the money and that is why they are going on to these adventures. And that wouldn't affect them financially. But now we are here about the reports from China are very ominous. Like that property giant collapsing and many private agencies being taken over by the government. And so a lot of disturbing things are happening. But all this we don't know because the information from China is not very easy to get. There are rumors about leadership change or threat to the present leadership and so on. But we don't know, these are rumors. I don't think there is a very clear axis like that. Yes, Turkey is negative towards India, Pakistan is. But I don't think Qatar is. Qatar is very friendly to India. I don't know. That's subjective. But Al Jazeera is Qatar itself as you know. So that may be the reason why. But Qatar, we never considered Qatar to be unfriendly to us. Well, they're talking very much. In fact, if you see the declaration US in Washington, very clearly they talk about ASEAN as a close partner. And now that it's not a military alliance, it is possible that quad will be expanded to include others. Quad and ASEAN are quite friendly. And they also have an anxiety against China. But they would not want to provoke China into doing anything. That's why they're kicking out like we were. But now that this clarity is established, that is not a military alliance that will be doing more soft power or practical development activities, then they may feel more comfortable enjoying it.