 And now, I will give the floor to our great friend of the WPC, Mr Narayana, who was particular in his long, impressive career, the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. And the position of India is particularly important these days, not only vis-à-vis China, but also vis-à-vis the current Ukrainian war and many other issues. So I am very pleased to give you the floor. Thank you, Mr Thierry. Thank you for this very generous introduction, which I don't deserve. I hope it will permit me to make a few specific opening remarks. And having been behind the scenes for over 60 years of my life and career, I have some prepared remarks which I would do. I almost seem to have anticipated what you mentioned when you said just now. What do you mean by the Indo-Pacific and why the Indo-Pacific? In India, the concept of the Indo-Pacific is generally seen as a geographical space rather than an artificial construct, not seen as evidence of what we call a group of nations ganging up against China. But it was seen as a means of getting countries which have similar thoughts and ideas together. But of late, I would say at least the strategic community in India tends to regard this as having become the primary zone of strategic competition in today's world. I know Ukraine occupies a lot of space in the European thinking. But I do think that a far greater conflict is in the offing as far as the Indo-Pacific is concerned. And that will cover not merely the nations of Asia and adjoining areas, but I believe across the world. So for that reason, why do I say this? Today, unlike in the case of Ukraine and Russia, where the lines are drawn very clearly, in the Indo-Pacific, what we have is a greater contestation and debate as to two basic philosophies that are present and not really in terms of the military, per se. And it's about the rules of international order. We have not gone into a major war as such, but the rules of international order. Who decides to draw the lines as far as the world is concerned? And more importantly, who is allowed to write the rules? Because if you have the right to write the rules, then what they say is right. So I think that's the major importance of what we mean today by the Indo-Pacific. According to the next aspect, I would say that India has generally been allergic to alliances of any kind. That has been its standing policy. We had non-alignment. I know that the western particular were not particularly happy about non-alignment. But over the years of the centuries, India, the very old country, it's been obvious that we don't take what are called partisan policies in these matters. We like to take up issues rather than have alliances of various kind. But a few years ago, India decided to become a member of what is generally referred to as a Quad. But the full terminology is the Indo-Pacific Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. The other members of this are the United States, Japan and Australia. Initially it was conceived as a means to strengthen the democratic forces in the region without specifying China, but obviously it was intended against China. But at that time it was conceived and for a few years thereafter, India did not subscribe to the view that Quad should be viewed as a defense alliance. Today, however, I think India is shifting its posture in this regard. Why do I say this? Because if you look at the way India is progressing today, the scope and ambit of India's defense diplomacy has vastly expanded. We have what are very well known in our part of the world, the Malabar naval exercises. I think my two co-panelists would read that. And that has been expanded. We now have Australia and Japan as members of the Malabar exercises. India and Japan and India and Australia have also now endorsed the 2 plus 2 format, the US 2 plus 2 format, so it includes their defense ministers alongside their foreign ministers in the dialogue. Today in the Indo-Pacific, we have separate from the Quad, the US, Australia and the UK who have a separate defense pact, the AUKUSA is called AUKUS. All three members of this pact are treaty partners and the objective of the alliance is therefore clear. It doesn't have to be specified. What I would like to put forward, put out at this point is whether it is a Quad or the AUKUS, I'm unsure what it would be the impact of this as far as limiting China's aggressive designs are concerned and I think this is a matter which can be debated. What is of greater concern, what should be of greater concern at least, is the rapid pace at which China is pursuing its revolution in military affairs. I think this is going on at least, I don't think it finds adequate mention at least in the general writings that are present and much of it is driven by artificial intelligence systems and what permeates through the various channels that are present, it is quite frightening and in many ways is far advanced than every other country in the world with the possible exception of the United States. There is also China's escalation domination matrix in which nuclear weapons and new forms of hybrid warfare form a constituent part, not much advertised but nevertheless present as far as we are concerned. Most important is China's total disregard for international covenants as also its willingness to use force to achieve its objectives in the South China seas. All this has in a sense leading India to visit or revisit some of its concepts. The China-Taiwan tensions do not impact very much as far as India's diplomatic overreach is concerned but we have very warm relations with Taiwan and China's oft repeated threats to invade Taiwan by force does underscore the idea that this is a matter of strategic importance for all nations in the Indo-Pacific. One matter of concern for people in India, those seldom expressed in public, is that few of the countries in the Asian region are willing to stand up to or engage in a conflict with China. India views this as indirect encouragement to China to act with impurity and to disregard the views of its Asian neighbors. Let me conclude my opening remarks by affirming what is the subject of today's discussion. Reading China correctly is the key to the relevance of the Indo-Pacific. The relevance of the Indo-Pacific as a strategic concept. I think reading China correctly is perhaps the most important part of this. No doubt, and I don't think there's anybody in the room or outside who does not view China as the 400 pound gorilla in the Indo-Pacific. Yet, even though India and China have a running conflict, particularly over the 7,000 kilometer land border, I want to say, having spent years in it, I was there in 1962 when China first invaded India. I was on the China desk in my organization. I've been there right through several successive periods when India and China had conflicts. As a national security advisor, I had several rounds of discussions with the leadership in China. I had an opportunity to discuss, I mean, Mr. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, etc. I know their views. For them, there are no friends. And certainly India is not a friend, as far as I'm concerned. But yet, as a practitioner or somebody who's been the guy, I would say that we need to be careful as to how we see and deal with China. We cannot take sort of anticipatory moves, if I might say so, because China is a very complex country. If you do a kind of a military overreach, as you can hear from time to time when people talk about this, I think there are problems for the Indo-Pacific, per se. I draw the attention, and I say this is greater courage today than I've done yesterday, when I heard Mr. Kevin Rudd talk about it. The 20th part of Chinese Party Congress has just taken place. The conventional view is that it has reinforced the opinion that China is ready to take on the world, more or less, or take over, or sort of eclipse the United States of the number one world power, et cetera. Many of us who have studied China over the years would, however, see things rather differently. It's a much more inward-looking document. The principal concern of Xi Jinping is, how do I consolidate my position in the Party, and what do I need to do for that? Being the identity of Chinese Communist Party, not letting it go to what happened in Russia is his principal message that comes through from this. I would therefore say that rather than looking at it purely from the point of view, how do we tackle China's aggressive designs, we must understand what China is about and how do we deal with it, because the geostrategic concept of the Indo-Pacific is very important for most of us who live and have to consider living in that region. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for this most interesting presentation, and I think that one dimension of international politics that is missing for the Europeans particularly is to dig more towards understanding the others, to understand the others in depth, not to consider that their own paradigm prevailed over the rest of the world, and I think that explanations illustrate that very well.