 Excellent. So good afternoon everyone and thank you to all those especially in Asia staying up very late for this event. Welcome back to the 2021 epic symposium. I hope some of you had the chance to attend the first year of panels they were really interesting discussing the South China Sea discussing multilateralism and how China and the US and Russia fall into place. This session is called beyond the Galwan Valley, and it's about the future of India and China relations. It is part of our series of expert led small group discussions designed to break the wall between panelists and audience and really get to the crux of the conversation. And I would like to introduce our panelists for whom, as I said I'm tremendously grateful for for agreeing to join us at such short notice. First, we have Pratik Joshi, who is pursuing his PhD from St. Anthony's College University of Oxford. His research deals with the intellectual history of Indian foreign policy. Thank you so much for joining us Pratik. And next we have Aman Thakkar, who is the senior program manager at India's poor and an adjunct fellow with the Wadwani chair in the US India Policy Studies for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. Thank you so much for joining us. So I'm also extremely delighted to introduce the topic, the troubled India China conflict, which was reignited with full force as a result of the 2020 Galwan Valley clash that killed 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese soldiers as dragged on with little promise. This is the last month that have been promising signs of disengagement of troops at the pangong so as a culmination of a series of diplomatic rounds last year. However, other regions along the line of actual control such as that song remain hotly contested by both countries. Furthermore, the border tensions have since manifested into economic sanctions placed by India against Chinese technology goods and mobile applications. India has also pushed India to strategically align with the quad consisting of the United States, Japan and Australia. Adding to this, the ever present effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have altered the balance between the two countries and have assured a rethink in military spending. With this in mind, the session hopes to trace how we got here, what the current points of contention are, and where we go from here. I would like to begin by allowing Pratik and Aman to share that introductory remarks and their perspectives on the points of contention today, after which the audience may raise their hand to ask a question so the raise hand feature is in the reactions on your zoom tab, or you could also drop a question in the chat feature and you could choose to remain anonymous by sending it directly to me as well. So without further ado, Pratik you have the floor. Thank you very much Arjun for such a wonderful introduction. I'm very happy to participate and I also thank Uzair for putting my name. So beginning with my introduction, so how many minutes do I have if you could give us a tough estimate. Let's start with five but I know you have a lot more to share as well. I do limit it in five so I'll begin with slightly disappointing note that I have a very unacademic way of looking at things. And I do admit I don't have a methodological or a theoretical training because I am an area studies person. What what what happens with that is I rely on 50 60 different people who ranging from policymakers to think tankers to people who are in the system were in the system, who are about to go into the system. What what what I do with that is I triangulate that information and I have a very interesting conjecture to share. This is something which has not been, say, publicly debated or accepted but what what happened is. Now, if if I elongate the time span which is, you have an increasing China Pakistan cooperation you have in the other orientations towards the Americans, the court and all these things they are quite well known. Yes, we all again know that article 370 and the change in Kashmir's this status becomes a trigger when the Indian leadership says that we will reclaim back both parts of Kashmir which have been taken by the Chinese and by the Pakistanis. And then there is this talk of two front war when the Indian army chief at multiple occasions, especially from General Robert onwards, you see the intensity going up on on the possibility of two front warfare, which may may not be true but at the same time the specter was created and it was very well accepted. What it has done is that when. So if you if you see what happens from 2016 onwards you have the first surgical strikes, and then in 2019 you have the second surgical strikes. And then at the same time you have the talk of a second, you have the talk of a different war. And finally you have Kashmir status being changed where it clubs India Pakistan and China, especially China and Pakistan from from the territorial claims, and yet at the same time you have rhetoric that we will reclaim these these territories back. Why I am related to my an academy we are doing things is what happened in in March, April onwards 2020 is that since I speak to a lot of Pakistani academicians and then settled again both in the US and the journalists settled across Pakistan, America and Europe. I had four or five of my friends saying what's up from the Indian side. Is there something about to happen. It's it struck me only after the Galwan thing had happened now I am seeing it because you had a big terrorist attack in me where two Indian army officers was killed. And that's where there is another talk of a surgical strike to be conducted inside. I'm not saying it was a decision but there was a good rumor mongering going on that you have Indian officers being killed. You had two surgical strikes, you should be planning the third one. And that's where you have a big truth mobilization across the Ladakh China border. Why. Yeah, so what what what also happens simultaneously is that these people I've been talking to there is this rumor that India is doing something and then you have the Chinese mobilizing on that side and finally in June you have that trigger. The trigger was not big enough to say that it was an open belligerence in a way that the yes we had killings brutal killings but at the same time, I would say they were kept. They were they were tactical in nature weapons were not used. They were these clubs with barbed wires which were used so the threshold was deliberately kept beneath a certain level and now there's a debate that whether this was a tactical move on part of the plan or whether this was something ordered by Beijing I'm not going into that but definitely this thing comes immediately after immediately after the the rumor in the Indian side that Indians are about to mount the surgical strike on the Pakistani side of that Kashmir and on top of that there are some good again undercurrents that the way the Pakistani and the Chinese military officials have been operating and have been conducting their relationship it's quite intermixed. I think in the last two three years has been a greater synergy. And this also feeds back with this Indian narrative that we are ready for a two point war, we might do a two point war if needed. So you see this this self fulfilling prophecy which the Indians. And I think I think in that way the the the Ladakh the Galwan incident also a partially or in a very informal way proves that from what the Indians perceive that a two front thing could be in the making so this is what was understood. I know it's something which has not been debated or discussed but but this is what I could gather from a tactical point of view from a regional point of view I'm sure someone has some interesting global insights, and I would love to hear him. So I gave a regional insight into the scheme of things which I noticed from my own sources from my own personal reading of the incident but yes, the dark should be seen as something which is now sandwiched between between a two front strategy. And it's it's you see Kashmir as how it's seen by India, especially the new maps. So both China and Pakistan, they are, and the way you also see how Kashmir has been reduced to its its original geographical form it's like they show it as just 10% of the region. So the new focus definitely is Ladakh and the way China and Pakistan are conceived by by India so it's it's it's a way to say that India in a way was talking about the two front war increasingly increasingly increasingly and it was something the Chinese also gave some sort of inkling that this could happen if you do something on that side of the borders. So that's how I end it. Thanks. Thank you so much for that and I think that that has a perfect segue into a month's ideas to how this looks at beyond just the regional and looking at it from the global someone over to you. Thank you Arjun and Pratik and you know to Tufts and the the epic conference. It's a pleasure to be here and to talk about India China. And you know thank you to all of you who are up late or getting up in the morning whether in the West Coast or in South Asia or very in Europe. Thank you for tuning in. So my remarks I think I think yes are sort of contrasting with Pratik in a very interesting way that we come at this from two very different angles. My perspective is of being someone who studies India who is Indian and you know who looks at Indian foreign policy but is based in DC and so there's an actually different sort of perspective that comes in and it's really interesting to see how you know you can combine those two so I really commend Arjun and you know the organizers for getting the two of us to you know share insights and always interesting to learn from Pratik and you know the sources and the conversations he has. For me let me proceed on on sort of four part you know and I'll get it done in within five minutes I hope and then I want to you know hear from the you know the people in the room on questions they have in directions they want to go. You know I'll do four parts I'll just do a very brief history of you know what's happened in Gowan and in the Eastern Ladakh. What this engagement agreement is, from my understanding, where things can go from now specifically on disengagement, and then where things can go in the broader India China relationship and then I can sort of include what factors about, you know US Pakistan other countries, like Japan and Australia and the quad, you know how those fit feature in that last segment. So I think you know everyone's eyes have been on on the dock for for for a while now, especially since June but you know this crisis dates back to around April or May. And where you know we had exercises that were happening in Tibet in the Chinese and the thought being that you know troops removed very quickly from that exercise in order to undertake this kind of operation in Eastern Ladakh. To date I think Pratik has given us well I think Pratik has given us a lot of good factors of why China was interested in undertaking a maneuver like this. But to this date I mean if you talk to Indian strategist you'll get a very different answer on why this has happened so much so that India's external Affairs Minister S.J. Shankar says we don't have a good answer on why China decided to do this but that they did this. And that this you know kind of activity was undertaken in Eastern Ladakh and so you know what you have is sort of multiple ingresses across multiple points in Eastern Ladakh, obviously Pengong so which we you know Pratik brought up. You know Deptsang which Arjun mentioned Gawan Valley where the unfortunate incident of June 15th took place as well as a couple of other areas you know gograh hot springs and Demchuk. And these are sort of the areas in which you've seen China sort of ingressing or attempting to ingress in multiple areas. And, you know you've seen military talks happen. This is the traditional way in which decisions are our discussions or happen is the commander sort of meet and figure out you know what what is causing the standoff and move on that's what happened I think very briefly. There was a similar standoff in the other side of the India-China border in Sikkim in Nakula and then you know the commander's met they is engaged and things moved on. There was a hope that that was what would happen in Ladakh as well. It didn't happen again because there were multiple ingress points but also because you know they seem to be a coordinated aspect to how China was moving into Eastern Ladakh. And so you know you have lots of military talks and a lot of diplomatic talks you had lots of diplomats taking part in military talks and an agreement was first reached right just before the Gawan Valley incident that Indian and Chinese troops would disengage in Gawan. And then the Indian side story is that they went to investigate whether the disengagement was going on as required as needed. And found that there was a Chinese camp and Chinese sort of soldiers in areas that they shouldn't have been. The verbal disagreements escalated to physical disagreements led to the kinds of brutal violence that Pratik discussed with barbed wires on sticks and you know the deaths leading to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four, if not more I think China's been very intentional about keeping the military casualty deaths limited and you know as people like Professor M. Taylor for Val at MIT talk about they haven't you know they took so long to release military casualties from the 1962 senior Indian war that we may never know for for a couple of decades what the true casualty number was on Gawan. And you know since then you've seen both sides kind of dig in, you saw India launch a counter operation to perceive Chinese ingresses in the South Bank of Pangong so, you know, securing the, the rich, the heights, and in the mountain areas on the South Bank, and the lush range, and you've seen them sort of dig in for a large part of the winter you know you saw that there were constant communications happening they were core commander meetings there were you know the working mechanism sort of meetings at the diplomatic level. You had the meeting between the external affairs minister and the defense ministers of both sides in Moscow in September, but really there was a sense that this crisis was not going away. You've got this now announcement in February of the disengagement at Pangong so there's been some discussion if you haven't seen the interview with General YK Joshi. You know the northern commanding officer there who spoke to a couple of media channels he sort of describes what he thinks happened and why the operation on the night of 29th and 30th August to secure those rich lines in the South Bank of Pangong so may have been something that that changed the game for India that's his perspective and you know he's on the ground and has shared that perspective in the news media so that's you know, available to us in the public domain. And you know, on first sight it does seem like that disengagement is taking place. Independent sources have verified that Indian and Chinese troops have disengaged at Pangong so that there is a understanding the kinds of misunderstandings that took place or miscommunications that took place in Galwan aren't happening in Pangong and the biggest signal that disengagement worked in that one specific area of Pangong so is that part of the agreement 48 hours after the disengagement should be complete both sides would have another core commanders meeting and they had that core commanders meeting the 10th meeting of core commanders. And so we know that the disengagement of hang on so has taken place successfully and to the contentment of both sides. However, the crisis is not really over yet. And that's partly because of what Argent said here which is that you've seen a lot of standoff points still yet to be disengaged and I'll just focus on one which is depth song because it aligns very neatly with what critique said. And the issue with depth song is that is the only the area north of depth song is the only place in which the kind of fears and the kinds of interest that critique mentioned with China and Pakistan become truly relevant it's the only place where physically, India, sorry Chinese and Pakistani troops can collude if they wanted to do that. It is the only place by which China is afraid that India can use the depth song planes as a launchpad to undertake that kind of operation that critique mentioned the fears that maybe Beijing had of the political statements will take back oxide channel will take back troops that areas that you know are under Chinese or Pakistani control depth song planes, the way the geography is suitable to mechanize warfare. That seems like the place where China would be interested in making sure that there's nothing happening on toward to challenge its own territorial integrity and its own territorial claims as it sees it. And so that is going to be one of the more complicated areas in which this disengagement is going to go on and I wouldn't be surprised if that part that particular part of, you know where India Chinese Chinese troops are continuing to sort of face off and access for Indian troops to areas they used to go to before. That takes a lot of time to disengage we'll see, you know there's very little public information on how these diplomatic meetings, you know go on as we should we were surprised when the February decision of disengagement came about. It may be that this engagement is on the cards but the way in which their vested complicated interest in depth song in particular should leave us to believe that this crisis is not yet over and you know, any premature operations at one side has prevailed over the other. And I think both sides have been guilty of this after the, after the Pangong Lake disengagement was announced, neither side has one yet night aside has lost yet and there's a, there's a, you know, a significant way in which this crisis can go forward. In terms of paths forward. I'll just, you know, speak here and then I'll conclude is that I think we are now at a point in which India and China relations will not go back to normal Indian side. The Indian ministers and diplomatic functionaries have said that out loud, I think Chinese sides, even if they haven't said that publicly probably believe that. You know, I think India has been now very sort of direct about the way in which the boundary has now become the core issue within the India China relationship it wasn't since the agreement and the visit between when Rajiv Gandhi visited King Xiaoping, that era I think is fundamentally over just as you're seeing, you know, there's lots of discussions about the Kusingerian era of in US China relations are over I think the Rajiv Gandhi dang era might be over in India China relations as well. Vijay Gokhale, former ambassador of India to China, Vijay Gokhale and former foreign secretary has a very interesting paper on how you can start to build back that trust. And he sees a desire and a need for both sides to sit down and have frank conversations and recreate some of the informal summits in which there can be, as we saw in Anchorage yesterday or today, an airing of the grievances and a very sort of public discussion on where things are going. I think that's one path forward. I have a little bit less faith in the informal summits leading to any breakthroughs. In fact, I see if the informal summits which were meant to clear the air between India and China about issues around the world could not have broken the issues that have come about so far and have led China to undertake the kind of military actions that it did. I don't see why they would be different anytime now. To be fair, there were only two informal summits and so more can help, but I think there's fundamentally very little trust between India and China at this point forward. And that's something that they're gonna have to grapple with moving forward. I think that lack of trust implicates everything else in the relationship. So whether or not China believes that the border should be central to the relationship or not, I think the reality is that it's going to be. I think you'll see it from India and the economic side of things, as Arjun talked about. I think the trade deficit is going to become a very significant part of the relationship as Indian sort of officials have said over the last few years that the trade deficit with China is unacceptable politically and not just statistically. I think on tech you'll see a lot of issues come up and there are directions which we can talk about that as well. But fundamentally, what I just wanna leave the conversation with right now is there are very few paths back to business as normal in India-China relations moving forward. And I think in that sense, you have these kind of complications come up on issues like Quad, issues like Indo-Pacific. That lack of trust continues to pervade India-China relationships as India continues to align with countries. China has been one country that has undertaken alignments of pivotal points in its history, pivoting to the USSR during the early parts of the Soviet Union and then pivoting to the United States during the Kissingerian era of the Kissingerian sort of model. They've tilted as leaders in Beijing and thinkers in Beijing likes to talk about. I think as you see India starting to tilt, you'll see some of that discomfort starting to show when there's trust very low. And I think India's an India's interest to continue to maintain its engagements with other powers and other countries to secure its own national interests of all. And so multi-alignment as the external affairs minister calls it or strategic autonomy. You heard Ambassador Shushankar Manantak recently, if you haven't seen the discussion that he had on US-India relations, I encourage you to do that. He said, I think it very aptly that the Quad helps India maintain its strategic autonomy. And I think that is going to be the hallmark of how India sees its relationships with other powers as the trust deficit in China becomes to an all-time low. And I think that's gonna be a further complicating factor that it's just gonna continue to be a central focus within the India-China relationship. So let me stop there. I've kind of laid out, I think, a lot of the issues that come up. I haven't laid out any policy recommendations moving forward because I think things are still so fluid. But we can talk about that as people want to if there are questions about where things can go and what happens from now on. But let me turn it back over to Arjun now and then we can move on to Q&A. Thanks, thank you so much Aman for that. And for those who have had, we'll have a chance to please read his article to the South Asian Voices. I think he's also outlined that really well as to the points of contention, including Debsang. So thanks so much Aman for that really insightful opinion. As people sort of get their questions in order, I had a question that I wanted to get the ball rolling with so that we can connect the border conflict to the other dimensions of this conflict as well. So one question I had was, what do you think is the causal link? Has the India-China border conflict fueled the economic and political and social rivalry between these two countries? Or is it the other way around where the longstanding conflict has been hotly manifested in the form of a border conflict? And feel free to come off mute and go for it. Pratik, do you wanna go first or shall I take? Yeah, I think Aman you should go first and then I can argue. Sure, so from my understanding, I don't think that one begat the other, whether that the lack of sort of issues on the border or lack of progress on sort of delimiting and finding sort of a final solution on the border led to economic sort of steps being taken or vice versa that you've seen this. I think since 2008 and 2009, and I think really 2008 and the financial crisis, you've seen India and China in both sides in both the border areas and in other areas of the relationship, those tensions have started to mount. And I think it hasn't been something where one begat the other. I think tensions have been growing in that relationship throughout. I think when you talk to a lot of the initiatives that India started to be worried about or concerns about Chinese aggression or Chinese assertiveness start to come out. 2008, 2009 starts to sort of be a really good point in which you can start to look at where the history of that comes into play. The rising trade deficit, the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the desire to challenge Indian territorial integrity. I think Beijing knew what it was doing. I don't think there was any conversation or I don't think there was any confusion about the fact that a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that cuts through territory that India claims was something that they overlooked. And so you had these things build up. You had the launch of successive stand-offs along the border be a 2013, 2015, Doklam in 2017, Eastern Ladakh now in 2020. I think all of these things in multiple domains of the relationship, the stress has been growing. And I think with the seriousness of what has happened in Golan, I think we shouldn't underestimate just how serious of a moment that was that the first casualties in 45 years happened in Golan, that it started to affect all parts of the relationship. And I think India sees it in that various particular ways that the challenges along the border means that the entire relationship has now become derailed. There's no, we can deal with the border separately and then let's continue to do economic engagements. Let's continue to do trade. You've seen that it's affected everything. But let me also just go back before the border. Some of the things that China's challenged India on is not just on economics or the border. It's been nuclear surprise group and the India's membership there. It's been on counter-terrorism and the listing of Masuda's are. India's felt, I think continuously and over a long period of time, that China has been challenging Indian interests not just bilaterally, not just multilaterally. Not just on border, not just on econ, but in all of these areas. And so, given that background, when you have an issue like what happened in Golan take place, there isn't a, this is because of our trade deficit with China and there was suspicions. It's a lot of things that have been building up over time in the bilateral relationship that really haven't been addressed, I think, in these informal summits or if they were addressed, they weren't addressed to the point that they were addressed to the satisfaction of both sides. And so I think that's why you've seen when an incident like what happened at Golan happened and what everything else happened in Eastern Ladakh, you've seen the relationship deteriorate to a point at which I don't think this, you can't go back to business as normal. But Pratik, please jump in. Yeah, so Aman has definitely laid out the contours and I'll just add a bit, which is that economically, let's be very honest, the scale of the Chinese economy or if you compare the Indian and the Chinese economy, it's very different and that also reflects in the fact that- Anyone who shows up this, 22, this is the break. Yeah. Yeah, sorry about that, you can go on. Yeah, I'm saying that it reflects in the volume of the China-India trade. It has not really been affected. In fact, you see more and more Chinese cars running on the Indian streets. This is a surprise that I saw in the last few months being in India. So economically, it will function the way it is. It's just that the government will choose to not make a noise about it. And if there is some noise, there is some, I would say, shallow rhetoric like don't buy the Chinese lamps or don't buy the Chinese lights. That's there too, I would say, satisfied, I think probably a few hundred million potential voters. Because at the end of the day, you must understand that India is a democracy to an extent that you are answerable on a lot of accounts. And why I link it to the political side of Galwan that the killings of, now, what I'm stressing at is if you capture this impact on the political moods, national political moods, in China, this did not become an issue. It did not appeal to the nationwide sentiment because the government was definitely managing all the things, but it never seeped into the mass consciousness. It must have been to the extent that what happens to the soldiers who died and who have not been given those honors. And that's where the Chinese accepted. But on the Indian side, being a democracy, even if you call it a national democracy because there are more and more voices which call it one, but it is a democracy to an extent that it is answerable to the fact that how on the earth were these people killed? Why, how did the soldiers get killed? Now, this sets the political mood in a very different spiral and this is something which Nehru too faced. And I'm also linking it to the second part of the question of whether it's a continuum of the old rivalries. Now, yes, Nehru hid it from the Indian masses because he wanted some amicable arrangement. So five years from 1954 to 1959, Nehru chooses not to tell the Indian audience. And in 1951, the hell breaks loose in the Indian political circles and that's for the first time. The opposition is challenging Nehru, that you were lying to us. And in such a domestic pressure because he is answerable, he feels he's answerable and the opposition is so strong that he has to mount a forward policy. Or if you consider today that you have that mood which is so strong that being a constitutional democracy, you have to be answerable for all the lives which have been taken. So in that way, you cannot glide the way China or Pakistan can, especially the Chinese because there's no questioning of, I'm not saying it in a very negative way. It's just that there are certain policies which are not informed by the popular moods. But in India, it becomes extremely difficult on how you conduct your policies. And there have been episodes that yes, popular moods do drive the governments. And this is a time when the government is finding very hard because it has to sustain the economic momentum of the India-China relationship. So the trade continues. But yes, as Aman has said, it's a very difficult time. And I would say it's also a time when India's strategic autonomy, which it believes it has, takes a very different momentum in a way that you exercise your strategic autonomy by buying weapons from both the Chinese, from both the Russians and the Americans. That's how you express yourself as responding to the Chinese. And certain things which Indians do as a response to China, but I'll end by saying that the irritants which both the nations have, I think, have been there, but I would still say that this parallel between, say, not adding to what Aman said, that not allowing the Masood Azhar issue to be taken up seriously by it. And linking it to India's support for the Dalai Lama, I think that's a very, I would say, not, you know, that's not appropriate comparison which the Chinese might be making because the Dalai Lama might be, might be a, you know, a spiritual figure, but he's more or less, I would say, you know, it's not as aggressively appealing to what's happening in Tibet. We don't know what's happening in Tibet, first of all. But on the other hand, I think Masood Azhar becomes a very different. So, but the way both nations have understood each other. And also linking it to, I'll just, I have some ways to link this with the history where when Nehru was confronted on the Chinese border, India-China border and the Chinese insistence that the Mech Mohan line should be changed. I think Nehru, yeah, Nehru stuck to the fact that even the British, even if the British did not come to India, Mech Mohan would have been the natural border. But then his insistence on sticking to certain imperial terminologies that also got rubbed the Chinese on the wrong side. So, yes, it's more of an ideological thing which has now manifested so well into the power politics that it's very difficult, as Aman says, to go back. It will be a very difficult time to trust as well. There may be tactical things, but nothing on sort of some strategic realignments. No, and let me, let me just jump in and say one thing about and a very important point that Pratik raised, which is on public opinion and the sharpening of public opinion against China. I think India today ran a mood of the nation survey and found that public opinion on China is at an all-time low. But I think more seriously, we always talk about anyone who's followed India knows how Pakistan has been deployed domestically in order to galvanize domestic politics. I think for the first time, and I don't know if it's happened yet in any meaningful way, but I think for the first time the visuals of TVs, China made TVs being broken by regular ordinary Indians or the kinds of vitriol that came about around China after what happened in Galwan signals a little bit that for the first time, China is entering the popular consciousness in a way that I think, and I don't think they're comparable, but I think when I say that, I don't mean it lightly, that in a way that I think only Pakistan has been Indian domestic politics or Indian domestic public opinion. And so how that manifests is going to be a very interesting challenge and Pratik has laid out some historical parallels, historical comparisons and some points of concern or just points of observations with which we should look forward to. So don't want to underestimate that public opinion and that sort of, if I can bring the academic side of things, even if Pratik won't, because of the way that he thinks, there's a whole history of or a whole research agenda of how domestic public opinion and domestic politics influences foreign policy. And what happens in China in Indian domestic politics will be sort of another area of study for people in that regard because it's one of those ways in which it's entered public opinion in a very significant way. And I don't think it might leave just because there's disengagement at the border now or if there's further disengagement in the border in the future. So thank you so much both of you for that really insightful answer. We have a question from Atre. Atre, you want to come off mute? I had a question and I was just curious to understand like like India and China still share like good economic relationship despite China changing like what it means perhaps in the public consciousness of being populist. I was trying to understand what has happened since 2008 that has made China regress on like perhaps attitudes towards India. Like what are the main incentives for them despite like great economic partnerships to stop India and for example some international institutions or have territorial conflicts which earlier didn't exist or earlier were like historical fiction because of their relevance like excite and for all of its relevance is not that important. So like what were the key incentives that changed this relationship in 2008, 2009 and how does this help China if at all because like as you said like if the way they've been if the way they've been thought about in the public consciousness is changing it's not good for their trade it's not good for their overall countries economic health if that's what they care about but it's also not good about their reputation so it's this even good power politics. Thank you. Let me try and answer. I mean, I don't think there's a there's a very direct answer so after I apologize it may not be sort of like the most satisfying answer but there are a couple of things that you know you can point to. So, I think you've captured the duality a little bit correctly that India-China relations even in 2020 even in the midst of the pandemic and the ongoing crisis at the border of China was India's largest trading partner overtook the United States. India still taken steps to limit Chinese investment in technology or Chinese sort of government procurement from China has been limited but even despite all those steps China remains pretty significant and I think two instances one that is very recent that I can say and then I can go into the 2008-09 kind of perspective is that even despite what's been going on with the growth in trade between the two countries India has felt that it's always been lopsided so if you look at the testimony that took place before the looks about the Indian Parliament's lower house external affairs committee there was a report on India-China relations trade deficit features very directly it's a pretty sharp allegations of Chinese dumping Chinese non-tariff barriers to Indian goods you've heard India's external affairs minister say if we look at India pharmaceutical exports to other countries and the kinds of successes that Indian pharmaceuticals have we should be looking at something in China that is much beyond what we have and the only explanation is Chinese non-tariff barriers or Chinese sort of other sort of Chinese blocks before India can sort of be competitive in the Chinese market but looking again at 2008-09 I mean, you see that as being a significant I don't want to overstate because we don't have all of the answers but again, 2008-09 is the time in which now we're starting to see the ways in which the Deng Xiaoping mantra of buy your time and keep your head down has kind of gone away for these opportunities once in a century that mantra that came around in Huzhentou and now in Xi Jinping era I think that underscores why in which China is being a bit more active and a bit more assertive in asserting its own what it sees at its own national interest and seeing as its own ways of engaging the world you see the Chinese military science document that was just translated and released by the Chinese Air Force studies think tank here in the US I'm forgetting the exact name but it's a Chinese military academy for military science released a whole understanding of how it looks at its geopolitical frontiers and for the first time expands it out to the Western Indian Ocean and then the Pacific in ways in which China sees those opportunities manifesting over the next few decades and those opportunities once in a century are going to manifest if China looks at it's periphery not as ending at Nepal or the border with India but as the Northern Indian Ocean and the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf and then going towards the Pacific and so they will call it that but they have their own conception of the Indo-Pacific that stretches from the Western Indian Ocean all the way to the Pacific and they are very much thinking of opportunities in that style, in that sense and in that geography and so when you look at it that way you can start to understand why China has started to feel the need to be more actively engaged in preserving its own interest and sometimes with the cost of partners and entities like India but again, India will always come back to the point that how was it and why was it that when India was airing its concerns and was bringing them up that they weren't really addressed and there's a million reasons that we can come up they didn't think of India as being powerful enough to challenge them so India can keep complaining but as long as we keep complaining about muscle design and SG we don't really have the tools and that's maybe what Beijing thought maybe Beijing thinks that India is irretrievably in the camp of the United States and the Quad which is a misunderstanding if that is on Beijing's part but maybe that's part of the reason that they start to take actions that challenge Indian interest because they know that no matter what India is now in the camp of the West and it's not coming back we don't have the answers to that just yet but those are some of the things that I'm thinking about at least that how maybe China's perceptions of global engagement and global sort of how it thinks about the world has changed since 2008, nine and how that affects India in some significant ways. Just a small addition to this, this, Aathre's question, to what Aathre asked it's that 2007 it onwards there is an increasing realization in the Indian foreign policy circles of this new concept called string of pearls and that's such a, say, such an interesting it catches the Indian attention that the Chinese could be surrounding the subcontinental peripheries through their investment projects or their port building activities and also through their interest in elections in South Asian countries which let's not discuss how they are held and they have some interesting ways of electing presidents and dispossessing them through different actors involved maybe anyone, but the fact that there were now multiple actors who were taking interest in South Asian elections on top of that you have port building activities and that came as such a synchronized act and that went lost by the US defense of department reports or the Booz Allen Hamilton and these think tanks who were shaping and this is where when the Indian think tank foreign policy circles are also increasingly aligned with the global think tank circuits because that's the time of the nuclear deal and that's where we are exposed to global opinion and some sexy terminologies and I think string of pearls all these things they just charge up the Indian mood. I'm not saying it's true, it's not true but then this whole perception that everything is coming so synchronized from the Chinese that also feeds back into which does not say that it was not there but then it was conceptualized in a way that did catch the eyes and ears of the policy making. Thank you so much for that. We have a question from was there, was there any want to come off mute and ask the question? Yeah, thanks, Arjun. Also, I apologize if there's a difficulty with that. Yeah, I'm trying to, but my question to both of you is this weekend there was a security had about a spark that was involved and I thought it was pretty interesting to get to the code Prime Minister and Prime Minister to have a goal where we said that the fires are ready for watching users in the array without thinking out to make the first move that has come after a ceasefire if we can put an improvement on that. Is that your voices breaking? Would you want to send it in to the chat? I think your voices is cutting off. You might want to send it to the chat and I can read it out as well. Does that work? Great. We have a question from Yanis from Greece. Would you want to come off mute? And is that you can, I can do your question right after this. So hello. Thank you for your very interesting presentations on the subject. So my question regards the India's relations with Greece and Russia. So India has for decades developed a close defense relationship with Russia buying Russian military equipment and still does at the same time it has been getting closer and closer to the US. And it seems that currently it is laying the foundation for a closer military relationship with the United States. So does India feel that it has to choose between the US and Russians considering that Russia is also getting closer to China? Is it willing to sacrifice its relationship with the Russian government in order to align with the US? Thank you. Yeah, that is a good question. So Arjun, do you want to club together Uzair? And I think I just saw another question from Aniket come in or do you just want to still go one by one? I'm happy to stay a little bit over because, but I know Pratik may have to go. So just let me know how you prefer things to proceed. So I'm still waiting for Uzair's question so we can tackle this first one and then we can do Uzair and Aniket's question probably together. And I'm happy to stay on for longer as well. And those who can as well we might be about 10 minutes over but feel free to drop off anytime. Thank you. Sure, sounds good. Pratik, you first or shall I? You're on mute. I'll be very quick. I'll be very quick. So yeah, first of all, let's consider the state of the Russian economy as they are dependent on, heavily dependent on exporting weaponry. So that's one thing. The second thing is the military relationship between the Chinese and the Russians. Yes, it's taking, again, I'm not a researcher on that but from the limited information I gather is that it's not too rosy considering the fact that the Chinese have stolen Russian technologies and reversed engineered some of their things. So there is a reason to be wary of that. And thirdly, there is additional reason for the Russians to diversify their exports from the perspective that what you see happening in Central Asia, the Russians are not oblivious to the fact that the way Chinese have made in roads into the Central Asia which the Russians considered as some sort of a strategic backyard. So all these things have to be factored in before stating that the Russians and the Chinese are Pali or Indians need to have different sources. So I think, yes, we have a very interesting mix and match of things. Very, a patchwork, if you especially see the Air Force, I mean, who buys, you know, this handful of Rafals and then looks for different platforms. So it's funny in a way, but it also represents the need to diversify in a way to signal everyone that Luke will buy our stuff. Don't forget us. So we have to consider these factors in mind. That's a really good sort of perspective from Pratik and let me just build on it. So, Yanis, your question is, I think one that I've started to think about a lot and, you know, I'm starting to sort of wonder where the direction of this can go. But fundamentally, again, it comes down to a really complicated set of push and pulls that, you know, prevent India in particular from sort of saying, I'm gonna just completely break my relationship with either the US or with Russia and just sort of, you know, decide which way I'm gonna go. It's not that kind of a choice, you know, it's just not in the cards because, you know, the Indian military still depends on Russia, maybe not as much for New York procurements but for ongoing servicing, for ongoing parts. There's a reason why Rajnath Singh made a trip to Moscow in the middle of a pandemic in September to make sure that there's gonna be steady supply of defense equipment from Russia. And it's because they are afraid that, you know, not only will that equipment be slowed down because of the pandemic or other things but because there is a growing alignment between Russia and China. And that alignment comes, you know, because primarily because of the state of global geopolitics, the United States has made and named and shamed and, you know, publicly identified Russia and China as strategic competitors all the way from the 2018 national defense strategy to, you know, 2017 national security strategy to the interim, you know, national security guidance that came out from the Biden administration, the thread of Russia and China being strategic competitors of the United States continues to, you know, be. And so if Russia thinks of, you know, a country in the world that, you know, it shares its, you know, this kind of scorn from the United States, you know, it finds a friend, finds a sort of a convenience. It's a partnership that is increasingly building because of shared interests. It's not just because of, you know, a desire to sort of, you know, come together because they're in each other's neighborhoods increasingly and there's, you know, a desire. It is a shared sort of interest now because of how the United States has approached the United, approached Russia and China. For India, you know, it's gonna be a very sort of interesting a few months ahead, especially as it comes under discussion for sanctions, possibly by the United States on its acquisition of the S-400 missile system. So, you know, I know I will be and Prateek will be and maybe others on this call will be looking very closely at Secretary, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's visit to India and what discussions will come out of, you know, the meeting of both defense ministers as well as I saw Secretary Austin meeting with the Prime Minister, what discussions come out on S-400, there's a lot of congressional pressure, you know, the chairman of the foreign relations committee Senator Menendez just put on a very strong statement telling, you know, General Austin to speak a little bit more directly to India about the US's opposition to its acquisition with the S-400. But, you know, from India's perspective, a growing and deepening partnership of Russia and China would be probably one of the worst geopolitical realities if it were to emerge, if that partnership which is increasingly growing, you know, I remember there was sort of a cheeky moment where someone asked Vladimir Putin if an alliance was out of the question with China and he, you know, demirred and sort of cheekily gave an answer, you know, I'm not answering one way or the other. I mean, if you ask that kind of a question in Delhi and have people talk at length about what a Russia-China combined alliance would look like for India's interest, it would not be particularly good. And so in that way, India feels a need to engage with Russia in order to try and limit as much as it can the engagement with China. Now, whether that's a realistic ability, whether India can drive wedges between Russia and China or prevent that combined from happening, we don't know. And, you know, it will take deft Indian diplomacy to try and make sure that Russia recognizes its own interest vis-a-vis India and places that on the competing list of priorities that Russia has in its relations with the United States and China. So I think there's no easy answers there but I think from India's perspective it is that fear of a Russia-China combine that continues to drive its engagement with Russia. And that's why I think you'll see maybe in frank conversations that they have buying closed doors with the Americans trying to explain to them, look, this would be really bad for our interests. So, you know, recognize we are, we have shared interests with you vis-a-vis China. We are recognizing China's assertiveness as being a challenge on our own interest. But from our perspective, Russia is a potential partner in how we, you know, engage with the world and not a potential, you know, adversary. And so you need to give us the space to be able to manage that relationship on our own terms without threatening sanctions every time we buy goods from Russia. And so whether A, you know, the two questions come down to whether A, India has the ability to actually prevent a growing partnership between Russia and China is one. And two, whether frank conversations with the United States and the deepening of partnerships over 20 years now with the United States can actually make sure that India communicates to the United States its interests with Russia and whether the United States Russians listens despite very deeply entrenched, you know, desires to punish Russia for solar winds for the, you know, the attacks on American democracy in 2016, 2020, the invasion of Ukraine. All of those things, you know, it's gonna be hard to put the Russia and China hawks and sort of the India supporters and triangulate how that kind of works out. It's gonna be a very diplomatically difficult tightrope to walk. And so, you know, it's one of the most complicated elements of Indian foreign policy looking forward and Indian strategy moving forward. But I think there's strong strategic imperatives for why India is engaging with Russia and the way that it is. Thank you so much for that, Aman. And we have a couple of questions, but just wanted to check with both of you about time being an issue. Just have two, one of Uzair's question and a couple more, but we can go over them and I can club them as well. Yeah, I can stay on for about 15 minutes more. So maybe that's it. Same, same, yeah, maybe that's it. Sounds good, thank you. So the rest of the audience, if you need to drop off, please feel free to. We'll have this recorded and presented on our website as well. But the question that we have is from Uzair who asks, what explains Pakistan's recent push to improve relations from India? Given that the Army Chief of Staff and PM Khan have said that India will need to make the first move to create a conducive environment for talks, how will this be seen in Indian quarters and how do you account for the timing of these statements? Okay, so I'll begin with this, answering this. This is a routine thing and, but the recent push, if we understand on the tactical lines, there has been a strong push from the American side to mend ties and start on a fresh note. So this was supposed to, what I gather is that the ceasefire was actually supposed to be taking place by last October or September, but then certain things happened and then it got delayed. But there is nothing new in the speeches, which my friend Uzair mentions because, and there is nothing I would say unnatural about it because any road which the Pakistani side would propose that has to go through Kashmir. And Kashmir is something which the Indians will, as the time has flowed, they will never negotiate on that. There can be things like people-to-people ties or better bus services, visa facilities, but the fact that the Pakistani side, which it feels it's a legitimate demand because for the virtue of being in the UN, but considering the state of ties and what's happened in the valley, especially in the last three decades, and the fact that there is some sort of influence which the Pakistani side can exert on Kashmir in different ways, that speech piece always comes with this rider of something happening in Kashmir and then we'll do that. So I think we shouldn't be reading too much into that and things can be changed, but yes, Kashmir will be always, and it's been there since, if you see the 98 composite dialogue or all other, say, Musharraf Vajpayee, everything has because the Pakistani identity is incomplete without Kashmir. This is something which is embedded in the way the new nation state emerged. So we have to keep that in mind, the sensibilities and the sensitivities regarding Kashmir. Yeah, I mean, I have very little to add because Pratik has kind of nailed it in this regard, but I think when I was sort of listening to his airs question, that peace will come as long as there's this movement on India's part to make a good faith effort towards peace. India is very capable and frankly, as they feel within their rights to say, well, then you make the first move on peace limiting your influence on cross-border terrorism and taking steps on limiting your support for organizations that engage in cross-border activities or take steps on financing. And so if we see that, Pratik's kind of very smart remarks on how this is going to sort of just, the rhetoric just continues to become this roundabout that each side gets on and off of, you make the first step on this, you make the first step on that, which shows just how difficult it will be to move both sides away from their sort of entrenched interest and focus them on peace. But again, I can just speak on one thing from India's perspective, which is to go back to the two front kind of situation that Pratik raised at the beginning of this discussion. I mean, at least for me, one of the things that I was looking at in particular was the fact that India's slowing economy has limited its resources and its ability to engage in the kind of two front planning that they were thinking of. And so in that regard, that is why you saw some armored divisions that were placed in sort of the Pakistani facing theater be moved to Eastern Ladakh so that it could be something that they could engage with China. And so you've seen that kind of crunch for resources in India's slowing economy, not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but over the last two years, I think in particular 2018 and 2019, there are real implications for how India can sort of manage these threats if it's seeing it in that particular way and the way in which it's not ready for something in which both sides of that border becomes very hot. And 2020 was the hottest border along the LOC. It was the year of their first casualties along the LOC for the first 745 years. And so a two front, even if not collusive, but a simultaneous two front concern became very real for India. And it found that the resources had to be diverted in order to make sure that the more principally, significantly more serious threat was handled first. And that I think was in Eastern Ladakh. And so just again, from India's perspective, if it's going to want to have a very strong look at how it's going to deal with two very, very potentially very easily combustible border conflicts, it needs to look at a hard look at its own resources and the ability to have resources in play to address both sides of that. And I think that came into a little bit of reality in 2020 for it. And I think you'll see sort of, that's why I think you'll see sort of a big focus on why Indian growth is going to be the big driver of whether or not it can do what it pursues as its interests in world affairs, starting with India, Pakistan and India, China, but all the way out as it tries to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It's perfect that you mentioned growth because that's sort of where our penultimate question blends in, which is about India's response to the presumed failure of the Chinese tactic of using loan financing. So the question asks at this point, what do you think should be India's stance for Central and South Asia economically? Is it best for India to be aligned with the West or push harder for a third block? This is considering with limited success with the Chinese policy of providing loans. So can I begin with it? Yes, of course. Yeah, so basically India has been aligned with the West in ways that in response to the BRI, the Americans, I think I don't know the name of the program, Aman would recall it. I think they disbursed $500 million to different these small states where they could potentially use it as a counter or potentially partner with India. But the bigger problem is it's a systemic problem and let's acknowledge it that the Chinese were welcomed at least in South Asia when the Indian projects were being quite sloppy. You announce a bridge in 1995 and you start building it in 2005. That really irritates. But at the same time, the other side of the big state-small state relationship is that the small state also tries to play a ballgame saying if you don't do this, this, this, we might look for different options. And the different option is obviously China, different alternative is China. And we have to admit the fact that the Chinese have been able to deliver. If you see some of their infrastructure projects, I'm not getting into the commercial viability, but when it comes to the speed, when it comes to the optics of it, they make a big bridge and they'll name it the China friendship, something like that. There's a visible Chinese footprint on that. So that enters the consciousness of whoever who uses it sees it. In other way, Indians, they do manage to do certain good things, but then it comes after so much of a tough bargain. For instance, you see all South Asian nations where Indians are engaged in projects, some have been extremely well. I'm not contesting that, but then you should also consider delving deep into a psychological kind of relationship, especially dealing with a person who speaks the same language, who has the same culture. And then this person doing something wrong, they are at a greater receiving end because we are more embedded into the South Asian systems rather than the Chinese who come, who throw money, but they also extract their pound of flesh. That's something which is realized later, but at the same time, the offer is too generous in the beginning. So this is something which the Indian side should be acknowledging. It has acknowledged it. Probably it has acted, but let's see how it pans out. Yeah, if I can jump in here, I mean, I think how India will see this is not, you know, sort of a aligned with the West completely or a third block or something like that. I think India is going to be, and in keeping with its desire for strategic autonomy or non-alignment or multi-alignment, pick your buzzword of choice, but ultimately it comes down to flexible partnerships. And so, you know, you'll see India, I don't see there'll be any contradiction between continuing with projects that are sustainable and under international norms like, you know, the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank, you know, the Asia Infrastructure AIIB Bank or, you know, other sort of entities when the Chinese are involved. But I think, you know, you'll see one of the things that, you know, I'll make two points here. The first is that there are limitations to how India can compete with China on infrastructure. And I think that some of the things that critique brought up is very real. One is resources, obviously. India has its own infrastructure development needs that it needs to take on. And part of that is going to be how it engages with, you know, with countries on its periphery, right? A bridge that connects India through Bangladesh into its northeast is an act east project as well as an Indian domestic priority. But there are other ways in which, you know, there are not financial considerations why the Chinese are investing in certain projects. India can't, you know, go after a project in which, you know, China's saying, we'll build you a bridge as long as you recognize us and not Taiwan. India can't offer anything to a country that is willing to take on a deal like that. There's no amount of, you know, sustainable financing or grant money that's going to, you know, move a country along if China's price is, you know, we won't ask for any money back. Just, you know, vote for recognize us over Taiwan and or what we saw in Maldives, which is you can line your own pockets, you know, president of Maldives and we'll look the other way and, you know, we'll have these infrastructure development projects that continue to take on. And so, you know, there are, there are sort of, you know, areas and limitations to which you'll have, you know, limitations to which India can really compete with China. And so, you know, the investigations into the Maldives, you know, the former president and the ways in which Chinese companies were involved in his finances. There's really nothing India can do other than hope that the other side wins. They start looking at investigating and they have a more, you know, a more favorable tilt towards India. But the second thing that I think, you know, and this is something Constantino Xavier at Brookings India, I mean, you should really read his work on, on connectivity and about, you know, US, I mean, India, China, you know, maybe competition in South Asia, which is, you know, he, I really like the way that he says it, which is, you know, you can't have a strategy of denial. You can't move in this globalized world anymore to say, China should not be allowed in South Asia. And, you know, we will raise Stern sort of, you know, Dimarsh's or Stern rhetoric when China starts to get involved in Nepal. But what you have to do is, is, you know, compete where you can and join up with other countries where you can. And so in this regard, sometimes the West is going to be a, you know, it's going to be an interesting sort of model you'll have maybe, you know, with the United States is vaccine diplomacy initiative that they've launched with the quad as a way of, you know, providing service and values to the region and showing, well, you know, China promised Nepal 100,000 vaccines and promised Bangladesh, you know, if they paid for under commercial rights, we'll give them vaccines. But now through this quad initiative and through India's own vaccine diplomacy initiative, it is providing these vaccines and grant basis to Bangladesh or it's providing a billion vaccines financed by the US and Japan to Southeast Asian countries. You might see India pick up the pace on, you know, something that has been comatose for a while, but the Asia Africa growth corridor, which is an Asian red initiative between Japan and India. So Western countries are not involved. You know, Japan is going to be a big part of that initiative and there hasn't really been much progress, but in an area where China's been playing a bigger role, which is Africa and an area which is a strategic priority for India, you can have, you know, joint Asian initiatives that take forward there. So rather than a strategy of denial, which is saying, you know, oh, China is, you know, doing this, let's stop them from having these kinds of, you know, opaque contracts or these kinds of unsustainable projects, I think India's got to move toward the strategy wherein it sets a power of example, either by itself, like it's doing a vaccine, my three and the vaccine diplomacy campaign or through allies and partners, India doesn't have allies. So just partner, sorry, but, you know, with the United States, with Australia, with Japan through the Quad or with other countries in the region, like Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, these countries are looking for India to be more engaged in the region. And if they can provide an example-based alternative to China's activities in the region, that's a better strategy than just, you know, thumbing your nose and saying, oh, well, China's doing this, it's bad, it's wrong, and we should prevent it from happening at all. But by providing value to the region, it's both advancing Indian interests, independent of China, but also vis-à-vis China. So I'll leave it there. Thank you so much, Amanan Pratik, for those really insightful remarks. Unfortunately, we won't be able to go through a few other questions that we're sent in, but I really thank you both for staying slightly over time and sharing with us what has been a really insightful conversation going beyond what conventional knowledge about these two subjects are and, you know, really pointing out those points of contention that even go beyond just border conflicts, looking at economic disagreements, looking at partnership disagreements. Like you said, Amanan, I think the next step is definitely to try and build that trust, and I'm glad to host conferences like these that can bring these perspectives together. So I would like to thank all of the audience for being here. I'd like to thank my friends, family, and all the other students who are up at different times of the day. Thank you so much for being with us. And this concludes our first day of the Epic Symposium. We will be moving on tomorrow, beginning with the panel. The entire schedule is available on our website sent earlier in the chat. So look at it and that's where the Zoom links information will be as well. But thank you so much, Amanan Pratik. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Bye all. Thank you.