 Sir, now you can take your seat. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. And this is with particular reference to the Faculty of Tetsuo College, the students of Tetsuo College and any other participants that we have out here. I just wanted to tell you how much of a pleasure it is for me to reconnect with a larger body in Nagaland after my departure in 2013. Yes, I have been in connection with individuals, but this is the first time since I left that I'm having the opportunity to speak to a larger body like this. And for that, I need to convey special thanks to Dr. Anirudh for having given me this honor. I am at a premium, so let us begin. I would like to start by saying that when we are studying the relationship between two nations, you know what is happening today is visible and probably all of you are current with it. But to be able to look at how we have to assess the situation and how we need to go forward, there is a need to look at what is it that China represents. You know, in the Army, whenever you talk about an operational plan, the first and foremost thing is what we say, getting to know your enemy. Now out here, in case we are looking at a certain equation, a certain relationship with China, it is very, very important to understand the country. And particularly China, because you can see a consistency in certain objectives and the manner in which the nation has been conducting itself. So let's go back in time a little, allow me to narrate a little bit of history and then we will draw certain inferences from whatever has happened in the past. The first point I want to convey to everybody is, I'm sure many of you would have heard it, of China considering itself or calling itself the middle kingdom. What does it imply? You know, the interpretation of the earliest Chinese and here we are talking about, it started, the records are say from 2050 BC. So the first dynasty that is referred to called the Chu dynasty, had set up or dwelled in the plains of the Yellow River and their interpretation was that anybody else outside this domain of ours is of a lower culture, a lower status and they even refer to them as barbarians. And with the result, they took it upon themselves that there is a need to integrate all these communities and to kingdoms and bring them into our elevated or higher culture. So over time, you had constant conflict. The dominant kingdom in conflict with the others trying to integrate them and in this process, sorry, you had a total of 13 dynasties in China. The dominant clans have changed starting with the Chu like I mentioned, subsequently at some stage you have had the Mongols in governance, you have had the Manchus who hail from Manchuria and more recently or presently you have the Han clan that is dominant in China. Now the point I'm trying to highlight is the kind of conflict that people have gone through. The last dynasty that was overthrown in 1912 was the Qin dynasty, Qin pronounced with a Q that is Q-I-N-G or sorry, spelt with a Q. Now in this last 19th century is when significant changes took place. Till then it was by and large an internal affair of the Chinese only, but Western traders had started now after India reaching out further east and you have the record of the Portuguese having reached their first and occupied the island of Macau. Subsequently almost every European country has come in there and landed up in China. The items for trade from China were primarily silk, ocelain and tea. Now this was huge earning for China because China for the first time was being paid in silver and this was very soon a trade imbalance where the western countries were suddenly suffering a very negative imbalance. To be able to get over that negative balance of trade the British had introduced, you must have heard of the opium wars so they had introduced opium into the trade. Very soon the ill effects of opium were visible to everybody and China started regulating and controlling the trade of opium. That is what resulted in the opium wars of the first and the second there were two wars, the first one which ended in 1842 and the next one in 1860. What is it that has happened during this time? China was made to make plenty of concessions where trading was taking place from one port. You suddenly had about 15 ports that were opened up to the western traders. Hong Kong was ceded to the British. Now why I mention all this is it was also the cause for a lot of internal turmoil in China and gradually the Qing dynasty started losing its hold to the extent that you then had the Japanese invade in 1895. The reason for mentioning this is what the Chinese even today fall back upon as unequal treaties. That is how there is a great resentment against what they term colonialism which is even today influencing behavior in a big, big way. So I made a mention of two things till now. First was that we are the middle kingdom and everybody around us is a barbarian. They need to be integrated and here you have the negative impact of colonialism which they refer to as unequal treaties. This is the backdrop of people's minds. It influences generations even today. Come into the situation of World War II where China is with the Allies, Japan is defeated but then comes the after Japan has been defeated with the aid of the Allies. You then have the internal dissension that takes place between the nationalist party of the Kuomintang against the communist led by Mao Zedong. Finally, you would all know that the nationalist party had taken refuge in Taiwan and you had the Republic of China being established in 1949. Initially, their huge neighbour Russia and China were in alliance. Both communist countries, one Marxist, one Leninist. But after the demise of Stalin, when Khrushchev came into power in Russia you suddenly had a conflict here amongst the communists. This became a motivation for China and Mao Zedong to try and take a leadership role as a communist model and bringing out the third aspect of this historical perspective that you're looking at. And that was first what they called the great leap forward. This was Mao's idea of bringing in communist principles into life where people were being herded into communes. It coincided with the famine. The figures of the number of deaths in China range all the way from 10 million to 40 and 45 million. Those are the kinds of figures that are being quoted. Again, try and understand the kind of mentality where even when deaths are taking place in such a large scheme you can have a statement by the head of government to say that in a crisis like this some people need to eat, others may have to be sacrificed. So they were prepared to allow people to die and waste away while some could survive. It was a better experience. But once this finished you suddenly had people who were in leadership roles actually who saw the negative effects of whatever happened now contesting or at least questioning authority. It resulted in after that what they called the cultural revolution started in 1966. What was it? Just a message out to a lot of the youth. These were essentially students who got together and formed the Red Guards. They went on a rampage where they were all being encouraged to get rid of the bourgeois, the educated, the more privileged. So reports are that even those who dressed differently from the traditional Chinese attire were picked up on the road and beat up and again the number of deaths range all the way from 5 lakh to 2 million or so. Those are the kinds of figures being quoted. But it was a manner of Mao Zedong re-establishing his authority. Now when you think of all of this, try and look at how so much of it is also being played out again and again. Anyway, to get moving forward Mao Zedong passes away in 1976. With a brief interim, you had the great reformer Dinsio Ping come into power. Now he is the person who has actually set China onto the route, onto the agenda on which it has been for a long time. Which was what he called the Four Modernizations and which transformed China and China continues to thrive as an economic power. Now that is the kind of country that was created but let me tell you again to fall back on whatever I talked about till now. Even a great reformer like Dinsio Ping did not hesitate to launch an attack on Vietnam in 1979. He came to power in 1977 to launch an attack on Vietnam because Vietnam had invaded Cambodia ruled by the Khmer Rouge who were a Chinese puppet. In 1989, because with the reforms there were problems in terms of corruption, people getting very wealthy, many being left out. And it created a kind of a student movement against the government. It was actually triggered by the death of one of their reformers. Now he did not hesitate to send in the army and there were huge massacres for which there are no accurate figures also. Now this is the kind of mindset that we are looking at and like I said a consistent mindset that continues even today. Now Dinsio Ping moves out of the scene but remember one very significant directive that he had got recorded was that every leader, every Communist Party leader, every president would spend only two terms in power. Five years, five years, maximum of ten years after that you made way. So after Dinsio Ping left the scene in 1989 you had between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao coming into power and then in 2012 comes Xi Jinping. Now you see a different kind of a China manifesting itself for which you can fall back on what I spoke about in history. A dominant China economically rising to great heights number two only to the United States. Anybody who is inclined and has the time please go through a book called Rise and Fall of the Great Powers written by Paul Kennedy. In this book he assesses regimes all the way from what he has called the modern era that is from the Ottoman Empire onwards. Talking about how any country that grows economically extremely powerful automatically builds up an armed force to be able to protect that economy. And the moment the size of those armed forces reach a certain state it has invariably resulted in conflict. Where will that conflict be? When will that conflict be is open to question. But this is the kind of China that we are facing. Let's come to the other side and look at India. We had a colonial past but India achieved its independence through a nonviolent movement. The difference I want to draw here is massive rebellion, killings, death had very little effect on people when it came to moving forward. A very different situation here where at independence the leadership here was you could call in the socialist mode a little bit of a pacifist nation. Looking at peace not wanting conflict. I think your concept paper has already brought out commands by Dr. Mbedkar. Similarly the Home Minister then Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. There were apprehensions about China. But the fact is that you were suddenly coming out of a colonial time. So probably we'll all have to put our hearts and minds into what people felt at that time. So there was a constant attempt or effort to appease China in the hope that things will be quiet. 1962 is history. What happened for all that appeasement is now well known. With the rise of the economy. Now everybody, I mean most of you would know that in 1971 China, sorry, the United States looking at China as a huge market had taken the initiative and it was Pakistan who introduced China to the US, opened them up. And during Deng Xiaoping's time there was no stone left unturned to be able to get the maximum out of that relationship in terms of technology education. And they use that opportunity to great effect in terms of establishing universities, not only facilities and there has been a lot of espionage to be able to get hold of the technologies that they require. So what do you have? A massive armed force. You have reached a stage where they have started imposing themselves on the entire neighborhood. So when we talk about problems between India and China, we need to look at this even in a wider context. Because you have got China reaching out into the South China Seas very arbitrarily laying out a complete area that is meant to be their area of influence. Island territories are being built upon, air bases coming up, oil exploration by other countries being prevented. An air exclusion zone having been declared. You look at the kind of pressure that is being put on Taiwan. Short of physical movement into Taiwan, most recently large numbers of aircraft flying through Taiwanese airspace. The kind of market that China offers people, nobody, no other country is prepared to even establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. And now the relationship between India and China over time, some amount of this friction on the borders have been there, but it has been managed. Of late there was a speech made by Xi Jinping where he has given a direction of fortifying our borders. And that is when you suddenly see the kind of incidents that are taking place now in Ladakh. This is the situation, the way we see it. What is it for the future? We've got eminent speakers coming up. I will look if there are questions and answers to take on later because I may be taking too much of time. But I just wanted to say one thing that we have to look at the response both at the strategic level and at the operational level. We have to recognize that there are certain equations between two countries that we have to be conscious about. And today as far as an economy is concerned, we are barely a quarter of the size of the economy of China. So with that, when you look at the armed forces, again we have a massive differential. So managing localized situations, not an issue. You saw certain initiatives taken or you must have heard about certain initiatives taken recently because now everybody has got to know that there is a huge lack of trust. Why do I say lack of trust? When I talked about the declaration of the South China seas as their own, there is a United Nations response to a complaint filed by the Philippines, wherein China has lost out on that, you know, they're declaring that particular area which they call the Nine Dash Line, which is checked by the United Nations, but it has not had any impact on China. You look at the agreement signed with the UK as far as Hong Kong is concerned. Signed in 1997 where an assurance of 50 years of one nation, two systems was committed, that has been abrogated. The number of agreements signed with India starting from 1993 to 1996 to 2003 to 2013, there are many of restrictions imposed on armed forces across the border in movement in terms of deploying, all of that has been thrown to the wind. So this is the kind of adversary we are looking at and let's make no bones about it. You know, over time we've had discussions of, no, we don't call China a competitor. We, you know, we look at collaboration and stuff like that. Let's face it, we have an adversary across the border with us. The question is how to address it. So when I was referring to the strategic level, you may be hearing in international fora as to a kind of a mobilization of democracies. Because across the globe, people have realized as to how China with its Belt and Road Initiative, with the kind of establishments of ports, what we have been referring to as the string of pearls, starting from Hambantota in Sri Lanka to Gwadar in Pakistan to Djibouti towards Africa. Now all of these ports are being gradually militarized. Djibouti where they constantly said that it is only a kind of a place to monitor their commercial traffic through the Indian Ocean. A garrison has been established out there. So that is the reality and the rest of the world is seeing it. So everybody is talking now about alliance of democracies to contest China. The strategic level with diplomacy, with the kind of joint exercise that you may have heard about between Australia, Japan, the United States, India, all of these measures are on. What is to be happening at the tactical level, I will leave out for now. I don't want to dwell on that, but subsequently if there is anything that is okay to speak about, I'll speak. I would like to end with this purely to have put a perspective into what I presume will be complimented by the subsequent speakers. Thank you very much.