 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this joint South Asia Institute and so as China Institute webinar on this afternoon. On the Sino Indian crisis. My name is Avinash Palival. I am the Deputy Director of the South Asia Institute and a senior lecturer in international relations at the Department of International Studies politics and international studies we have today with us a very distinguished panel with Dr. Dr. Jaybin Jacob, joining us from Shivnathir University. Dr. Jacob is an associate professor at the Department of International Relations and governance studies at SNU India, as well as an adjunct research fellow at the National Maritime Foundation New Delhi. For anyone who's even mildly interested in India's relationship with China historically and in contemporary context you cannot afford to miss the brilliant analysis that Jaybin has been offered has been offering to us for for some time and we are very much looking forward to his forthcoming book. We have an Indian relationship with China, which promises to be a comprehensive history of this relationship, and in addition to Jaybin we have Professor Steve sang joining us this afternoon as well he's the director of the so as China Institute, and also an emeritus fellow at the Department of International Studies at Oxford, as well as an associate fellow and Chatham house. Again, if you're following anything related to China it's foreign policy it's strategic affairs. It's unlikely that you have missed Steve's analysis, both in terms of journal articles books, and a very rich array of media commentary and analysis. I'm grateful that both of you are here are able to join us this afternoon Steve and Jaybin. I will not keep. I won't, I won't, you know, delay this any further. Just a quick note, you'll have about 10 to 12 minutes to make a pitch and then we'll continue the conversation before I open the platform for the ban lists and to for the attendees and to the attendees. Thank you for joining us but if you have any question that come up. You'll see a chat box, a Q&A box actually on the bottom of your zoom page. Please feel free to write your question. I'll be reading out the questions at the end. Once we have had the initial presentation, but if you're interested in speaking out and spelling out your question yourself, just raise the hands during the Q&A itself. With those words, Jaybin, could I request you first to come and kind of really give an outline of what you think has gone wrong as we see in terms of India's response to sort of Chinese aggression in the Himalayas but not just about the border standoff. Also reflect a little bit on the larger strategic contours of this relationship and where this is at. Thank you. Thank you, Avinash. It's an honor to share the stage with Professor Steve Song and you know good to see Avinash also after, I mean under very changed circumstances from the last time. So, I want to start off by saying that I sort of was originally looking at this from a India point of view because the South Asia Institute was involved but since last China is also involved. I thought I'd speak a little bit also about how the Xi Jinping Administration has gotten its India policy wrong as well. And I'm hoping to sort of get some reactions also from Professor Song. So in 10 minutes what do I say about the present Sino-Indian crisis? You know, I think for a Western audience it's surely the case that this was not really the most important China question. But, you know, there are two parts to this problem of course that is one is that when something happens between India and Pakistan everyone and their uncle in the West is worried about how things are going to spiral out of control between two nuclear neighbors. But China and India are also nuclear armed neighbors. So that's the first issue there. The second is, you know, why that this lack of attention to what's been going on on the India-China boundary is that you know the West has consistently ignored Indian warnings about China or Indian analysis about China's rise and activities for a very long time. Post-Yenonmen is one. The launch of the BRI is another. I mean it's ignored these warnings or analysis until it could no longer do so. Now this is of course not to say that the Indian government got its policies right. Now why is this so? I think one government, the BJP government under Narendra Modi is a different government from its predecessors in terms of its expertise on Indian foreign policy or on India's China's policy specifically. And one has to sort of separate the government from the analysts. I mean, I think the analysts in India still get their China correct by and large. But the government itself, I believe, is a little wet behind the ears as far as China is concerned. It has good people within the system to advise it, but it does not seem to be the case that it has taken this advice very seriously. And I say this for a number of reasons. One, the government came in in 2014 with a bang on the Tibet and Taiwan policy. Both the Tibetan representative as well as the Taiwanese representative were invited to Narendra Modi's wedding and ceremony. But after those high optics, you know, this sort of policy sort of well felt by the wayside. Second, the Indian government was engaged in very poor PR in the wake of the doclam standoff in Bhutan. I think it pretty much let the Chinese run away with the narrative internationally. But by far the largest, the biggest mistake that the government made was to engage in the so-called informal summit with between, you know, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi and whose some achievement I think was the sum of his achievements has been to get India blindsided by the current crisis on the LAC. Now, also in the wake of the crisis, I think the government has spread its energies rather thin by expanding the ambit of talks in the beginning at least to be on the military commander level. The working mechanism, of course, on the boundary dispute already, of course, that kicked in, but there were also meetings between the foreign ministers and the special representatives on the boundary talks, which is to say that the talks went on at a political level. Whereas my, I mean, any my assessment is that this is not a crisis that is going to be resolved by political talks. China has, you know, done what it could, taking full well into account the fact that there were consequences that they were going to anger the Indians that they knew very well what they were getting into. So it's not something that could be resolved politically. If it's a military issue on the ground at the LAC, it can only be talks between the military commanders or actions between the military commanders that will result in a resolution to this. Or if not a resolution, then a permanent stalemate. Certainly, it is true that India reacted fast. It did postcode at least not and before this crisis sort of took off in a big way. It had restricted Chinese investments, but subsequently it banned Chinese apps, it scaled up its interest in military ties with the US and other members of the quad Japan and Australia. Fundamentally, there seems to be a belief within the Indian government that this situation can somehow be resolved can somehow be turned around by offering China the right incentives. And I argue that this is a mistake and that mistake that arises from a fundamental inability to understand the nature of the CCP and the Chinese political system of believing that the Chinese Foreign Ministry somehow acts just like any other foreign ministry in any other country, and which we know is not true, take into account the wolf order diplomacy. Now some acknowledgement of this is evident to the Indian ambassador in Beijing has not only met the MOFA authorities, but he's also met the Central Military Commission, as well as CCP officials. Overall, as with the CCP, so also in India, for the political class admitting mistakes is somewhat anathema. And I don't think from current evidence, the government still knows what needs to be done in order to resolve this issue. If the government understands or believes that this is not a crisis that is going away, that the stalemate is here to stay, then it has not yet thought of a policy or an approach to make this evident to, or to sort of sell this idea to the public or even to the China Studies community in India. Now in terms of what mistakes she has made in China, I think overall China's South Asia capacity is rather weak. There is no doubt to my mind that Xi Jinping is being advised rather poorly on India and on on South Asia in general, even though to Indians it looks like the Chinese are employing a master strategy in the rest of South Asia. So as a result, I think she underestimates India. And, but also fundamentally even if you were advised well, I argue that she would still get his policies on India wrong, essentially because of structural factors, which is that if China, the Chinese system that has sort of been, you know, shaped in to such an extent to deal in terms of a competition with the United States, what we acknowledge that India were a problem that would take the focus of China and the supposed to enable inevitability of China catching up with the United States. Essentially, if China cannot handle a crisis with India, remember Chinese have also lost lost soldiers in this conflict in Galwan in June. How is China going to deal with the United States. Now the Indian Army was certainly caught napping, but training and contingency planning kicked in pretty quickly. And, you know, this is the Indian Army is essentially 20th century army with the 19th century ethos that actually finds glory in expending men and material to recover from follow ups. But for this very reason, you know, it should also not be taken lightly on the LAC. You could argue that China seems to be handling the prices pretty well that it is using the opportunity to assess Indian strengths and weaknesses to put the PLA through its faces. You know, sometimes I wonder if she's not doing a tongue shopping in terms of pushing, you know the PLA to fight Vietnam as a way of quickening internal reforms in one of the most toughest or recalcitrant organizations within the Chinese political system. But this is not 1979 and she's PLA is likely to take a long, much longer time to get through spaces in a battle terrain I would remind you that does not seem to help in any sort of planning or contingencies involving Taiwan or the United States. So it's, it's a bit. I mean that has to be kept in mind. She continues what are the mistakes that China is continuing to make, I think she's actions unwillingness to apologize to India or to restore status quo and April 2020 has fast forwarded a whole set of relationships and actions by India that would otherwise not have taken place at the same pace. I referred already to the quad. I refer to the investments, the restrictions on Chinese investments in the tech space, but it is also raised the volume certainly on the debate within India on India's own military reforms and restructuring. Some steps have been taken but I think more are on the anvil. And China I think continues to ignore over shows that Indian side is making. I mean India hasn't banned Huawei, India hasn't said that Huawei cannot take part in 5G tenders inside India. Huawei is very much a part of 5G trials already happening in India, and the general ignorance of the Chinese system at the highest echelons of the Indian government will only last so, so far, or so long, and it's a mistake, it's an opportunity that Chinese are exploring to walk back from their mistakes, because if the current set of Indians in government in power and New Delhi, what is smart enough about the CCP, as much as the Americans have done in recent years, then there will be no turning back. In conclusion, I'd like to make two large statements. One, despite retrograde claims and practical actions that seem to underline the importance of sovereignty in bilateral dealings with other nations, both China and India, and India, if its present brand of politics continues and if its power increases, both China and India concede the sanctity of their territorial integrity, as applying only to themselves and not to other countries. So in this present sign of Indian crisis we see this reality in operation. The second is a still larger point I would argue that, therefore concepts like Tianshia, or what I call new Tianshia as of for China's brand of policy, and Akhand Bharat, or maybe translated better as Greater India in India, need to be taken more seriously as sort of guiding or organizing principles of Indian and Chinese foreign policy going forward. So that really should be the greater concern in Sino-Indian relationship than any deployment of forces along the LAC currently or any putative threat of an immediate conflict. And I will stop with that. Thank you. Thank you so much for a really kind of comprehensive coverage of a very complex issue in such a short time period. I really appreciate that. Steve, before I come to you, this is something very interesting that, that Jivin has raised is this idea of strategic images to borrow my colleague Manjit Pertheshi's kind of terminology that he's used in this article that he wrote that it really explodes the initiation of Sino-Indian rivalry for the one for the century before 1949 essentially, right, and how the strategic images these countries have developed, especially of rivals with each other, starting 1959 the crisis and 1962 war. There seems to be an endurance of that image. I've outlined the issue of, you know, various issues, various problems with India's dealing with it and he used, you know, this is something which I'll come back to you Jivin. The government of India has read behind the years. I'll come back to you on this one, given the expertise that we see being being fielded by Delhi on this issue. What do you have to say about Regent Pink's kind of both the long term and the larger strategic outlook when when when he is and his coterie is looking at India, and where does that fit into the larger domestic politics of this regime. Of course, Jivin has mentioned that there are some contradictions there, but it'll be great to have you weigh in on these issues. Thank you. Thank you very much, Avinash, for that and also for the really interesting thoughts that you share, Jivin. I will focus my next 10, 11 minutes on China and hopefully address some of the issues that Avinash has raised. I'll start off by saying that if we look at the current poor state of relationship between India and China and the incident earlier in the summer. I haven't really seen any evidence that China was acting out some kind of a master plan. There was no clear strategic instruction from Beijing to the garrisoned in Tibet to provoke an incident with India. I simply haven't seen any evidence to suggest that. I have seen and this perhaps echoes what the question that Avinash was asking is that Xi Jinping has created an environment and an incentive system for the local commanders of the PLA garrisoned to be rather assertive. And it was in that assertiveness in the spring that elicited strong robust response from the Indian side, which resulted in an incident. Now, I don't know who started the first through the first feast fight. I think in some ways it doesn't really matter very much. It was the whole situation being created of one side pushing very hard and the other side responding in a robust way at some point, things got out of hand. And I think that is basically where we are. And once we have seen that significant border incident, the Chinese have to reinforce. So have Indian. Both sides have been enforced their troops at the front. Both sides have exercised a certain element of restraint of on their forces. The basic situation hasn't changed. The basic dynamics hasn't changed. So moving forward, I think it's difficult to see how and why the conditions that could lead to the violence in the summer can be prevented in the coming year or two. Either side is in the rush to try to have another incident, but the conditions remain. What I think is also interesting is that after the incident in the summer, the Indian side came out with a fairly clear narrative of what happened and casualties. The Chinese are completely quiet about. And they say, oh, well, the Chinese don't like to talk about these sort of things. Quite right. They don't usually like to talk about these sort of things. But if they have come out very, very well, then what they really have been so reticent about their losses. I think I think we have to face a reality that even though we do not know what the actual casualties figures suffered by the PLH was. There's a fairly good likelihood that the Chinese have not come out tops in the physical with the Indians. And they may well have lost rather more soldiers than the Indian Army had. So I think we have to raise an issue which kind of echoes the point that you, David, Javier has made about the Chinese not taking the Indians so seriously and having us talking about the strategic imaging. As international relations scholar realist, India is or should be considered either as a peer competitor of China or at least a near peer competitor of China. Either way, you would expect China to take India very, very seriously. And in a way that China certainly does take Japan very, very seriously, because Japan is being seen by the Chinese as a peer competitor. The reality is the Chinese don't take India as seriously as one would expect them to or that they would be well advised to or that they should be. And by not taking India quite so seriously, then we get into this even bigger problem that it is even more difficult for the Chinese Party State to accept in any kind of confrontation with India that China does not come out tops. It's one thing to confront the United States and have to pull back and not come out tops, regrettable as that may be. From the Chinese perspective, that's with India on the other side is simply not a tolerable stage of affair or prospect. So what we will be seeing, I think, is that the Chinese are going to take a robust stance over the border region. And the border region is in fact a strategically important one because it is where the main strategic highways from Tibet gets into India. And they are not going to make any concessions over there is Xi Jinping poorly advised. I think we don't get into a very awkward situation that if we look at Chinese policymaking over the last stage 20, 25 years. Over that kind of time frame on the whole Chinese policymaking's got better and better. And the policymakers top level leader got better advice and better information almost consistently. Now that happens until Xi Jinping became not just the top leader, but the paramount leader. By the night 19 Party Congress 2017 when Xi Jinping became in effect a strong man leading the Communist Party, rather than the first among equals in the political standing committee. We have a change in the situation in policymaking process in China, who now in the Chinese policymaking establishment be it the foreign minister and above. All the ways to Xi Jinping's colleagues in the political standing committee is going to say is to him that with the greatest respects. We got a problem, whether it's over India or anywhere, because you created the incentive for wolf warrior diplomats. And if you created conditions for wolf warrior diplomats and no wolf warrior Chinese diplomats have ever been punished. What do you expect Chinese generals and kernels and captains to do. Would they be ship warrior, or they will be wolf warriors. It doesn't take a lot to see why Chinese in a difficult situation. Simply no longer an acceptable way of advising the top leader. So you do get into a situation where I think you are right in saying that the Chinese top leadership is not as well advised as it would like to be or it should be in the relationship with India. That problem fundamentally will exist because of the unwillingness on the part of the Chinese establishment as a whole to take India as seriously as it should as a peer competitor, or at least near peer competitor. Also, I think an issue that the Chinese Communist Party fundamentally believe that China by definition is never an imperialist that China by definition is not aggressive. And if there is a problem over the borders, it's usually the other side who's created the problems, not us. We are just defending the sacred territory of China. We also don't see that the BLI, the barren road initiative, can be seen by some countries and others as bother, if not aggressive at least, very assertive externally. And that India will have a very good reason why it doesn't really want to be part of the BLI initiative. They don't see it quite in those terms. They also don't quite see that India, as indeed the case with quite a few of China's neighbors, both to the west and to the south are very uncomfortable with the mega hydro projects, the Chinese government have planned for and putting some of them into reality. Water shortage is going to be a problem in South Central and Southeast Asia. We are already seeing water flow to some of the great rivers of South and Southeast Asia dropping. This is because of what happens in the Tibetan battle under Chinese sovereign control. And they too have a water shortage problem in North China, a very severe water shortage problems in North China. So moving forward, I would regrettably have to draw the conclusion that it really doesn't look very good. I am not predicting a major war between India or China any time soon, but I find it very, very difficult to see that tension being reduced. And the fact that Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping is significantly dear to make the world safe for authoritarianism, which kind of make the Indian Prime Minister Modi a rather more well configured in the Chinese strategic population will not go far enough to cement that relationship. Yes, I think Xi Jinping liked Modi because Modi is more like him than some of Modi's predecessors. But on the other hand, the basic differences and conflicts of interest remained. And this rather less than cheerful note, I will stop and honey back to you have Nash. Steve, thank you so much for kind of giving you know some very important insight into Chinese policy making, and how important perhaps personalities can be in in Beijing, especially with the rise of Xi Jinping, perhaps even a violent rise of Xi Jinping in a kind of domestic perspective of China as the paramount leader. This really a lot to unpack here but before I kind of you know focus on a couple of themes which I think are important and perhaps our audiences would also be keen to be to hear a little bit more about just a quick note to everyone who's attending this webinar this panel. Please, I've already started seeing questions coming in comments coming in from both the Facebook live as well as the zoom, zoom session. Please feel free to put your questions in the Q&A chat box. If you want to raise the question and spell it out speak it out please raise your hands. I'll try to keep, you know, take questions in order, you know first come first and base first of basis, but, but you know you can you can use both those options. To both Jaybin and Steve, okay, you know I want to kind of focus a little bit one thing that one team that comes out very strongly based on your presentations is the fact that both India and China's leaderships, despite their constitution and by constitution I mean, despite how they are going about dealing with their, with their domestic politics the structures that have kind of enabled them their rise. Whether it was the CCP's internal internal structures which led to the rise of regime being the way he did, and we have had history of that kind of centralization of authority in Beijing before all or more these rise right based on a very powerful ideological impulse, which has also kind of come with a lot of sensitivity towards perhaps unreasonably so and sometimes violently so that against criticism and dissent. I see that both these countries are talking at across, they're talking across purposes here they don't want to actually, they're not invested in actually understanding what the other side really wants, or else kind of have reached a conclusion at the same time you know this is where the contradiction lies, either China doesn't know India at all, or China knows India very well, either India does not understand China at all, or the government of India is being behind the years, or else the analyst and the strategic treaty in Delhi understands China very well. For me that's quite quite a broad spectrum and somewhat contradictory spectrum to make sense of. So if both of you could kind of you know, spell a bit more about policy making as you said that this government made a mistake and you listed a series of mistakes, and there's also kind of you know, whether it was the Wuhan summit or the summit in Chennai, the focus on personal diplomacy between Modi and Xi Jinping on Prime Minister Modi's demand, but also the strengthening of international alliances right in this whole rubric of Indo-Pacific that we hear increasingly so. Even though whether it has metal or not needs to be seen the discussion the volume around into Pacific, the volume around quad, the fact that there are arguments now being made that India has moved out of its shell on South Asia as being a strategic power and is much more welcoming of strategically aligned past most of whom are from the Western Hemisphere really and Japan of course. Would you say would you then still say this is a mistake on part of India's policy making because unlike pre 2014 some argue and this is especially from the from the kind of Hindu right canon that comes that we have had a very clear policy of taking China on. Unless we are trying to engage we're trying to manage this relationship at the top level because we think that the Chinese leadership work top down so we want to focus on that relationship, rather than building all, you know, building capacities on the operational or the tactical level perhaps of course that might be a mistake but there is a very clear sense coming out from New Delhi that we are decoupling economically for the reason we are kind of building these alliances with the Americans which is a very unprecedented kind of tone in recent months in the defense sector at least for very good reason, how, how do you square this, this narrative, and these actions with this very kind of very clear analysis that you offered, this is not a mistake. Right, this is if you can unpack that aspect a little bit, you know that will be very helpful. Steve, the question for you as you mentioned that there is that China has historically not taken India seriously the way perhaps it does Japan for historical good reasons capacity reasons but also history, as well as of course the United States. Another argument being made these days that the 2017 doclan standoff was to some extent a turning point, not just in the bilateral relationship, but also in the way Beijing would value strategically India's price and that many, some of the most kind of kind of thinkers within within this administration within this regime have already made this assessment that India is actually a lost cause that you can afford to push India to a corner you can afford to, you know, create the standoff and you know for whatever reason whether it was revocation of article 317 Kashmir in 2019 or whatever the tactical reason might have been, but they have to see India as a lost cause in a strategic sense. Would you say that is correct. And if that is not correct in your view and that they must take it in their much more seriously than they than they do. How do you see, what is the threshold of change really, you know, at the moment it doesn't seem that the two countries will go to war because it's not in neither of the two to benefit, but I am still struggling to locate what would make China rethink, perhaps, there's a lot of some senior advisor coming in whispering and judging things that look, you've made a mistake here. What else would it be on the ground either you know the losses that perhaps a PLA might have to sustain, or for some sort of internal crisis which might not be visible to outside observers, but might be festering inside because of these issues, and of course the other monopoly of issues that China is facing today whether it's the crisis you know with Taiwan, the situation in this larger sort of alienation of the western world at large, where will do you think what would be the turning point in Chinese thinking and action here. Sorry that took me some time to flesh out but floor is all yours. Given could I request you to come in first. Alright. Thank you. Let me start by first of all saying that I agree with what Professor Song is saying I mean, fundamentally, I mean I'd underline everything that it said I just want to underline two points from my side which is I agree that there was no master plan that this is something that happened at the border and it escalated. But the larger point is that this was something that was waiting to happen. These physical confrontations have been going on for quite a bit of time. And I would say that there's been a change in Chinese patrolling behavior Chinese activity on the LAC since at least 2013. When the first Debsung confrontation took place, which was a complete change in the Chinese patrolling pattern in which they came to disputed territory and set up camp and refused to move until the Indians threatened to cancel Lee Ho Chiang's visit to India. I mean that was his first date was it since taking over as premier. So that's one. So this was, it had to happen, if not in June or in May, it would have happened sometime sooner or later that's structurally that was what is going on. The infrastructure development on both sides for becoming problematic for the. The advantage that the Indians were able to develop with even the limited infrastructure development was something that Chinese commanders on the ground were, I think, refusing to count on us. I also agree that it doesn't matter who started the fight, but I would like to add that at meetings with the Chinese after this incident, they themselves have admitted to losing troops so that's something that is I mean we don't know the numbers but it's a fact that they have lost troops. Next, to come to your questions, Agnash. See, first of all, I think I say it's a mistake because you have to focus on the results. It's one thing to talk about, you know, the one thing to actually put forward a lot of rhetoric, but what are the results. Some of these friends, I would first of all argue were already in play well before this government took office. I mean the closeness to turn to the United States, for example, started well in advance. In fact, if you look, if you remember in 2005, we concluded this major treaty with the Chinese on the agreement on political principles and guiding principles and political parameters on settling the boundary dispute. It was seen as a major breakthrough. Even the Indian side was surprised that the Chinese actually agreed to sign on to the Rotterdam from that. But that was 2005 and I think post 2008 the Chinese had a very different view of the world. Once they saw the financial crisis and his impact on the United States and Western economies. So I think that sort of changed their outlook on the world a bit. But also in 2005 is when India concluded the next steps in strategy partnership with the United States. So already India was thinking forward to a time where I think they understood that the rising gap in the economies and the military budgets between the two sides would come to be a problem in India-China relationship. Now, in terms of this government, what is the problem is that it's come with a particular worldview without quite understanding that there requires, I mean it requires certain capacity as well. And the focus has largely been on sort of negating the benefits or the gains of the past rather than building on those gains because that's part of the political project of this particular government. It has cut funds to institutions studying China, for example, including my own, the last one that I used to work at the Institute of Chinese Studies. It, you know, talked about project Mossum, which seemed to be a cultural project but which people sort of thought would also be something of a rivalry to the Belt and Road Initiative. It never really went anywhere. You have the Asia Africa Growth Corridor with the Japanese, which one doesn't hear of too much. You have the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal Economic Corridor. Again, one doesn't hear too much, though there is some movement, perhaps slow and steady winslays, but you know you also need big ticket items and you need to make impact because that's also part of the game with the Chinese art play, right. They make a 10 sound like it's 100. So that image building exercise India failed miserably. Second, and also importantly here, India seems to have closed all doors to Pakistan. Now, you know this problem with this two front threat, a two front theory that Indians keep talking very glibly about is that look, we simply cannot manage a two front threat. So either you consider China is your most important consideration and sort of open the doors to Pakistan, look at how you can engage with Pakistan. Or, you know, you don't pick a fight with the Chinese, right, because if Pakistan is your central concern. At the moment it looks like you close your doors to the both. Right, so I think there's a problem. And there's a general inability to move quickly, even on matters that you think is of self interest, say the relationship with Taiwan, the relationship with the United States and so on. One final point is that look, we are not acting the same way as the United States, or other Western countries are with China China the neighbor, we understand there are complications. We cannot simply cut off Chinese enterprises from the Indian market because we know that the West isn't going to reduce its prices because we've, you know, cut off the Chinese is going to jack up its prices. So we also need to retain our leverage bargaining power with both sides in this conflict or in this crisis. So that's also a consideration that the forces the Indian government to move slowly to move carefully, and perhaps to carefully. Yeah, I'll stop that. Thank you, Steve. I think very important questions you put to me out now is, what will we take for Xi Jinping to take India seriously. I think that's not a huge amount that can be done to get it, get Xi Jinping to take India very seriously. Xi Jinping is a fairly ideological type of leader. You can debate and discuss what ideology he's talking about, but his approach is fundamentally ideological one is not an intellectual one. So for him to actually do the analysis and see, well, actually, really China has to take India very seriously for a whole range of reasons. He's just not going to like these two happens. So for that to happen, I think we're going to have to see something that has to happen externally that will stare Xi Jinping in the face that he will then realize that if he doesn't take India seriously, he is going to put China at a significant disadvantage. Or to the extent that he will start asking that question of his advisors. We need to take that country called India seriously. I'm seeing this and I'm seeing that now what kind of things are we talking about that will make Xi Jinping pay notice to a major country like India. I think if India itself has been taken very, very seriously in a positive way by the major Western powers, in particular the United States. Then the Chinese will start to pay more attention to what's going on there. What's their game. There's something that I need to worry about. It's just something that I have to do about India is to address this. I think that is one one one thing that will take it. Get Beijing is to pay serious attention to India in a very proactive and positive sort of way. The second one is a very negative way of getting China's attention. India asserts itself as the master of the Indian Ocean. That again I think we'll get the attention of the Chinese. One of the strategic developments under Xi Jinping is that China sees itself as increasingly a global power. And if you look at the kind of military modernization program that the Chinese have had under Xi Jinping, far more focus being devoted to the Navy. And then the air force. Only after that. The land forces. In time, security is a very important factor for the Chinese and Indian Ocean happens to be a strategically very important part of this Chinese calculation. Nothing quite like South China sea. Nothing quite like the immediate Western Pacific, within the so-called first island chain and that's takes first priority. But once you are looking at the longer term strategic security of China of is natural resources and energy resources. And the Indian Ocean is strategically very important is right in the middle of the marine terms still grow. It is right there for the security of Chinese energy and mineral resources from Africa and the Middle East. It's very important. But I don't think it's a particularly helpful way for in days to get the Chinese to pay attention to India by being seen as a strategic national security threat. I think the first option would have been a much more positive and constructive way. For in there to get the Chinese governments to pay it do notice and to get seriously and engage in a more constructive ways to develop the relationship. Thank you Steve, I'll now the floor is open there are quite a few questions there. Let me start with the first question that really came here from the Facebook live by Amisha Ray. Where and how do you see India's neighborhood first policy the act is policy kind of planning in the background of the recent developments going from here. And this is your wealth suited to take this question there's another question by Roshali Sahar. Perhaps Steve this could be for you was beering Beijing's unprovoked aggression China's way of testing us India relations now. I appreciate you said that this was not planned there's no evidence for a kind of top level planning but the incentive structures were created. But once the deed is done, once the situation, once the clash happened in Galwan in June. Do you think, apart from doing the calculus, you know the matter on losses in terms of military losses and the loss of lives of soldiers. Has there been an appreciation in China about India's relationship with the US and whether this is going forward and on because you mentioned this is one way of one way how Beijing would take India, India seriously, a related to China, perhaps both of you can really kind of spell this out Jamin and Steve is there is a concern in Delhi that China is not understanding the fact that the economics of this relationship, right, the, this very powerful kind of trade fundamentals of this relationship, which are coming into question, whether it's by symbolic app pants whether in much more substantial way, the new FDI policies that the government of India introduced earlier this year. This is a clear decision taken by policymakers that this $26 billion worth of Chinese investment in Indian startups. This is something that we need to relook and re strategize and rethink how we take forward in Indian thought, the boundary situation and the economics are related issues they're not separate issues they cannot go hand in hand. As they perhaps have been during the 87 88 to 2012 period when we can call a larger moment of thought between these two relationships. Steve why is it is it really true that China things of these two trades trade and you know the economic leg of this relationship and security issues separately. Thank you. Whoever would like to come in Jim and Steve. I mean, I can come in first with your with your very specific China, China, India economic side of the story. Now, the Chinese government put economic relationship and geopolitical objectives together auditor. It's something that they are hesitant about. They don't separate them at all. They regularly weaponized economic trading investment relationship with other countries in putting pressure on the other side is too bad. The current dispute with Australia is a good example, your recent example with South Korea and the deployment of the fat anti missile system is another and then the list goes on. The fact that the Indians will relate economic relationship with the border incident is not something that they don't expect or take seriously. And whether why they don't get quite so seriously is the sheer size of the Chinese side Chinese economy and compares to the Indian one. I think, and that's why they are not taking it quite as seriously as it would be the case. I think if you are here's substituting India by the USA or by the EU as single actor with that kind of economic relationship. The fact would be much more powerful on the Chinese side in the in the calculation. Thank you Steve. Okay, so I did briefly refer, maybe not in so many words to India's neighborhood policy. I think the first thing I said was. India needs to fix its ties with Pakistan. If it has to take China seriously if it has to have the resources to devote to China. But of course we have to be realistic and the China Pakistan relationship is one part of keeping India busy right. And so even if India were to make the approaches it's not certain that the Pakistanis would accept. Perhaps it's too early for that the Pakistani need a little more experience with the Chinese through their China Pakistan economic corridor before they realize exactly what's going on. Some of the initiatives that India has set out in the neighborhood, like BBI and like I said, some advances have been made but not enough not quickly enough perhaps. India did very poorly by its fuel blockade of Nepal, which really is I think some sort of a turning point in that relationship, which really I mean look India's China's presence in India's neighborhood is really all of India's doing. It's all slipped. I mean it has sort of made this rather obnoxious statements or actions that has allowed China space in India's own India, India, South Asia neighborhood. Having said that it has, we have to remember that the Chinese, as the Chinese keep reminding us that this neighborhood is also a neighborhood for China. So, the Chinese also have a right to be in that area. I think we need to have a little more open mind. I mean a more open mind on China's economic presence in the neighborhood, but also, and this brings me to the economic part of the question which is that we need to be wary of China's presence in the tech space in any of these countries because that would mean blocking India's presence in this sphere in any of these India's neighbors. But cutting off China completely is not feasible because we need some basis for a continuing relationship and we need to remember and acknowledge that without cheap Chinese telecom equipment, much of India the economic growth or even India social revolution because of that economic growth would not have been possible. So we need to give the Chinese a view. But as Professor Song reminded us India doesn't intend to be stuck up a gum tree, like the Koreans or the Australians, when the Chinese use economic leverage against India. And currently, that's not possible because you know the deficit is India's and therefore China has a greater amount to lose than India does. So I think maybe one way forward is to find the middle ground on the BRI. I think India doesn't have to be so hard up on the BRI. There are elements of the BRI where India can cooperate without compromising its position on the territorial dispute on the CPAC, you know, I think that sort of flexibility India also needs to show under the circumstances. And that's not happening anytime soon, I think. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. And there is, you know, there are quite a few questions. So what I do is I try to club them up one question that has come up. It's the more conceptual question, but I like it. Steve, I think it's for you. And largely at you is that what role do you see misperception here playing in terms of the relation in this bilateral relationship, right? You did mention that Xi Jinping is an ideological sort of leader, but even ideologues have certain parameters based on which they move forward. What are the parameters that we are really looking at. I've heard the term geology or Xi Jinping thought kind of used and abused quite a lot but what is the fundamentals that we are talking about and how does that really feed China's perception or misperception of its neighbourhood as such, especially in the case of India. Jaybin, the question for you is and I'm clubbing quite a few questions here that are coming up. Is this whole idea of, you know, the third parties, whether it's Pakistan and you have mentioned the two front threat that India is kind of binding itself into in very substantial way at least in my thought since 1965, right? The whole in the diplomatic machinery and military machinery was aimed at least in principle to avoid or neutralize that threat, at least in an operational sense, even in the strategic synergies between China Pakistan existed in different shapes and forms. But there are countries like Nepal you've mentioned to and we have seen this recent kind of border issue that came up around Meepu Lake and you've mentioned a bit about India's turning point in 2015. There are also reports around the Myanmar tri-chunction. This is a tri-chunction which is not being talked about as much. Myanmar is actually a very important country as far as BRI goes. Perhaps if not as much, if not more, at least as much as important as Pakistan in some ways given given how important Shopu is. And this is a tri-junction, the Vellong tri-junction where 62 and since then there has been a lot of friction really. It's really kind of a very difficult terrain to kind of map but is very strategically consequential. How do you see in terms of India's relationship with these relative, you know, with other neighbors panning out in the future? Of course, now this is not to make you repeat your point of India's regional connectivity projects. But if one would say that India has to reconceptualize its strategy in dealing with countries like Nepal, in dealing with countries like Myanmar, keeping both its economic capability which has become very limited as Steve entered towards earlier in recent times with the recession hitting in, what are the sources of power that it can utilize in trying to balance Chinese influence, you know, in the forthcoming years? So really these two questions and then we'll come to the next round. Thank you. Jayman, would you like to come in first this time? Thank you. Sure. So I think fundamentally, I think the countries in South Asia aren't really in a position to completely, you know, hold the gun to India's head. They have their limitations. The Chinese also have the limitations geographically, culturally and whatnot. So in a sense, the neighborhood first policy despite initial missteps, I think in the last few months, I think we've certainly seen a recalibration of that policy. The outreach Nepal, for example, has been going pretty well, at least from reports. But essentially, you know, the neighborhood first is also not a new concept. What it needs is really return to the origin, which is the original concept, which is the Gujarat doctrine, and accept completely and fully that India needs to be the bigger hearted player as it were reciprocity cannot be expected of its smaller neighbors. It needs to allay the fears that the smaller neighbors have of Indian hegemony or return to Indian hegemony by allowing smaller neighbors to interact with other powers. And then you see that some initial steps of that happening, for example, by the American presence in the Maldives, for example. So some of that rethink, I think is going on. But I come back to what Professor Song said about, you know, India's Indian Ocean strategy. Fundamentally, to be able to deal with, and this is to answer the second part of your question, fundamentally to be able to deal with China, we need to have a symmetric advantages elsewhere. We cannot match a soldier for soldier or, you know, dollar for dollar on the LAC, but where we have an advantage is Indian Ocean, not in order to threaten China. But in order to build up capacity in Indian Ocean neighbors to reach out to them better that capacity needs to be built up. So India needs to keep its promises, a fundamental problem with Indian diplomacy in its neighborhood elsewhere is that India promises a great deal but does not seem to be able to have the capacity to keep its promises. A lot of this has to do with internal issues or internal restructuring issues. For example, the military is not used full well as an arm of Indian diplomacy. The hierarchy in China is the PLA ranks outranks the MOFA by far, but in India it's reverse, and the Indian military is not an instrument of Indian foreign policy or Indian diplomacy, as much as it could be. And the only instrument really that works in this sort of situation is the Indian Navy, which is the most underfunded of all three services, quite the opposite of what Professor Song was talking about with respect to the PLA Navy. And with, you know, the tri-junction issue with Myanmar or the fish tails, you know, between our natural and China. I mean, this has been something that has been going on for a very long time, extremely complex. But these are situations that have been sort of, shall we say war-gamed or, you know, scenarios have been built up on these for a very long time. I don't see these as fundamentally creating problems, any additional problems in the Indian-India-China relationship that already exists. I think bigger issues include our relationship over technology, our relationship in terms of the Indian Ocean, and in terms of how India builds its ties with the United States and neighbors further afield. Those, I think, are the key issues in the Indian-China relationship. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Steve. I don't know whether you know, Avinash, that I have been working with a colleague on a project on Xi Jinping thought for about a year. So I kind of rather welcome this question about how we should define the strategic parameter in Xi Jinping's thought in terms of his approach to foreign policy. Xi Jinping thought is remarkably thin. It's nothing quite like Mao Zedong thought, where you have really quite a lot of stuff in there. And so to sum up, in a very sort of slightly naughty and simplistic way, Xi Jinping thought on foreign policy is quite simply about making China great again, by underlying the central leadership of the Communist Party and making China rich and powerful in that process. And in the more practical strategic terms, the Chinese government does not accept the implication of the American change of the American Asia Pacific command into the Indo-Pacific command. The Chinese government still basically see it as the Asia Pacific issue, rather than an Indo-Pacific issue, which is why they are not sticking in there as seriously as they should. And in that conception, the very centerpiece is in fact a little island called Taiwan. It's absolutely critical in that strategic concept conception, because Taiwan is right in the middle of the first island chain in the maritime strategies that the Chinese government has developed and now intends to put into reality. And Taiwan exists and continues to exist as a free and independent entity because of American support. Either way or the other, actual force or threat to use force result in Taiwan becoming part of China, it would have implied that the Americans will either have been deterred effectively or sufficiently defeated to pull back. Either way, the Americans would be a spend force in the region. Japan will have to completely rethink its strategic approach. The hold of Southeast Asia will simply sailed with the prevailing wind directions and signed with China, whatever the Chinese government's positions will be. And the whole region will fundamentally change in the whole strategic balance. And this is what they really are focusing on for the next 10, 20 or so years. I don't think that even looking at 30 years, they're not planning on allowing the current state of affairs to continue to exist beyond a maximum say about 20 years or so. And of course in this calculation, once they have got that fixed, India will fall into place. I mean, what will India then do? What can India then do? What can Europe do? What can Australia do? If America essentially will go back to the American continent. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. I have a question, I think, from Shovik, would you like to speak up? I know you have written it down, but if you want to spell it out, please, the floor is all yours. You're in mute Shovik, sorry, we can't see you or hear you. The treaty recently between China, between the ASEAN countries in China and also South Korea, Japan, Australia. It was sort of a trade treaty called the RECEP and it was signed in Vietnam. It was signed in the last month in Vietnam and India wasn't part of this treaty. India wasn't a signatory to the treaty, but India does trade a lot with China. So I thought India is kind of left out in the cold a bit. This is the issue of the 1962 India-China war and the territorial issues from that war in Kashmir and in Arunachal Pradesh have not been resolved, have not really been resolved. And that issue could flare up again. So I mean, those are the things that really occur to me the most. And could I also request you to quickly introduce yourself. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Shuvik Dutta and I'm a teacher of English as a foreign language and interpreter for NHS and social services. Thank you. Shuvik, would you like to take that? I'm quite happy to have the first go and if Jayvins would like to come in. I think the border wars definitely is still in the background is something which I think both countries still take very seriously. Again, I think the Indians were more, take it a bit more seriously than the Chinese, but the Chinese do take that very seriously, and they are aware that it is something that can make well blow up at some stage. Now in terms of the AUSAP, the AUSAP was a fundamentally ASEAN initiative, not a Chinese initiative. So the Chinese like to come out and claim that as a victory that they have joined AUSAP and the Americans are still not part of the TPP. The big distinction between the TPP or the modified version of the TPP now, and the AUSAP is that one is a very deep trade pack, the other one is a very shallow one. The AUSAP is a very, very shallow trade pack. It really does not provide the kind of economic integration and free trade area in a very powerful, significant way. But the fact that the Chinese are able to sign it, give them a basis to say that maybe, just maybe, that they can also be parties to a modified version of the TPP moving forward. Now that there is a change of government in Washington, that the new Biden administration might be looking at the option and possibility of the United States becoming part of the TPP all over again. And the Chinese are clearly already making the arguments that if a country like Vietnam can be parties to it, then surely China can be parties to it. Whether this will wash or not, I think remains to be seen, and not who depends on how the Americans will played with it. I think the Japanese who have taken over the coordination of the TPP will probably very welcome the Americans to rejoin. I mean, what I think often we forget is that the free and open Indo-Pacific concept, which then got translated by the Americans to the Indo-Pacific command, was not originally an American invention. It was a Japanese invention, which the Americans have borrowed, and the Japanese very happily surrender that and basically say you take ownership of that you run with it is now all your concept and we support you. I think if the Americans want to try something like that with a version of modification of the TPP, it's very likely the Japanese would take a similar approach. Whereas the Japanese may not be quite as open, armed in welcoming China to be party to it in the way that the Chinese are accepted by outside. Thank you, Steve. So India's primary concern with the RCEP was that it would allow China a backdoor into India. India has consistently refused to sign a free trade agreement with the Chinese. And there were already complaints about the India ASEAN FTA. So, and of course, even RCEP would not have opened up the services sectors in each of these Asian economies to India as much as India would have liked. So India didn't find any need to be part of the RCEP. That's the official sort of line. And at least on the services front, I think it's quite correct. But essentially, this is a problem of a lack of state capacity as well as a lack of capacity in India's economic players to be able to compete on the global market. It's a sign of an unwillingness to open up India's economic entities to competition from the outside. Now, if India uses time, I use the time, I think it's a very short window to build up national champions like the Chinese have done. Then, yes, staying out of RCEP makes sense. But I don't think you can really run quad or the Indo-Pacific without an economic component. India cannot really, and if TPP comes around, will India be in a position to join the TPP there? I mean, those are really the contradictions or the questions that the Indian government needs to answer. Thank you. Thank you, Jaybin and Steve on that. One last round of questions we have 15 minutes left, or maybe depending on time, we can have one more after this. There are two or three different questions that, you know, of course related to the themes that we have been talking about. The first question, I mean, this is by Nick Whedon, is about the Tibetan diaspora that is still living in India, right? I mean, this is a diaspora that came broadly, or at least the first generation of diaspora came around during 1950s, late 50s, and then in the 60s. And it's a very politically charged issue, not just between India and China, but the fact that a government exile is living in India, is operating from India. The Dalai Lama is there as a spiritual leader. Where do you see this going? And I asked Jaybin, you know, I would like to know your thoughts on how government of India is really thinking about this issue, given the kind of celebration that we saw recently in the media about the use of the special frontier force, which is made up of Tibetan kind of fighters who are trained by the Indian Army, and which has become a very central part of India's defence organisation, and very clearly aimed towards China, even though the SFF has been used elsewhere. And Steve, is this an issue of course of the Dalai Lama and the politics of who would come after the Dalai Lama, he's not the youngest, and these are concerns around which there's a lot of politics happening. What is China's thought and what is China's kind of, is there any serious planning in your view happening on the Tibet question and the question of the Dalai Lama as we move forward. The second question is by Pooja Bhattacharya. Am I amidst all these issues that we are talking about, right, the high politics of it and perhaps on the ground dynamics in Latak and around the boundary. What about academic cultural exchange and job opportunities which have already kind of been lost in this sort of decoupling that we are talking about there's a lot of people to people connectivity, which also gets lost in broader bigger narratives of rivalry and competition. What do you think who would be the loser of course, you know. So, or let me rephrase this in a way that where do you see this going is this some, is this a tool that can be developed to build better empathy and understanding between the two sides for future purposes, even in a different leadership let's assume region pink is not at home, and Narendra Modi is not at home. Are these relationships. Enough to kind of take this conversation forward. And the last question really here is. It's a question by a student at UCL Alex McDougal. Could you talk a little bit more about Pakistan of course ribbon you have mentioned the Pakistan and India's conundrum with Pakistan but Steve. It's quite interesting that China which does not take India seriously takes Pakistan super seriously. But what explains this contradiction like arguably of course I mean we know the larger history of Sino Pakistan relations, you know this, this, the treaty the boundary treaty which was signed in 1963 child Pakistan decision to give up on territory in Kashmir which had considered its own at some point to develop a strategic partnership with China was very consequential, but we have seen this relationship and do despite a lot of turbulence and internal contradictions. How do you see Pakistan figure in Chinese thought largely given the lack of seriousness according to you that Beijing has for India. Thank you. And in this case, could I request now Steve to come in first if possible. Thank you. Certainly. I think we got all together about 1340 minutes. On the issue of Tibet. The Chinese government is calculating that biology will work in their favor that it will simply remove the Dalai Lama. And the Chinese government will then insist on the formal process for the reincarnation. And therefore the reincarnation will have to happen under Chinese jurisdiction. And the Chinese, in fact, will choose the next Dalai Lama. And we'll bring that Dalai Lama up educating popular in quotation marks, so that a new Dalai Lama will know what to do. Who will therefore be a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, a good Tibetan and above all, a good Chinese citizen. And a lot of the problems will then be removed and then it will become greatly obvious that the Indian government support of the Tibetan exile movement in India is really not entirely cricket, shall one say. Of course, the Chinese will use a different metaphor rather than cricket. In terms of the academic exchange, I think we have to bear in mind that we now use the term decoupling, mostly in response to misguided policy on economics that were raised by Donald Trump in 2019. We are looking at decoupling in terms of the people to people academic type of exchanges. It really started with Xi Jinping back in 2013 when he issued document number nine, which was a top secret documents which we now all see and you can just Google it and you'll find it on the internet by somebody who leaked the document and pay a price for incarceration for it. So document number nine basically our law whole lot of Western concepts like universalism constitutionalism free media and the whole lot of things. So by the implementation of article of document number nine Chinese academies are being closed off from a lot of context with the outside world. Now we all lose in something like that. I don't think anybody gains by losing people to people contact academic exchanges, but I will say that our Chinese colleagues, our liberal minded good academic in China probably are the people who lose out the most because they get punished for simply doing the sort of things that Jeremy you in India I in London do on a regular basis. And that's not good for anybody in terms of the Pakistan. I think it's a very good and important question because you have one ask about China's allies. Then one country stands out as China's most loyal ally. In fact, the only true ally. And that is called Pakistan. It's not North Korea. It's not the other remaining land in this party states like Vietnam or Cuba, or even now, or Cambodia is Pakistan. Hong standing only to loyal friend that China has in spite of his new attempts to reach out to the world through every mean possible regular diplomacy, public diplomacy, soft power, sharp power, you name it, they try it. They only got Pakistan as one reliable dependent true. I think that kind of explains why the Chinese do take Pakistan, rather more seriously, then they do take India, but even having said so. The Chinese don't exactly treat Pakistan as a complete equal partner in that equations either is a junior. I think the Pakistanis know about that. They live with it. Are they really so comfortable and happy about it? I don't think so. I think when you have Imran Khan, the Prime Minister being asked about Xinjiang and he will say, I don't know anything about it. Knowing full well that nobody in the world will believe that the Prime Minister of Pakistan can be completely ignorant of what happens in Xinjiang. He knows the nature of the relationship and he knows how he needs to play that game. And because he does, the Chinese are happy about it, and they will continue to have a good relationship there. Thank you so much, Steve. So I'd like to sort of, again, back up what the song is saying. Let me start with the Tibetan diaspora issue first. Now on the SFF and things like the surgical strikes, you know, the SFF has been used as you said, it has been used before. So this is not something new. The advertisement given to it, the publicity given to it is what is new. Now, on the question of Dhalalama, the Indians are also hoping biology will act in their favor. And the Dhalalama lives to 120, I think, what he says he will live to. But, you know, jokes apart, I think the essential problem is that the Indian government doesn't have a policy for the post Dhalalama phase. One has to remember that while the Tibetan exile population is about 160,000 outside of Chinese territory. The membership of the Communist Party of China branch inside Tibet, inside TAR it's 200,000 people. So post Dhalalama, I think one can very well, I mean my sort of very realistic assessment is that's the end of the Tibetan movement. Because there is not going to be the charismatic figure that the Dhalalama was to lead the movement. And if the Tibetans don't do violence in some form, then, you know, they go the same way as the Uyghur movement generally has also I mean very little attention from the rest of the world. So overall, I think the scorecard is in China's favor. So these are the academic and cultural exchanges. You know, this is not the first time the sort of damage is going to be done post 62. Also, there was a rapid closing of doors or exchanges between India and China and that sort of sort of had meant two generations of Indian scholars of China really were lost. The atrocity on China was substantially gutted because of 62 war, but I think today it's going to be it's not going to be so bad. We have other sources, more Indians today speak Chinese, there's a Taiwan possibility to study Chinese language or even American sources, UK sources. In fact, I think the fundamental problem is as Steve said that with document nine that precludes Chinese academics from speaking honestly and openly about the problems in the relationship. So you need honest exchanges between the two sides in order for this relationship to move forward. So, you know we already suffered in India, Indian academics are only exposed to the South Asian is in China. Whereas if Indian academics were more able to engage with the general liar of foreign policy people in China I think we would have a much more fruitful conversation. That has not happened. The final point on Pakistan that sort of underlines how much India has lost is that in 1950 feel Marshall I can actually call for India and China to unite India and Pakistan to unite against the communist threat of China. That didn't go anywhere. And today we have the China Pakistan relationship where it is at India's cost. If I may one one last question I'm really tempted to be still have two minutes left. You mentioned, and I hope Steve will permit me you know I've given me the guest speaker to take that last question to him. You mentioned Akhand Bharat you mentioned this whole idea that Hindutva idea of Greater India the big name which quite struck with me, a chord that we have often heard about Nehruvian foreign policies or the Nehruvian influence on India's foreign policy thought in practice, even though now there is evidence that this was you know this idea of foreign policy being this kind of a sector of policy consensus in India is a contested idea but Nehru as a Prime Minister play a very powerful and we know that history of this collision of you know the idea of India being an Asian power and China viewing India's idea of being an Asian power as an imperialist plot or British or American power lurking behind Indian ambition in Asia and that as Steve earlier mentioned is something that the CPC ideologically believes itself to be quite the reverse of it right China can never be an imperialist. How does Hindu nationalism as an ideology complicate India's postures and its relationship really I mean we know that this the idea of a muscular foreign policy the idea of assertive foreign policy practices is something which is very kind of deeply rooted in that kind of ideological DNA and we have seen that pan out, not just vis-a-vis Pakistan but also other countries. With China, do you think this is somewhere the this this idea of Akhand Bharat hits a real kind of ideological but also practical stone wall really. And how does this, how is that going going to affect the thoughts you know the policy thought and practice of this government moving forward. Thank you for that question I think I sort of wanted to leave it out there at the end because it's a very important question something that we should get back to at some point later, but very briefly I'd like to say that you know Xi Jinping had a statement, some years ago he said, what is it that you know, yeah, the answer, which means big should look big. So, you know, Nehru in foreign policy had a certain vision of India's place in the world. It certainly wanted India as a major important player, but it still had the view that countries needed to treat each other with respect, and that we needed a post colonial post imperial narrative in India's foreign policy. He did take actions, maybe rough handed actions on occasion. But what is different with the Hindutva nationalist approach to Indian foreign policy is that it forecloses certain options. So, if India is a larger part, you know, Nepal as another Hindu country will always be a junior partner Pakistan, because it's a Muslim country or a Muslim majority country cannot be a friendly part. Even on Tibet, I mean we just talked about Tibet. The thing is I can bother depending on which map of a convert that you look at. Tibet is sometimes part of a convert Afghanistan is part of a convert or Myanmar is part of a convert. So, you know, with that kind of a conception. How do you imagine that there is a policy or a relationship of equality between India and its neighbors. So that really is the fundamental problem I think that is at play, which is why I also refer to this Tien chair concept or all under heaven for the Chinese or what I call new Tien chair. And this approach is really somewhat similar for both India and China, this identity and great civilization powers. And because of various shortcomings in their present circumstances, they feel that they have to sort of refer back to history as a prong, or as a crutch to be able to justify their rights their presence they're acting big to their neighbors or to the rest of the world. The rest of the world will not get it perhaps, but that doesn't stop them from trying. And I think that really, I mean I've sort of summarize it very quickly. But yeah, that's about it. I guess. Thank you so much for that very important summary something worth thinking about for all of us as we move into this, this another year. And very fraught relationship between China India and Pakistan and India. But on that note, I would like to thank Professor Steve sang, I would like to thank Professor jubin Jacob for taking the time out this afternoon evening in India, and really kind of unpacking a lot of the, the issues that kind of define, or have come to define, unfortunately so in current circumstances, the Sino Indian relationship, and I for one am convinced that this is a bilateral, which will have a very powerful impact whether you know it's in the form of cooperation or rivalry in the shaping of international order as we move forward, multipolar or whichever form we are really talking about this relationship is something worth keeping I keeping an eye out for. I would like to also apologize to a lot of our attendees. There were quite a few questions unfortunately we cannot take all of them, but I try to make sure that we cover all sorts of kind of empirical and thematic ground. Thank you for participating this afternoon, and for some very important questions and comments, and we look forward to seeing you again in our, in our webinars in the next term, and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, and a very happy new year. Thank you so much. Have a good day.