 We're back, we're live at 5 p.m. Hawaii time with global connections and we have Rupamati Kandikar who joins us from somewhere close to Mumbai in India. We are so happy to have her on the show because she happens to be an expert in what we're going to talk about and she's written a book and I want to know about the book and I want to know about her perception of what's going on in the clash or series of clashes if you will between the Indians and the Chinese at the border in the Himalayas in Galwan Galwan Valley not too far well maybe so pretty far. So Rupamati thank you for joining us on the show we're so delighted to meet you and to have you here on ThinkTech. Good evening to you Jay and it's my pleasure to be on your show and looking forward to a useful interaction that we can have. Yes oh yes well first tell us about your your education, your PhD, tell us about your book. Okay I have an infill on the international political economy and I've worked on the Argentine IMF crisis of 2001 and then I have worked on I have a PhD on the United Nations reform after which I wrote a book on the India-China relationship in which I had you know I tapped into the point that China is trying to control India's summer waters 60% of India's summer waters by damming small tributaries in the beginning of the Brahmaputra River. You see India is a monsoon-fed country and once you start controlling the Himalayan rivers of India you get control over the agriculture of India. So that's a thing that they have been damming these area these small villages where you see it doesn't make a difference at that point of time but slowly in a matter of five to ten years that's the time frame that they are going to be able to control 60% of northern India's waters which will affect our grain production. The rice which comes in the northern state of Kothar Pradesh we are going to lose that if we don't have sufficient water. So that's a plan that's happening and the latest dispute connects to that because the Galwan river over which they were attempting to have project of a dam and they wanted a surveillance tower which will come close to the Galwan river was foiled by the Indian soldiers. They did not allow it on the line of actual control. Okay I want to go through that but one thing that strikes me is that is this similar to what is happening with the Mekong river where the Chinese have the headwaters of the Mekong river and they are using it for their own purposes? Exactly. Yesterday the Tibetan Prime Minister spoke about China having the expansionist policy but they cannot expand unless they use these tactics. They are truly a good level of attack when you don't know how they control the head of the rivers and India is really dependent for 60% that's not a small percentage of the water to be controlled. So 60% of summer waters will be controlled by China if they succeed in building these dams and they add it aggressively for a long long time. Once they came into Tibet they started controlling the water. Do they benefit by controlling the water? Do they benefit? I mean is there a significant benefit to China? Yes they do. First thing they have bargaining power with the countries that they are dealing with. Secondly they do have water for themselves. The ice fed water rivers they get to dam they get to develop their rural areas which are which are as necessary as possible. Yeah well you know you're the executive director the leader of Global Relations Forum which is in Mumbai and also in Brussels and I would like to evaluate examine what has happened on this border in the Kowloon Valley up in the Himalayas through your eyes. So you have some graphics for us and we know that this has been a long simmering dispute on that border. Can you tell us what has been happening lately? The border between India and China you know except for the oceans the borders of India in the west north and east have been left undefined because when we gained our independence in 1947 it was decided that because this border is in the mountainous areas and very few people live in it and it's inaccessible why not just let it be? So when you're building a nation you need to firstly define what is a nation? You can't leave a nation and with undefined borders it's going to lead to disputes and that's exactly what happened. We have been dealing with these disputes of shifting glaciers and mountainous areas for the last 70 years. So now the current government has made it as a priority firstly to define the borders secondly to develop the border areas because previous to this government jay the most important point is previous to this government the strategy was to leave the borders areas underdeveloped so that nobody wants to have it but this government has come in and said no we want to develop the border areas in such a way that we have access to these areas and people can stay and live in it. So we have the northernmost point close to the Aksai Chin which is in Indian control jay the electricity has reached over there for 85 people electricity connection has reached right on top of the mountain just for 85 people. So that's a big big achievement that this government does is to take into account that they have to develop these border areas in such a way that the people feel connected to India you cannot leave them to be out on the mountains and say you're Indian you can't do that unless they feel they're Indian they're not going to say they're Indian so that's what that's big priority of this government to develop border areas rather than leave them underdeveloped. So the moment we started building this road close to the Galwan river it became a problem for the Chinese because the moment you have access to these areas the soldiers have access they are questioning the Chinese why do you come so close why why aren't you coming so close the questioning has started the territorial control has begun in a good way not in a bad way because the LAC the line of actual control in between India and China stretches out to such a long area in the Himalayas that is divided into three sectors western the middle and the eastern. So now one good thing about India and China is they decided that no firearms within two kilometers of the LAC either side so we have these able-bodied soldiers fighting like college fraternity right this fight yeah the fist fighting so it's a good thing that it didn't escalate and the what news we got was that the Brigadier who came in he immediately asked the Chinese to retrieve so if we can't let a soldier level battle flare into one of the tussles between two asian giants too much of the economy of the world is at stake we have 66 billion dollars riding with China they are biggest trade partners China has such a huge investment in India they will not afford to earth India and the most most most important part is there is a good relationship between Modi and Zeeping so they have this shipping they want they want these people to stop the scuffle now today exactly today in the evening we have a meeting between Russia India and China India was not going on board this trilateral meeting but they actually invited India and said we need to Russia is playing the mediator and they said that we want to pull down the tension because like it or not the economy of the world is at stake here we cannot afford another jolt in the economy after the covid yeah sure so Russia is there to mediate between India and China is that what it is yes yes who's idea was that was that was that India's idea or Russia's idea it was Russia's idea Russia and China were going to have a bilateral but Russia has invited India to come on board for today's meeting very important actually so I just I saw some footage of the of the fighting and you're right they were like schoolboys so pushing each other around in this beautiful at top of the Himalayas these beautiful mountains snow covered mountains a very remote area and they're pushing each other they're all dressed in these you know cold weather outfits with big hats and and big coats and and yelling at each other and some of them were wearing masks I would imagine the Indians were wearing the masks and the Chinese were not but who knows and somehow somehow that evolved into violence where 20 Indian soldiers were killed and an undisclosed number of Chinese were killed uh can you talk about that and and let's look at your slides as they are appropriate yes see uh the Kalwan point uh the Kalwan river which comes in is a very steep valley it's a very steep valley and they had decided the Indian had decided Chinese had mutually had decided on uh June the 6th that they will not have any tents or any uh any uh points close to the LSE and they will retreat both had decided that they will do that but on June the 14th the commanders on both sides decided that they do not want any uh any uh said any Chinese or any Indian tent close to the LSE they decided uh the LSE means the line of actual kind of actual control that is the de facto border which was yes after 1962 they decided that uh they would keep away from they would keep that as the line where the both Indian and Chinese soldiers would just stay there put nothing define nothing status quo will be maintained but now what happened on June 14th that you see a Chinese tent which has come back into the picture so a few pet at the patrol point 14 we had the commanding officer who was son miss Colonel Santosh Rao going with his troop of men he went unarmed as is the protocol and asked them to shift the tent they agreed and after a point of time they returned back so he went this is the Galwan area next to the Lindsey tank and the river is quite steep J so you have a point which is literally in the valley and when when they refused to remove the tent uh the soldiers went back and because they are unarmed it was stone pelting and unfortunately the stone hit the commanding officer of the Indian troops now when the commanding officer is heard the the temperatures flare so it became a full-fledged fight both sides called for reinforcements and this fight went on up to sunset the physical scuffles which broke out it went up to sunset and in that scuffle the valley is so steep that you had Indian and Chinese soldiers falling off the valley so out of those 20 and out of those 40 I think more than half of them have fallen into the valley rather than actually fall so it's the terrain that is caused the casualties more than the fist fighting if it was just about fist fighting or fist bumping I don't think there would have been so many fights that's the point tragic tragic and there was a big reaction wasn't there in India about the loss of these soldiers a lot of people were were angry about it no yes you kind of put the anger on on the Chinese goods but then you cannot really remove China from India and India from China because their trade is interlinked to such an extent that they have economies which are which are tremendously interdependent tremendously they want they won't be able to really isolate China or they can they can stop the big tenders because the state of Maharashtra where I live in has stopped a deal of 5000 cross millions of rupees in India just for this dispute we have these things happening that tenders are being are being stalled we have the huai 5g tender which was supposed to be a huge huge investment of the Chinese in India that has been stalled because of this dispute so like it or not both the economies have a lot of stake with each other well that's very it's tragic and it's also dangerous what did mr. Modi do about this people were calling for retribution what did he do people are calling for retribution but you see Mr. Modi is a prime minister who is a very very he thinks you know we did not have a thinking prime minister he understands what is flaring up the tension in the country when everybody's in lockdown due to the covid if he flares up the tensions he will lose a good relationship that he has with shipping he will lose a good atmosphere that it's built up in the country everybody's following rules of the covid he doesn't want them to just ban chinese goods and behave proudly he knows how to control 1.4 billion this side and 1.4 billion that side that is over two two and a half 2.8 billion of the world which is being as we're talking about controlling i mean these two leaders both the sides are doing a good job so well this is this is all it's very what do you want to call it regrettable and dangerous so i'm happy to hear that they're going to have a meeting but you know what are the prospects here this really must don't you agree this must be resolved there there has been an attempt to define the borders on both the sides they are they are looking into it and they want it to be a big priority of both the administrations to come together and define a line but you see jay it's high mountainous you really can't say this is and we have so many interlink the population that you can't tell them that you're indian and your chinese i mean there are points where you can just jump across like we do have in every border you can jump across but here the hostilities are different because we have Tibet we have we have Himalayan kingdoms you see jay they want to be independent but still under the protection of some country like india some some countries would like china to protect them some countries like nepal and butan would like india to protect them so are you saying that the people at the border who are the people at the border sort of mixed race that they're part indian and they're part chinese i mean they're confused as to which country they're actually from and which country they have loyalty to but they're looking for somebody to protect them whether it's one or the other they do they do they do that they they have that affinity you see they may look they may look indian and they have you know the intonation towards chinese culture they may look chinese but they have the indian language indian culture in them and what happened in this the actual maybe biggest reason behind this entire dispute jay is that we had a state of jamu and kashmir in the north of india and that we had a temporary provision of article 370 in our constitution which provided that this state would be we'll have a state government and the state government would come in now august 5th 2019 this temporary provision in the constitution was removed and now we have two union territories now this is the akshachin area which borders china till now it was under state government the center had no control over now when you have the center coming in directly you have a state to state connect you have a state to state head on so the state is central government is monitoring what happens at the border till now it was the domain of the state government so we have better patrolling so more scuffles so more surveillance and more more issues like this will come in because they are trying to control the dams and we don't want new dams to be built because india is actually a monsoon fed country and by damming these small areas they're controlling 60 of the water it all is coming down to the ice fed water rivers well is this of concern to the united nations i mean you you've been a united nation's professional for a good part of your career is the united nations involved should it be involved it should but it can't and it has tried but i don't think we can really blow out this this is actually i would really really term it as a soldier's tussle simply put it's just the soldier's tussle which was which which stayed at that you know they tried to flare it up to levels which were unprecedented we could have easily had build up of so many missiles and everything the united nations comes in when they want to see that there is no there's a proper dispute they cannot come in at this stage they cannot come in and say stop your soldiers from fighting because we're already following the rules of no firearms so please fight fighting you and cannot come in korea in a dilemma in that that that that area too you cannot hear what about to you know we recently had a a court proceeding in the hake on the border in the south china sea and maybe the east china sea too i'm not sure and the court made a ruling and the chinese who are a party to that convention ignored the ruling uh and they are building you know military facilities out in the ocean and so forth um and i wonder if if that would be of any help here if we had some kind of international court that that could say no this is the the line of actual control or this is uh this is a solution would you guys please listen to us and and um you know and maybe not disturb the the headwaters of of the rivers there in the Himalayas i mean could this be resolved by by a an international court now now we have a habitual uh habitual uh what do you call it habitual uh what what can you say about this that he they do it all the time it has been going on and on and on almost i mean there's so many disputed territories the expansionist policy of china is very very very very very different from other countries you see they use this they had a book on warfare i don't know the exact name but they they underscore the issue the the talent art of deception the chinese war ancient warfare book underscores the issue of deception so they deceive you they show you that they're having a soldier's fight but they can be building a dam somewhere else so it keeps on going into something else other than what they actually doing but the expansionist policy is a five-pronged approach that they have they want to expand china because to please their rural population they want to show that you know it's it's an it's a policy which they they thrive on if they don't have that how do you keep the population occupied you know half the population is occupied with tibet half the population occupied with hong kong they have five or six cities which are very well developed other than that they do need these places to come in and cause a dispute they don't need it for the economy now galvan is not going to help them in any way but eventually in their 10-year plan in their 15-year framework they do want this control and to make one very point good point that china doesn't cross the line of the claim the claim line they stay put at the 1962 decided area they don't they don't aggress inside aksai chin is an area in ladakh which was given to them by pakistan so as such they have not really transgressed into indian territory so what they do is at the borders scuffles at the borders there has been no no taking and giving of uh area this taking and giving of area will happen when the borders go into definition and it's a sad situation that even after 70 years of independence we have not gone to defining our borders how do you define a nation if you don't define the borders well you know when you when you have this kind of experience you know i'm thinking of hong kong you mentioned hong kong with money yes in hong kong you know little by little beijing improves its position as to controlling hong kong and depriving hong kong and what time little by little each each one of its moves it's like a chess game each one of its moves takes it further in the direction it wants to go so here we have this clash on the border we have you know an international dispute going on and it's active even though they're not using weapons people are dying and the question is do they come out ahead on this clash right now as a consequence of this event are they one step ahead the way they always seem to be when they're sort of ratcheting tightening and tightening in order to express their expansionism they are they are they are doing this in hong kong in a very sad situation actually they are not caring about lives over there and you know if you go to see they did this in tibet too when they came in they came in with guns and ammunition in a place which was a monastery they were unarmed so they're coming in areas which are unarmed and they're using force that is wrong but now that is if you can say they will say it's an internal issue we cannot interfere in there that we had a punch shield with the chinese you know what was the punch shield that was mutual respect of the sovereignty one of the principles no no punch shield punch shield five five principles on which india and china relationship is based so one of the points was interference in each other's internal matters so when we have that we cannot really comment on what they are doing in the internal matters as that they cannot do with us now they use they use pakistan issues to to poke india but you see the pakistan issue has been relatively resolved for us because of the article 370 i told you about it was the most one of the most historic acts to be passed by the parliament it just changed the entire scenario of the disputed state of jamu kashmir became union territory of kashmir and ladak it changed the status of the state they cannot dispute a union territory because union territory means property or union means from for the center under the federal government so you have aksai chin and you know there's a point close to the ladak gal galwan area aksai chin there's a a point known as ch in glacier you know that one have you heard about that one it's right in the mountains where the temperature is unlivable but that is the point vantage point which india controls in our hand so that that actually prevents china and pakistan from joining okay we we want to thank our viewers for submitting some questions and these are really good questions which we don't we don't have the opportunity to pose them to rube moddy gondekar but let me tell you what the questions were and see if we can connect the dots a little on them the first question is how did either side or both sides not see this escalation and how how did they allow it to result in casualties i think from what rube moddy said was that casualties were really in a way accidental because it was a high altitude and it was i guess late in the day visibility was not good they were fighting uh they were occupied in you know the fight and they were falling off the mountain so that was um you know not not anticipated maybe not fully predictable uh and whether you know either side could have seen this escalation i think this has been a point of a point a counterpoint of tension for 70 years and sometimes i guess you just lose control of it i think that's what happened here it lost control there were events with the chinese putting up the tent and then the indians they wanted it down and then you know there was fisticuffs and as i recall she said that the the chinese struck the commander of the indian group and injured him and that got everybody excited so you know whenever you're involved in any kind of violence that kind of thing can happen that's what happened you're hard to say that either the chinese or the indians could have seen this coming and avoided it i think they do have to have a border though to let it be de facto all this time it's not going to work okay another question that was posed is uh russia is mediating uh at its own suggestion why not went into u.s very interesting question uh is this a good strategy for russia sure it enhances russia's position its prestige is influence in the international community and it was a very good idea for russia to do that so it works to raise russia up as a global power it works to actually create a solution which will have russia's signature or assistance on it um and it will um you know it will it will be um it will put russia into the position that the u.s should have been uh the part of the question it asks uh why not the u.s well the u.s is isolating itself it's backing out of this sort of thing it's backing out of being a global mediator um a leader of the free world so to speak and so there's been a vacuum in the trump administration and russia has moved in to fill that vacuum no surprise there um we don't look so good russia looks good and hopefully russia will succeed at bringing the parties together i think it's in the interest of all of them uh to come together on an agreement about this border well this is very interesting reporting by somebody who really knows the story in the border clash between india and china which is an ongoing issue and hopefully will be resolved by the three-party talks between india china and russia coming up very soon in hours or days it's very important that this be resolved there is 2.8 billion people involved and affected by the head the headwaters of the rivers from the himalayas down into india so we're delighted to talk with rupemati kandakar i hope we can talk to her again thank you rupemati we look forward to our further discussion uh on this very important subject and this is jfidel signing off uh for global connections here on think tec away aloha