 Well, good morning everyone. Let me welcome all of you to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I'm Ashley Tellis I'm a senior fellow here at the Endowment and I work on issues of Asian security with a particular interest in India I'm particularly delighted to welcome today two colleagues and scholars of Asia Jonathan Ward who has just completed a very interesting dissertation on Sino-Indian relations and Jeff Smith who is now a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and until very recently Ran the Asia program at the American Foreign Policy Council I'll just say a few words about Jonathan and the book and then I'll come back to Jeff Jonathan's dissertation is a very interesting dissertation because it does something that is usually hard to do When talking about China He spent quite a bit of time Mining the Chinese archives Getting materials that are usually hard to lay one's hands on Not only in the in the Chinese case, but broadly when thinking about Sino-Indian issues So the dissertation is interesting because it gives you a perspective from the other side of the hill It's also interesting for another reason because Sino-Indian relations today are once again In the forefront of our consciousness when we think of South Asia for the longest time When we thought about South Asia, it was dominated by India and Pakistan and Today after the most recent crisis in Doklam the challenges posed by China and India to each other once again at the forefront of our thinking and so I thought it was a particularly opportune moment to invite Jonathan to Give us a sense of what his research uncovered and what he is going to do in the 20 or 25 minutes that he speaks Is to provide a tour the horizon of how Sino-Indian relations have evolved in the post-1947 period and He will end up with trying to shed some light on what that means for current crises and current current challenges between the two countries After that, I've asked Jeff Smith to offer a few words Not as a formal commentary on the paper But to sort of give us his perspective on how he sees China's China India relations today and the relationship going forward Jeff is the author of actually an excellent book on China India competition it's a book that was published about three years ago if I remember correctly and I think it's really the state of the art because Jeff spent an enormous amount of time Not just reading the literature, which of course all people who write books generally tend to do but but visiting the region and actually talking to policy makers and specialists on both sides and so the book is really an excellent survey of The current state of the relationship and I commend it to your attention if you have the interest So without further ado, I will ask Jonathan to take the floor and show us his pictures and After that, I will yield the floor to Jeff and then we'll have a conversation of course open it to the floor So thank you all for coming here, and I look forward to the present day First let me see can you hear me? First of all, thank you all very much for being here for taking time out of your day for your attention to this very interesting subject really What we're going to do essentially is walk walk you through In a sense the origin of China India relations as modern nations So the China India border war is something that we refer to frequently It's almost always a footnote in the discussion of China India relations today It's sort of an explanatory piece of why things might be the way they are, but it actually turns out that it's very You know to some extent misunderstood And also it may in fact be one of the most important and interesting events in the 20th century Insofar as the 21st century will be almost certainly defined by the rise of both China and India and the Relationship that they have with each other and with the rest of the world So the fact that they've already had a fairly substantial encounter That was so close and very importantly so so so close to the beginning Of their founding as modern states and this was the question that fascinated me as a doctoral student at Oxford was How do you have the the two most populous nations in Asia who essentially of Indian independence in? 1947 you've the founding of the People's Republic of China 1949 and just over a decade later the two nations go to war in the Himalayas. Why does this happen? So the Indian side I think was relatively Well understood. I mean there'd been a number of documents had been sort of shared over the decades But the Chinese side was not And for a very brief period there were archives that were open in Beijing that really Shed a great deal of light on Chinese perspectives During the rise and fall of Chinese relations and I say rise and fall because as we'll see it wasn't just a border war The two began their journey Essentially with a call to brotherhood as Nehru said we have been brothers for a thousand years The two nations have had an ancient history of friendship So this was essentially the first thing that happened between the two nations and then it did very quickly proceed to collapse So that question remains central Why did it happen and also why did China and India go out in the first thing they do essentially in their meeting as modern nations is Attempt to friendship so when we talk about the relationship today, which we will do we're going to get into Indian Ocean and Issues we'll get into Doc Lam. We'll get into some of the economics, but it starts You know, it's most helpful really to have a grounding In what the nature of this relationship was in its beginnings essentially So that's what we'll do and we'll go into some some documents some excerpts some documents that have probably never really been seen before in English So so that's that's what we're gonna do first So China-India relations the untold story you can Of course, you know, let's see. So India achieves independence in 1947 as mentioned in it, you know The famous speech Nehru says Sleeps India will awaken to life and freedom. It's of course a major major moments you know the foundation of India as a modern state and its independence China has Just two years later the Chinese Civil War has been going on from 1945 to 49 and in 49 the Communist Party wins And now founds the People's Republic of China and this is the piece that really is what I would like people to see and understand I'm quoting two historians here two of the best historians on modern China Okay, so as Chen Jian says Mao's revolution never took as its ultimate goal the communist seizure of power in China rather The chairman repeatedly made clear his revolution aimed at transforming China's state and important part reasserting China's central position in the world The reasserting China's central position. Well for those of us that think about China today Xi Jinping, you know Fuxing Zhu, well, you know sort of the the Zhongguo Meng in the Chinese dream in the Restoration of the Chinese nation People might think it's sort of new it's not it's not at all It's it starts at the beginning Mao himself thought of himself as an heir to Sun Yat-sen So this is a really long-term project for China and then Cheng Jai says Mao aimed at transforming not only the old China But also the old world order Just as the old international order had helped cause India China's suffering and humiliation So too with the creation of a new order contribute to the rebirth of a strong and prosperous China So the reason I'm foregrounding this is because One of the most important things to understand about the China-India border war is it wasn't exactly about the border At least from the Chinese perspective. It was not exactly about the border if anything it was India's collision with the project of the restoration of China And that's what we will get into so the Chinese people have stood up is what Mao says very famously Now What I learned from the documents was of course, this is the Cold War So, you know China's dealing with the United States with the USSR the USSR is an ally America is an enemy And then India really is the third major country This is something that's not really part of the historical literature, but India is the third major piece and In order to navigate the world in order to sort of affect The next steps in this restoration of China. They're dealing not only with the Cold War world, but with decolonization So all the European empires are rolling back across the earth and India and China Both see a sense that the position they can take as leaders in this decolonization So one of the first things that happens is they decide that we'll have a friendship So as Joe and Lai says in New Delhi the traditional friendship between the Chinese and Indian people will develop We will build our own great ancestral lands. So again that that sense of a shared sort of deep history We will value friendship because friendship creates power The other thing that India didn't quite understand was China intended to use the decolonizing nations against the United States And specifically against the US sort of containment strategy, which existed in the 1950s Nehru says we in India have had 2,000 years of friendship with China China has taken a new shape in a new form We endeavor to maintain friendly relations with this great neighbor of ours for the peace of Asia depends upon those relations So really China had two intention several intentions one was a fear of Indian interactions with the United States and with the West Another was sort of wanting Indian help with the decolonizing world Was also worried about India's presence in Tibet and the Himalayas and we'll get into that and then it was You know, so that that's you know a fair amount of it And then India essentially was concerned about further wars in Asia because the Korean War had just happened and India did not want these sorts of things to happen again They were concerned about war especially between China and the United States So the idea was if we essentially start introducing China around to other Asian nations We can in a sense mitigate the the Confrontational Side to China that had happened thus far, you know responsible stakeholder kind of idea and Then for Indian leadership in the decolonized world neighbor that really believed that China would a partnership with China was essential to achieving They set up the five principles of peaceful coexistence which are used today by the Chinese That it's even been referred to a few times during the Doc Lam standoff So mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty non-aggression non-interference, etc These eventually became sort of diplomatic weapons that that both nations used against each other to sort of discredit their Himalayan claims, but then a couple of other things in the background. So Mao is saying in 1958 We have a long-term plan Fundamentally our plan is to build up economics. There are lots of external problems Taiwan and South Korea have us bases Japan Philippines Vietnam and Thailand also have us bases We hope that all Afro Asian nations will build up their economies We can all unite and say we what we want to imperialism Other countries like India Burma Indonesia, etc. Are all about the same You know essentially don't join military packs So the CCP is taking a very clear stance there. They do not like us bases in Asia You know what's new We're gonna focus on economics and they really need in a sense the neutrality and support of other nations around them So here Mao is also saying we don't want India to fall into America's hands This is in 1959. So this question of encirclement was was front and center back then in the Chinese strategic calculus Things start to fall apart and we'll get into why As a diplomatic notice said of you know some months ahead of the border war itself There was a dark side to the China-India relationship from the beginning Chinese Foreign Ministry talking to India They're referring to Tibet And this is all happening in the context of the border dispute which I don't mean to downplay that But what it really is it becomes a proxy for the collapse of a much more complex and much more substantial relationship It's not simply a dispute over territory The tenets at the heart of the new China and the very concept of having a new China which has been restored you know is all sort of embodied in this in this question of territorial integrity and national sovereignty and Only really three places touch on this the United States does in Taiwan the Soviet Union does through a few sort of You know interesting instances and then India does very strongly in the Himalayas. This is something that's Very profound in the documents So Joe and lie and what it turns into is this concept of India as a major strategic adversary that's working not only In terms of the Himalayas, but really in all aspects in which China is trying to essentially achieve its restoration one is of course this this prioritization of You know Insolidating China's borders and Xinjiang Tibet etc Another is this question of transforming the world around China as Chiang Jai alluded to So that's the sort of aphor Asian foreign policy more broadly and the third is this Notion that becomes deeply embedded in the Chinese foreign ministry that India is very skillfully using both superpowers Both the United States and the Soviet Union so Russia and the United States to tip the overall balance of power against China Not what was happening, but that's the view that took shape in the foreign ministry and among senior leaders So it turns into this very interesting concept of India and this is part of what matters in this relationship is in my thesis I called it sort of an imagined nation. I mean the way that China sort of You know views India and gives it this sort of comprehensive Identity where initially it's sort of like we want them to stay neutral We want to do all this but eventually it transforms into this concept in which India and its leadership are quote Errors to the British Empire This becomes a dominant idea So the root of the conflict the root of the Chinese border conflict according to Joe and lie China's first foreign minister and then the premier who is essentially responsible for the construction of China-India relations very important figure in China's diplomacy The root of the conflict is that China is that India wants to take up the mantle of British imperialism Not the border So and this quote I think is very important Since the founding of the People's Republic of China The Chinese government has put special emphasis on friendship with India Moreover, it has tirelessly persevered in its efforts to safeguard and consolidate this kind of friendship However, regardless of anything, this is the important bit the liberated new China Cannot permit itself to be pushed back once again to the position of suffering that was the old China So again this concept of the new China versus the old China This is something that we're all going to hear a lot in different words in our lifetimes It takes the form. I think of the Chinese gene the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation This idea that China has come to this place where it's repudiated the what's called the Binyan Guochua the hundred years of national humiliation And is now stood up or will restore itself You know 2049 will become become a moderately prospering and etc all of these ideas that have been there since the beginning in India Essentially had a collision with this Restoration will skip some of the other bits To get further. So other views a challenge to China's global foreign policy And I say global because even though we're talking about the 50s and the 60s China is already You know establishing relationships across Africa across Latin America all over Asia the USSR is its major backer The Sino-Soviet split of course happens because China essentially contests the Soviet Union's leadership You know etc So Chinese Embassy in New Delhi reporting in 1961 India is extremely attentive and fearful of our political influence in Africa Which is attempting to counteract and destroy? And of course India is non-aligned here I mean India is looking for a different way in the third in the Cold War world Non-alignment you can get into why that matters today later So Chinese Embassy in a year later Because India still has the non-aligned sign up. We cannot underestimate Nehru's deceptions And then this other thing that's very interesting is this sense of divergence in the in the sort of essence of the two countries foreign policies So China in the 50s decides that they're going to export violent revolution And I say violent because that's actually at the heart of what it is and becomes a dispute between China and India That is sort of a subtle thing that comes in a lot of ministry reporting on India So the foreign ministry was unhappy with India's quote propagation of non-violence and passive resistance in Africa And Nehru is saying things such as the African people can through passive resistance Overthrow colonialism without spilling a drop of blood China is taking a very different approach And that's another subject really but a very different approach So and so the final sort of major driver that I want to get into because I don't want this to only be about History bring it into the contemporary very soon So this was the most surprising thing to me when I was in the archives expecting to just hear conversations over the border How much emphasis there was on India's relationship with the United States and in reality it wasn't it was a relationship That was very difficult You know Kennedy was sort of very precociously interested in India and wanted to bring this relationship to its full potential Very much with China in mind in fact, but it was not going so well. I mean India was was much more hesitant So Chinese embassy in New Delhi has other views of this the Indian government as they say the Indian government is happy to be the tool of US imperialism India-America relations are closer every day providing India with a series of new problems in its foreign relations India is quote the hired thug of America's new colonialism Then at the bottom Nehru is wholeheartedly ready to implement US policy of using Asians to beat Asians These are the ideas that are all over the foreign ministry. So I mean here at the bottom It's China's ambassador to the United Arab Republic, which is a sort of Syria Egyptian Amalgamation didn't last too long, but it's really throughout all of China's international diplomacy They're not only saying this because it appears that they believe it but also Because it's what they're telling to other Asian and African nations. It's how they're portraying India and India's leadership To the rest of the developing world Okay, so then the border war happens and You know, it's a it's a very short war. It's about a month begins in October of 1962 it ends a month later in November What had happened was the four Nehru had started a forward policy in November of 1961 Both sides refer to this as a chess match where essentially each each side is building military posts The other sort of encircling those posts in a counter encirclement, etc The border just becomes the center of a lot of military activity Nehru has basically decided I can't let the Chinese just start building interesting enough a road and then Military installations, I've got to start doing this too And then China at a certain point decides its time for military operations They push all of the Indian posts back to You know out of the disputed territories which are in red and then they withdraw to the line of actual control So China controls the Western territory India controls the Eastern territory. That's the situation. We're still in today Both are disputed We'll leave that for now The Liu Xiaoqi who is Mao's successor he was the number two essentially in the Chinese Communist Party says whether or not this lesson that we taught Nehru was enough Is still a question. Maybe there will need to be a second or a third lesson I think in this sense he's actually speaking in a very near-term way It's not meant to be you know in the 21st century, but nonetheless because These sorts of things are coming up, you know during the Dachlan crisis in in the press in China Here it is in their own words, and this is a private conversation. This is not too in China and India today. It's time to transition So so that's a bit of what happened and the reason for putting that together is just to give you a little more of a Sort of sense of the nature as my supervisor asked me he said, you know go and figure out What is the nature of this event? Why did this happen? Why did these countries come together in this in this way? There was a clash so so to have some sense of that and there's much much more to it But that's brief and now we'll transition to issues today so the Himalayas are Such a fascinating subject One of the things that I've been saying in some of my writings now is that China-India relations is really migrating to the maritime world as You know China becomes the world's most trading nation and it's surpassing the United States in terms of total Inbound and outbound, you know trade It's obviously dependent on the world's waterways in a way that it certainly wasn't back then India also is dependent on the world Sees for 90% of its trade So to a certain extent the story of China-India relations today is very much maritime and yet the Himalayas bloom large And Doc Lam I think reminds us of that so we'll get into that But I want to talk to you very briefly about China's strategic geography because this is I think to some extent a very Solid ways to look at how China makes its plans Over here you've got What is it? It's a gravity distribution map From the University of Leicester, which basically allows you to see it's sort of a topography But it shows you how high the Himalayas really are I mean that really is the high ground in Asia It's completely different from the rest of Asia. So China made it a serious priority To control the Tibetan plateau. I was wondering that during my PhD It was why why do they need it so bad? What is it that makes it so important to them something interesting in the Qing dynasty? So a hundred years ago a Qing dynasty official was saying Tibet is the hand that protects the face The hand that protects the face of China and look at it sort of clear Then Chiang Kai-shek who is the leader of the Guomandang Party that founded the Republic of China was defeated in the Civil War. He says in China's destiny There are no natural frontiers in the areas of the Yellow Huai Yangtze and Han rivers where a strong defense line can be prepared Therefore Formosa, which is Taiwan the Pescadoris which are near Taiwan the four northeastern provinces Manchuria Inner and outer Mongolia Xinjiang and Tibet are each a fortress essential for the nation's defense and security The separation of any one of these regions from the rest of the country means the disruption of our national defenses So this was a priority back then the way that the South China Sea is a priority now And I think they're actually very similar. So when China talks about blue national soil, I think I think of Tibet So moving to the maritime domain Here just to show you that the Malacca dilemma. This is this is something Hu Jintao termed Essentially, you've got about 80% of China's energy imports must transit the two mile wide straits of Malacca Which is I'll use the whole thing right here. So you're going through the Straits of Malacca in order to get to China That's that's you know energy supplies coming out of Hormuz. It's also trades. They're not just energy I mean all the world's sort of maritime trade with Europe You know anything going around the Horn of Africa, which is surprisingly more than one might think Almost go through Malacca in a sense. I mean the way that I think of this is if the Chinese economy were a refrigerator That's the electrical cord very dangerous if anyone pulls that cord. They're in trouble Okay, so this I think is fundamental to understanding China's geography today and to Chinese strategy today both economic and military Now the blue line down here is from insuring secure seas, which is India the Indian Navy's Most recent certain, you know maritime strategy document. I came out. I believe at the beginning of 2016 This is what India calls its primary area of interest Right. So from the Cape of Good Hope up essentially to You know to Indonesia to to the Right right over there. So so that's what India considers the primary area of interest and the secondary interest includes the western Pacific So again, you have an overlapping strategic geography that includes vital interests That is playing out in the maritime domain And the Himalayas I think have been on ice for a while though pun intended But you know, I think they're back in the game and that's something we can talk about later So China is focused on blue building up a blue water Navy and preparing for far seas operations This is something that's well worth discussing in depth, but we'll just touch on it here. That's the downing This is a graph from Jim Fanell and Scott Cheney Peners which Appeared in Chinese Naval Shipbuilding which shows what they call the maximal scenario, but many other scenarios are relatively similar I mean it's not a large sort of Step and the idea was is China going to have a 500 ship Navy by 2030 as in a Navy that's larger than the United States Quantitatively not necessarily qualitatively, but quantitatively perhaps India meanwhile is looking to build a 200 ship Navy by 2027 so also focused on Naval power, but working with the help of the United States There's a joint working group on carrier technology It may be that Indian carriers have catabar technology, which would be you know among You know it would be very unique possibly with electromagnetic assist to the launch All of these discussions are in public sphere. So so very interesting emphasis on naval power But the disputed border of course remains important source of tension in a sense I mean it is a fact it exists. It's still disputed It's still a line of actual control that we that we've known since since back when this all started You know Western sector Eastern we can zoom in on that later if necessary Doc Lam which happened this summer. I think it's something we should probably get into in questions and answers But and in our discussion, but this You know people think of it as more substantial than than any recent border standoff. I think that is You know, I would say that that does seem interesting and convincing Partly because India of course is is sort of acting allegedly on you know the behalf of Bhutan, which is completely different from You know dealing with China on its own There is of course a treaty in effect that provides for mutual security cooperation defense And then the question of road building I think is a little bit interesting because what really led to the question of the China India border in China India relations Was a road that was being built in 1957 that the Indian side discovered up in the Western sector and That's when India began to care about the maps in a more substantial way and to care about the Chinese sort of You know realize essentially there was a dispute I mean that's when it really came into the relationship So I think road building to me remains an interesting issue and that's of course what triggered doc Lam Why is not known? We don't necessarily know that Why China chose to do this or were accidentally did it or what have you? But part of the question was whether or not it affects the military balance on a tactical level in the Chumbi Valley Which is this bit, you know where seek him is and the important bit there is if everybody can see up here We're Nepal Bangladesh Bhutan meat is what's called is the siligree gap so I believe it's about 14 miles across and It's also known as the chicken's neck because the concern and you know you imagine you you know a war with China 1962 They actually they went through all this area and showed an overwhelming ability to to use force in the eastern sector The concern would be what would in the event of conflict would it be possible for an adversary to detach The detach the whole of eastern India a sum by cutting off that's 14 mile gap So that's part of why the Chumbi Valley matters This is a little bit more of a zoom on the actual dispute a bit we can get into that I want to turn to economics now just so we get into the macro One of the important things I mean we all essentially know the story And we're all beginning to live within the world in which China is a major Economic power and to a certain extent become conscious of China's a major military power and even ideological power I think that's happening to in subtle ways, but Chinese growth of course is Diminishing I mean the growth rate is dropping for various reasons. India's is rising So India has essentially in 2015 outpaced Chinese growth for the first time aside from you know little bits here and there It's a much later story. I mean China really begins with the reforms in 1978 Deng Xiaoping India begins around 1991 this one real reform Started to happen China's share of global GDP is is significantly higher. It's the second largest in the world You know, it's it's only about 60% of the United States despite what people tell you in real terms Which I think are the right terms to think about But India is about where China was 10 years ago. So 10 years ago China was a two and a half trillion dollar economy Today it is an 11 trillion dollar economy in the US is 18 Today India is a two and a half trillion dollar economy with a rising growth rate so one of the obvious and important questions is When does India become essentially the third major economy in the world? This is really a very interesting subject on its own And and something I think we'll all want to pay attention to But it's happening. I mean starting it will be outpaced Britain at post-Brexit exchange rates You know some measurements it did outpace Britain already But but the Indian growth story is really starting now And then the youth bulge in demographics and you can't talk about China and India with a little bit of demographics so India will have a youth bulge in its workforce all the way through 2035 and possibly beyond Whereas China's is already ending So the question that economists sometimes raise is will China get rich before it gets old another interesting debate? But India is going to stay young for quite a long time And that matters for a variety of reasons which you can discuss So anyway that that's it. I mean that's sort of the overview of Some of the history to ground it some of the current strategic issues a bit of the economics to sort of set the table for further discussion And I'll leave it with a little bio and kiss, you know just for reference some of my own activities and then How to contact me in case of interest? And and that's that's it. So thank you very much for your time Jeff why don't you First of all, thank you for a very substantive presentation It's quite humbling how much Jonathan has accomplished in a very short period of time If you look him up online and read some of his past work a number of languages He speaks where he studied what he studied. It's all very impressive and for somebody who works on China-India relations quite a bit and thinks that subject is is quite critical It's nice to see somebody else taking such an active interest and of course to thank you as well to Ashley Whether he knows it or not. He's been a mentor to everybody in Washington in the Asia Studies field for many years So thank you for that and for putting the presentation together today I Thought maybe first I would speak a little bit about the Doklam crisis Where we ended in some ways your presentation and then maybe we could circle back to one or two of the bigger themes I Wrote an article While the crisis was unfolding in war on the rocks which kind of gave my readout of The crisis why it was different what the stakes were The short version of that is that this crisis was different from many of the past disputes of the China-India border And it was distinguished principally by its location the fact that it wasn't along the line of actual control And by the language and behavior of the two sides There was a bit of a role reversal in the sense that India was quite restrained in its public messaging both the media and official government statements China which generally approaches these border disputes by deferring Which comments very little which doesn't actually keep track of Indian violations of the line of actual control or publicly comment on them in general really surprised a lot of people and Not only was the global times very abrasive and Confrontational toward India, but it was Chinese officials in Beijing Chinese officials in India official outlets like the People's Daily that were very threatening very hostile and Essentially espousing one message no negotiations no compromise until we have a full Indian withdrawal of troops This was very unusual and led myself and some others to think that this the stakes in this crisis or the possibility of escalation far exceeds what we normally see at the China-India border India record several hundred Chinese transgressions across the line of actual control every year most of them are very innocent patrols They're resolved in a matter of minutes occasionally. They devolve into intrusions Which may result in a two to three week crisis as happened in 2013 or 2014? But this was was was different It lasted several months the Chinese language again was was very Inflammatory, but it turns out that they were Despite China's pledge not to negotiate until there was a withdrawal. They were negotiating behind the scenes I thought it was Also unique in some ways that China was taking the inflexible position, but for India. I think the stakes were much higher Chinese penetration into the Doklam Valley and into the high ground around there would have compromised Maybe the one area where India holds in it tactical military advantage along the line of actual control And yet it was really China that was more inflexible in public But as I said they were negotiating behind the scenes and eventually they came to what I what I assumed was the most likely outcome which was a somewhat ambiguous face-saving mutually face-saving Negotiated withdrawal and I think India was right in this case to be a little flexible and say, you know what we'll move first and They did with the Chinese pulling back their troops and this is a disengagement now not a complete withdrawal So there are still forces from both sides not far from the site but obviously tensions have been diffused and They agreed essentially not to comment on each other's statement so to allow each other to Craft their own narrative in some ways about how the withdrawal unfolded and I think India's flexibility in this regard and its decision not to Ratchet up the tensions and rhetoric in public even though they held an advantage on the ground and frankly could have waited out the Chinese for much longer or sought to Play up the fact that they had embarrassed the Chinese or they had prevented China from taking any ground or had prevented Chinese coercion I think the fact that they did not take that track was the right move The other factor I think that was interesting in the timing of the negotiated settlement is I think the BRIC summit Did not produce the settlement but may have accelerated it. I don't think President Xi Wanted to see Prime Minister Modi not attend a BRIC summit in China the symbolism The institution itself. I think are very important for China So in some ways that may have helped push both sides toward a settlement more quickly There's been a lot of commentary in the in the aftermath that India registered a great victory Had showed the Southeast Asian States How to successfully resist Chinese coercion I do in many ways think that India played this correctly and And gained advantage in how the outcome unfolded but I've returned frequently to the question of what China's objectives were precisely and I think one of the More convincing arguments is that over the longer term China is trying to peel Bhutan Away from India create discord in Bhutan India relations convince Bhutan that it needs to establish Diplomatic relations with China that there will be economic benefits to doing so And also that it should see the Dokum Plateau to China and end this border dispute and in return will receive great material and territorial benefits elsewhere And the readout how Bhutan has seen this crisis During and in the aftermath Our information is very limited The Bhutanese have been very coy their public statements on the issue have been very terse Reporters who have tried to go to Bhutan to interview officials or the general public have not turned up Much useful information. Everyone seems very tight-lipped We're left with the general sense that Bhutan was uncomfortable with the way this unfolded That it would have preferred India not have to come in And prevent Chinese troops from road building There's a sense that maybe they Are looking a little more favorably upon establishing diplomatic relations with China at some point on finding a Settlement to their territorial dispute, which is multifaceted But also that they still want to maintain good relations with India Kind of the stuck in the middle uncomfortable position But we're not really sure because they've been so tight-lipped about it I would note the Their statement during the crisis in june 29th Was more critical of china. It said the construction of the chinese road Inside Bhutanese territory is a direct violation of previous agreements Their final statement after the crisis was resolved was quite vanilla Bhutan welcomes the disengagement by the two sides at the face-off site Not china has left Bhutanese territory. Thank you India for evicting them It simply noted the reality that the two sides had disengaged a few notable things Happened in the aftermath the indian press recently reported that Chinese transgressions over the past year Across the line of actual control relatively innocent short transgressions Are up significantly this year On track for over 500 in 2017 Generally, they've been 200 300 400 had Been backed down to 300 or 200 over the last two years So that may be a space Worth watching there was a particularly intense standoff at pangong lake in ladakh In cashmere Very very rare that a confrontation between chinese and indian border patrols results in violence In fact, there hasn't been a deadly exchange across the border since 1967 But even scuffles and fistfights are fairly uncommon and there's video of the india china confrontation in pangong lake month ago In which the two sides really engaged in In a in a pretty good brawl and a lot of stone throwing and It wasn't a good sign on on in an area where these two Sides come into close contact quite frequently. Fortunately, it did not devolve into anything worse The other interesting thing was at the bricks summit China seemed to offer india a major concession By including language very critical of pakistani-based terrorist groups in the readout This actually wasn't the first time that language had been included also last year at the heart of asia conference china conceded to including language critical of pakistan, but I think that was viewed in india and elsewhere as somewhat of a concession to delhi and maybe somewhat of a surprising one The last comment on doklam. I'll make is Madhav Nallapatt, who's an indian analyst Has argued that the crisis started from a decision made by a four star officer in the pla That had not consulted with beijing beforehand that did not understand the sensitivities involved It's impossible for me to to know whether that's true or not But it continues to feed this discussion about the degree to which the pla may be responsible for Certain behavior or provocations and how much of it is coordinated from beijing I am not a ardent subscriber to the Rogue pla theory But is it possible that they that they miscalculated that this was a lower level decision that they were capable of Making and didn't realize What the implications would be or how india would react that to me is is believable It's also notable that the One of the very senior officers on the central military commission Who is not of retirement age was quietly ousted in july and has not been invited to the party congress Which further feeds some of this discussion After the dept sang incident a particularly bad Border incident in 2014 that really poisoned president she's visit to deli to meet with prime minister modi for the first time President she gave a very Well was reported on in the chinese press a very critical talk to the pla senior brass about the need to Follow party leadership at all times Again, this is a speech he may have given otherwise that's been a central theme of his anyway But it's uh, I guess further fueling the the discussion To get back to one of the themes covered in in jonathan's presentation I thought it was very interesting that I think I believe one of the cases you're making is that The border war the 1962 border war The causes for that were much Beyond what was happening at the line of actual control and I think there's been a general understanding that for the chinese tibet has been A central factor and a central concern with india a driving motivation the flight of the dalai lama in 1959 But one of the points you touched on was that it was actually also a fear of indian interactions with the us And that point I think has been less explored in china's motivation for the 1962 border war and I I think That theme still in many ways colors china india relations today And is something that and is a dynamic that we don't properly understand In part because the chinese don't like to admit That us india relations bother them India is not a peer of china's so why would we care if it's talking to the united states? The last thing i'll say on that is when we look at the recent spike intentions in china india relations Or or the growth intentions over the past decade We tend to look back and say well since 2008 china has grown more assertive On multiple foreign policy fronts, whether it's in the south china sea or the east china sea or with india And I think to some degree that's true But if you look at when china india relations Lost some of the positive momentum that had been built up in the 1980s 1990s and early 2000s actually in 2007 When the chinese began signaling that an agreement that had been reached in 2005 That was providing some momentum to Providing some hope that they would resolve their border dispute In 2007 they began to signal that that provisions in that 2005 agreement Which suggested china might be willing to give up its claims on to long in the eastern sector And agree to essentially a status quo border swap, which is something they had been Informally putting on the table since 1960 In 2007 they started signaling that wasn't the case that actually they were going to maintain a harder line claim on to long Which is essentially what's preventing the two from resolving the border dispute It's perhaps noteworthy that the 2007 Was two years after india and the us signed the us india nuclear deal and a 10-year defense partnership agreement 2007 was also the first year that india agreed to do multilateral military exercises Launching a quadrilateral initiative and engaging in uncommon and robust Show of naval force with the us australia, japan, and singapore I can't connect the dots in beijing what was motivating their thinking But i do know that It has watched the us india relationship very closely and in some ways I think it does feel threatened by the prospect of india and the us forming a strategic partnership What it can't decide is how it wants to prevent that from happening Whether it wants to induce india with carrots and bring it over to its side Or try and signal to india that it's going to punish it the closer it moves toward the us The Other last point on that is that I think One of the major changes to this dynamic is that in recent years india has shed Some of its reservations about moving closer to the us that for a long time There was a concern Yes, a closer partnership with washington and the west makes sense from a national security perspective, but It costs us in our relationship with china and we will China will respond in punitive ways the closer we move to america and I think That thinking began to evolve The in the upa government from 2004 to 2014 But under the under the modi government in particular since 2016 I think that shift in thinking has crystallized even further and they believe a closer partnership with the us strengthens their hand with china Rather than weakens it Thank you. Jeff I want to Well start by first complimenting both of you for the work you have done to incorporate scholarship into the service of policy Very often we do policy work Thinking that the contemporary problems are self-contained And it's useful to have Scholarship to sort of help us Think through both the genesis of some of these problems and also their long-term sort of consequences There are three issues that popped up I thought in the Course of your presentation and in jeff's remarks, and if you don't mind I want to just Raise those and get your comments on them The first point you made jonathan was that the crises Certainly the war of 62 Was not about territory per se even though it had a territorial Manifestation, but it was really a collision between two big national projects right It seems to me that And this is where I like both your reaction and jeff's it seems to me that the challenges of colliding national projects today Are actually worse than they probably were even in the 1960s Because the at least from a chinese perspective the rejuvenation agenda as you point out has been fairly consistent But on the indian side the national project at the time of independence Was Much more catholic in its worldview i use catholic with a small c that is it had Sort of room for interdependence and cooperation and particularly among the post-colonial states The vision was one of cooperation even though that comes about Today the indian national project is evolving in the direction of an emphasis on difference The uniqueness of indian civilization And perhaps even shading into a certain muscularity In a way that was not the case When one looks at indian behavior, you know right up to 1971 So as you think about the interactions of both china and india What do you what is your sort of gut instinct about how these Two national projects which now almost seem to Pretty similar in some ways What what is that what is the prognostication for The relationship from these two countries were involved sure. Um, I mean one yet. I think the border war itself was probably You know, I would say it was probably the most important event in india's modern history other than independence itself And the third major event would be the rise of india as a major power Comprehensively and and it's for that very reason I mean it almost it almost showed india and you have naru going up during the border war insane We're a peaceful people unused to the ways of military power, etc Now it is time for us to focus on our national defense So so it starts there the concept of building your military also partnerships strategic partnerships with major powers and by strategic I mean, you know, first it was the ussr, you know Now I think india's level of comfort and working with the united states and japan and others is is partly What happened back then and china thought that they they thought they were going to Make a friend out of teaching india the lesson That's the other part that we didn't get to talk about but that eventually this would sort of teach india What the right way to interact with china would be so talk about carrots and sticks And it did not produce that effect if anything it complicated the environments in which the chinese restoration project continues And I you know just in general on I think that china's project of national restoration Is probably the most important thing for any american citizen and the indian citizen really any citizen of the world to understand I mean, I think this is the main event of our lifetimes is How is it? That this nation will seek power if this nation gains power How will it use it? What kind of world would we be living in if we're living in a world that is defined by The presence of chinese power perhaps substantially perhaps as substantially as that of the united states So I think the fact that that from its beginning Has put it into conflict not only with india but with the united states with the ussr You know the range of other countries both in in hot conflicts and and sort of the stuff we see today Um, you know tells us a little bit about what's at the heart of that So so I don't know that there really is a great way to You know, I think the chinese notion of coexistence with its national project is something that that um In many ways they have trouble No Parsing that I mean on one hand they want people to sort of be invited to this party on the other hand It's something that clearly has showed an edge and has come up against You know other substantial nations and I think with india It's really sort of um, it was a very idealistic sort of cosmopolitan view of the world when neyru came Um onto the world stage and said we're going to be a meeting point of east and west You know all of these things and I think that actually some of that still exists. I mean as much as india is Sort of taking a great power role very seriously, and I think this is much to to the benefit of the democratic world I think it also has um a very different Feel to it. I managed I was talking to some senior indian naval officers at one point recently and I was asking about the indian ocean which is something I spent a lot of time on and I said, you know to me It seems like the european nations really should have a role in sort of producing a sort of um Stability concept here, you know, especially france and britain How how would you feel about that? I mean would that would and it said to me that would be wonderful Actually, you think that would be good. I was wow, you know, that's I mean imagine asking that about the south chinese sea so um, so I think there's still some of that original sort of um You know Let's bring a number of people together to to share in this and Yet as india undergirds itself as as a nation that's very strategically active and taking sort of a hard look at its environment That's that's how I respond Can I push back a little on that because I see a far greater continuity In the chinese approach to restoration And probably exists on the indian side I see a potential discontinuity. It's not Obvious that the current trend will possessed or survival But I do see the current indian desire to become a normal great power Somewhat different from the founding idea Of india being a great power, but essentially a meeting place for the world I see the new indian emphasis on conventional expressions of power as being somewhat different I don't know whether it'll survive and so the question that I And jeff I'd like to get your sense of this first Do you perceive a transition in the way india thinks of itself and its role in the world? That's one and two if you do have two conventional great powers in waiting China and india What is the What does the future hold are we looking at a fundamentally competitive relationship? with cooperation taking place in the interstices Or can we still hope for a fundamentally cooperative relationship with competition taking place in the seams? I mean it's a slight There's a slight difference in the way those two worlds sort of proceed. I I think you're Both of your questions touch on one of the more interesting dynamics Something that is likely to have a disproportionate impact on the geopolitics of the 21st century frankly and that is What does a powerful? Confident india look like a modern powerful confident india. I don't know that we've had that in modern times I don't know that india knows what that will look like I don't know how these changes to india's national power will Will transform the indian psyche. We're beginning to get a look at that Foreign secretary jaishankar. I believe last year said we don't want india to be just a balancing power We want india to be a leading power and you've seen in the diplomatic language used in positions taken at international forum and the confidence india's displayed Toward china toward pakistan But but more broadly You've seen a real shift. I think From the last several decades frankly That I don't know that we have a great sense of where that's headed But we see a greater indian willingness to First of all shed the ideological constraints of non-alignment They no longer constrain india from pursuing what it sees as its best interests in Whether that's securing external security partnerships multilateral military exercises Perceptions of being seen as too close to the u.s Some of that baggage and some of those Artificial constraints have been shed Which I think for many of us has been has been most welcome That general push is likely to be exacerbated by what we see as increasingly overlapping spheres of interest and influence between China and india, which is I think part of what you were touching on The china india rivalry has been animated since from the beginning by these legacy issues like to bet Like the border dispute and like china support for pakistan The one major dynamic that's changed in recent years. I think is an intensification of Each other's activities in their traditional backyards and spheres of influence. It's been far more pronounced on the chinese side, which Before 2008 did not even have a regular military presence in the indian ocean Now, uh, chinese nuclear submarines chinese conventional submarines operate there regularly There's the anti piracy task force that operates there regularly They've been surfacing at at india ports But really also overland the transformation of china's relationship with napal With shri lanka with the mall thieves Already enjoys a strong relationship with bangladesh That is a much newer phenomenon and I think it's revived Older indian concerns about a string of pearls Which when pakistan assumed or china assumed control of the goad or port in pakistan in 2015 the same year it sold pakistan eight submarines the largest ever Defense deal the same year it announced the 46 billion dollar cpec project A year after Chinese submarines surfaced in colombo for the first time without Giving prior notice to deli all of these events. I think have For india created a sense of encirclement by chinese influence and interest and a bifurcation of south asian politics Where I think some of these Neighbors had traditionally been largely sheltered from chinese influence significant chinese influence. That's now no longer the case And you're seeing a lot more jockeying for the loyalty of local actors Of course india also in the western pacific It's really only since the turn of the century that they've become a major player there But they have formed a very substantive Partnerships with australia, japan, vietnam They've become a vocal advocate for freedom of navigation in the south china sea They've become enmeshed in the security architecture there Conducting joint exercises with the u.s adding japan to the malibar exercises on a permanent basis So Increasingly we we are going to see Friction in these overlapping spheres of interest thus far. They've been pretty successful at managing tensions I expect that to continue, but I don't expect those tensions to mitigate in fact the trends seem to be going in the opposite way I mean, this is an interesting issue because Was a slide that you had Somewhere in the presentation where you showed the growth curves of the two countries And what I found fascinating was actually the trend lines in those curves irrespective of the perturbations at any given point And I often wonder Whether if we had this conversation say 30 years from now Whether we would not be looking at in india That today is occupied by china and our imagination I remember in the 90s, even though we knew china was on the upswing 10 years after jung's reforms No one quite imagined in the u.s. Government that we would Be dealing with china as a near pill 20 years out And therefore we were quite happy to support its growth and so on and so forth I wonder whether we are at the early stages of seeing india now beginning to Get Sort of underway on another 20 to 30 year bull run And then what does that mean for the global system 30 years out? What form the Multi-polarity in essence take And then the large question of where does the us fit into that world? Because one of the interesting insights that you had and which I think is sort of understated That it's always been a common refrain in the us that you know The chinese sort of are indifferent to india because you're not peers and there are good reasons for that But I wonder whether that indifference one is going to survive And two whether the indifference if it survives will continue to be feigned in difference Rather than real indifference because if your trend lines You know are sustained and who knows what the future holds What does this mean for the relationship and that broad macro level? Yeah, um, so Something that comes up there is um, I think you have a certain sort of strategic chess board that's emerging just between the two countries on their own and um part of what that is is is um You know china's genuine dependency on the indian ocean region So I got interested in the indian ocean when I was talking to the head of a chinese think tank in 2014 during a research year And we were talking about chinese relations And he said for us the most important region in the world is the indian ocean because we're going to depend on it for the next 40 years and Then I was interviewing sort of other Chinese india specialists and one of them who was about my age said to me You as in you in the united states look at us as the rising power But we look at india as the rising power And I think that that's sort of the situation is that because you have a geography in which china is truly dependent on a region In which india actually has many strategic advantages pakistan notwithstanding. I think the china pakistan relationship Is is obviously crucial to the balance of power between the two um in the indian ocean but um India essentially sits astride the most vital sea lines that china has So um and then you look in the himalayas and something like I think part of what's interesting about doc lamb is Without us being able to pinpoint with accuracy where and how it began On what its reasons were The question of being able to apply in any way pressure in let's say the chumbi valley or in ladakh etc I mean those are perhaps china's points of leverage in this larger chessboard because they don't necessarily have That leverage in the maritime world certainly not yet um and in the same way that china has always been Worried about you know encirclement by the united states india is worried about encirclement by china and each System is sort of meant to address the vital interests of each party So so I think that's part of how this will shape up. So I think these dynamics are very real. They're very internal I mean you can really bet on them in the sense that You know, they just have a machinery To it that I think could only really be changed by dramatic events Or you know, I think something that to me is is sort of interesting is I imagine in china The question of energy independence will start to emerge and the conversation on that will start to merge a lot of the clean tech I think Might perhaps have as much to do with the question of melaka as it does with pollution and climate and things like that So um because for now china depends on the world's waterways and and it just doesn't have that advantage So I think that Yeah, the wonderful question What happens if if india becomes the new china and what does it look like? And I think it some ways get back to the last comment, which is we don't know what a powerful confident nationalist india Will look like we we do have some signals I think to a greater degree than was the case with china in the 1980s or 1990s Most people have most countries to date have viewed india's rise more benevolently East asia southeast asia have largely welcomed greater indian Interest activities presence as a counterbalance to china's rise with the exception of some of india's immediate smaller neighbors Almost no one perceives an external security threat from india I think one of the key differences is that india's rise is not driven by believe it was howard french Who called this dual narrative of resentment and restoration? India is not looking to uh Atone for a century of humiliation at the hands of its neighbors western powers It doesn't have territorial ambitions That are concerning to other regional powers or that may impinge on the It is not blatantly criticizing the international order as unfair to itself and its interest and looking to Alter that order in any fundamental way that that we can tell thus far thus far um Those elements of china's rise that have created friction not only with its immediate neighbors over over smaller issues But on a broader scale with the us with its larger neighbors with the international system are at least not present I think in india's case um If you ask some of you know shri lanka or napal if they have some concerns about india growing stronger and more confident That they may they may but that broader structural friction In fact what we've seen is india increasingly seeking to be a net provider of security in the indian ocean to um Enhance Many of the international institutions and norms that we value So thus far it's been a very different story And that's been the essence of the us bet on india right that that trajectory will continue to remain sort of benevolent and beneficial and that's You know, but only time will tell right um So I would just say that you know our our policy towards china for certainly the last 25 years or so Is has essentially been this idea that as it grows it would you know, sort of enter into the international system Which was built in the image of the united states You know, etc. So let's just hasten that along and Have it work and I think these policies were made without a genuine appreciation of where china was really coming from I mean how china saw the world how china saw itself what china was really looking for which is much more You know demonstrable and it's it's sort of founding principles Um Whereas I think with india we actually have the chance to have that conversation Um of what will the world look like? I mean how could the united states and india shape the world together? Let's say I think that's a conversation that was not really part of our policies towards china It was more an assumption that um, you know, they would sort of fall into something that that worked right for the united states, but but but in an ignoring of Perhaps real um desires there Whereas with india, I think I think there is something to discuss And jeff's point that indian revisionism is in a sense a qualified revisionism Given more by sort of status and securities rather than fundamental opposition to the established order I'm going to open the uh floor to anyone who may have questions or comments just identify yourself and then ask the question as Precisely as you can Richard come on and i'm retired My family in india does some business with china And so my question is what does economic relationship between india and china? How does it play into the overall relationship? Shall we take a couple of them? And then we can because i'm conscious of the time as well london Thank you. No london some renaica Thank you all for your excellent presentations and your thoughtful commentary. Um, I had a question about butan um Like jeff you mentioned, uh, you know, maybe china hoping to peel away butan From india But I wonder just beyond sort of the the tactical, um, you know, how can we get butan away just assume You know china had its way What what does it want from butan? What's it hoping to get Let me stop the notes um I can take I guess we probably both want it. Yeah, um butan. I I agree. That's One of the most interesting pieces of the whole doc lab situation and um, I'm going to just you know Take the liberty of going back to the history for a minute because Even if we don't know what we what they want, you know, what the ccp wants now There's a little bit of what they wanted back then um to do with butan. So something that I believe is from one of the sort of chinese military departments Is reporting and saying the indian media and parliament spread rumors about china's border conflicts with napal seek him and butan And claim that china is encroaching upon small nations and eras behaviors and declarations Distinctly show india's intentions to turn butan butan into a protected state like seek him and to strengthen control over napal Hence turning india napal butan and seek him into a himalayan union So this idea of what they don't want I imagine there's probably some of that going on. I mean we obviously don't know but um the question of of of You know strategic influence in the himalayas. I think it's still with us And it was talking to shashank joshua this morning He's you know one of the best on india in the uk and he was sort of saying that the um Dockliam standoff was not costless for india because even though there was a sort of disengagement the question of Um india's relationship with butan is now a real question You know, is there room for china essentially to maneuver in that and I think the point was made in foreign affairs um recently about Sort of whatever concessions might have been made that are offline that we haven't seen um our our um You know might come out into the open. So it sort of reminded me cuban missile crisis I mean sure we all see the soviet missiles being withdrawn from cuba What we don't know and told our historians is you know that the jupiters get removed from turkey six months later in private So, you know, whatever happened in the resolution of butan um crisis um probably does open up the question as to To what extent was was butan it was india invited there. So managing the himalayan Um sort of strategic balance. I think has become a more complex question than it was Six months ago And it's something we should all be interested Uh, well, I have a very short bit on the economics question. It's not an area. I focus on a great deal But uh, we do know india china trade expanded from roughly one billion in the late nineties to 75 76 billion in the By 2011 so a tremendous expansion um It did very little to mitigate tensions in the security arena. In fact, they are worse After trade expanded 75 fold than they were in the 90s in some ways um The interesting thing though is since 2011 trade has Remained almost entirely flat. In fact even has uh fallen a bit is now in the low 70s yet The chinese trade uh surplus has widened substantially as late as 2004 2005 trade was balanced In fact slightly in india's favor And since then the trade deficit india's trade deficit with china has ballooned to the point where it's now almost 50 20 So you have 50 billion imports 20 billion exports So you have in some ways trade becoming as much of a friction point As a sal for geopolitical differences india has been among the most vociferous critics of china at the world trade organization Registering complaints about dumping and and so forth Uh, I think it helps but um You know this year actually china made its biggest ever proposed investment in india and over one billion dollar investment I believe in a tech company and that was Denied cancelled vetoed by the indian government um The lathe is really a great question that gets to the core of the whole docum crisis What did china want in butan what does it want with butan? There are several potential layers to that answer the obvious kind of easy one is that It does in many ways negate the advantage india had at the line of actual control near the tri-border area So for the plas perspective from a tactical military perspective control of the docum plateau um negates an indian advantage and positions the plas To make an incursion into the chicken's neck and and sever the northeast if it ever needed to in a conflict Um, that's a fairly clear motivation the chinese and and the butanese have been negotiating on the border dispute now since the 1980s Frequently china has said we will abandon our claims in these two areas to the north that we're claiming north central butan If you see us the docum plateau, so clearly for them This specific area of the china of the butan border dispute means more Um, so that's that's the quick and easy answer There's obviously a sort of geopolitical angle as well and i think it's safe to say they have an interest in Healing away some of the countries that were in india's immediate sphere of influence that they had traditionally been denied from engaging with On any meaningful way They've done so with napal and the benefits there have been more obvious napal used to be the primary transit route for all tibetans Leaving the plateau two to three thousand a year would come through napal mostly en route to india Now as china napal relations have grown since 2010 that's now 2000 to 1000 to 500 200 to none um Sri lanka has been The investments in ports in colombo and hamantota. They've gained advantages by engaging geopolitically and peeling some of these countries away From india and putting them more in play. It's less obvious what strategic advantage butan brings. It's a very small country a very small economy But perhaps the buddhist angle comes into play here It is a majority buddhist country at a time that china is trying to subdue Some unrest in tibet or some resistance in tibet at a time. It's trying to gain greater greater control over The tibetan religion frankly It's in a pitched battle with the dalai lama over who will have the right to nominate his successor It is increasingly taking control of who gets appointed into different tibetan monasteries Which monks advance it's controlling the narrative. It's controlling how they can How they can practice their religion And butan may be a component or an element of that legitimacy of that Now it's interesting to note that the dalai lama has never been to butan They may see a greater relationship with butan as A way to further cement their religious legitimacy and credentials. I'm speculating here But unfortunately with china's system, that's all we can do sometimes Paul I'm paul here from george washington university I just wanted to go back to the I thought very fascinating and important Set of questions that ashley raised about the relative perceptions of china and india Jonathan you're in your presentation. You cited several documents from the chinese archive, which You said characterized their imagined nation of china or i mean of india I mean aside from from ashley's question about Whether that imagined nation is becoming more real I wonder are there things in the indian archive Which suggest Their imagination of what china is because i i think that's it's it's i would submit that you know notwithstanding How assertive and ambitious and arrogant chinese international behavior is and jonathan's excellent. I'm sorry mike's Jeff's excellent point about china unlike india having this restorationist mindset Uh, I think you can make the case that chinese international behavior is still somewhat more reactive And assertive and less zero sum than the indians have long preceded it to be If you can comment on that Sure Yeah, I think the whole Look each side of course i mean it's a very very hard thing to do to understand another place to really understand it um I mean to see the world through Other people's eyes instead of your own is very much an art. Um, I remember as a Columbia student we all had to read edward syed, of course, and I felt like the most interesting thing in edward syed And maybe the most honest thing was Somewhere buried in it. He says look all these guys they don't know anything about the middle east all these imperialists But neither do I So, um, and I remember I lived two years in the middle east and was talking to you know friends in arabic about this and You know, they would just tell me like you know It's going to be so much work for you to really understand this place And just having an appreciation of what it what it really means to to Gain another point of view. So I think very few nations get this right um You know, it's it's not that india understood china better I mean my my own phd project was about chinese views. I mean it would I did not look at I mean i've looked at indian archival sources, but not nearly in the same way It was really about understanding the chinese side, but um, you know, no doubt and and the purpose of the project was Not to deduce truth of the situation from the chinese archives, but to understand the point of view by assembling Those viewpoints. So so I think that remains true. It's probably a concept that's applicable much more widely just that you know, how we And it's often like how we tend to get things wrong and sometimes major things wrong It's just you make assumptions about what the other person wants or the you know, the other nation wants what they're going to do How do they really see thing? No idea And and if they won't tell you which sometimes they might and that would be great, but um, it really I think is a piece of international relations in general That's probably deeply missing And you know, it's languages and history and travel and all these things and you know, the chinese foreign ministry This was part of what I had to look into Had this thing about how, you know, they could own it was a lot of sort of former army officers They could only leave in pairs at certain points, you know, everybody was, you know, worried about getting picked up by foreign intel, etc So so not even with the apparatus with which to learn more So so again, it's not that China gets it wrong, but india has it right. It's that We have a very hard time under, you know, doing that work, I think um, and as for the nature of of You know china's activities vis-a-vis india's perceptions of them It's odd because in this in in the historical period ahead of the border. It was really china attributing Deep malicious intent to india. I mean, there's stuff where in the official military histories of the border where it's talking about India wanting to have a You know, I forgot the exact uh phrase, but something along the lines of a great, um You know empire with the him with the to bet at its center as a buffer and spanning, you know, the the seas and this is before it's a naval power, etc um You know those sorts of things are there and was this true prior from 47 to 55 Uh as well, I mean the the pre-bandung moment Or yeah, does this because you know, 1955 is really that sort of cusp where At one level sino-indian relations have their peak But under covers the relationship was coming apart because the chinese were becoming More and more impressed by net was an instrument of western imperialism So so what is the I mean, so the question for me is Was this view in china Present at the creation or was this something that Became manifest as the relationship with india started sounding it's Yeah, it's a great question. I think um part of why I like using that quote that says there's a dark side To the china indian relationship from the very in the quote in chinese is so it's Translated several ways, but sort of from the beginning itself And they're talking about 19 they're talking there's a lot of reference to independence It's sort of sense independence indias had these designs and they're really talking about tebet and himalayas And then I think the idea sort of takes shape and You know sort of gains traction in the imagination as as Nehru and imperialists and then nehru versus the indian people and ultimately china And this is a very marxist thing because you know we're back in the cold war And now has this concept that you know, ultimately the the indian people and then it's something like the the vast indian people Is how it translated um will sort of ultimately be the ones with whom we'll find a friendship And that it's only the indian rulers so so it has all these different sort of permutations um But it's it's not the point is not even that it's incorrect It's just that it's a very interesting way In which this country matters To china and I think that's part of in a way what i'm getting at and certainly in a sort of Historical circle. It's that to look at the founding of china Everybody who's doing it for decades really without looking at india. You can't it's like india is number three It's the third most important country in the entire chinese world. I think that's still true um And and there's a lot of ways to talk about that today But I think you know there is this question of of pure non pure But india matters in this in these totally vital ways because it just you know in some ways It's simply geographical and it's also historical But um and you know on one hand back then it was that india could essentially provide access to I mean, there are really two major trends in the post-war world One is the cold war and the other is decolonization And the soviet union was china's ticket to doing something with the cold war India was china's ticket to doing something with the colonization. It wasn't happening without india And then it was really so So the border war wasn't necessarily produced by india's relationship with the united states It wasn't necessarily produced by rivalry in the aphorization sphere But these were the trend lines around which the entire thing was falling apart Because it was that complex. It was that important. It was that essential to China and china's path in the world at that time Publish a dissertation. I would like to I need to find a publisher Yeah, thank you. I'm mark toklah from the korea economic institute Um, I'd like to get back to the overlapping spheres question So china articulates its peripheral policy pretty clearly it says countries that border china must take chinese interest in new account Does india have a similar peripheral policy? Is it possible that two countries could agree between them which country you should pay attention to whom? I have a few more Well, I'm not sure that there's any stated indian policy about what its neighbors must or must not do But I think there's a very clear understanding with many of its neighbors about what indian red lines are And what happens if those red lines are crossed We had an example with uh the rajapaksa administration in Sri lanka Who really opened up to china after The west and india to some degree closed the door to him during his civil war against the tamil tigers in the late 2000s, which really it's turned quite brutal and as a result of perceived human rights violations The west in the u.s. Cut off aid india was in a somewhat difficult position with its own large tamil population and Rajapaksa turned to china and China provided a great deal of of economic aid and military supplies And you saw a steady growth of china's influence in Sri lanka afterward the surfacing of the submarine in colombo in October 2014 the first case of a chinese submarine Appearing at an indian ocean port This century without notice to prior notification to india I think sparked a backlash and prompted a meeting between prime minister modi and Rajapaksa shortly afterward in which he said We have an agreement which states we need notification before something like this happens again A month later on the way back from its anti piracy patrol off the horn of africa the submarine again surfaced in colombo Coinciding with a visit to Sri lanka by prime minister abe of japan I think that crossed a red line for india and when there was an election held early the next year Rajapaksa was defeated By a coalition that was brought together With I think the help and support of many inside and outside Sri lanka It as far as I know india has no stated policy like Sort of what you what you've implied And in fact they I believe they've been trying to move in the other direction In the early 1990s what we now call the gujral doctrine They kind of recognized that the perception of india in its immediate neighborhood was one of you know of an overbearing regional hegemon And I think they sought to take steps To improve that image To be a little less overbearing to be more generous To to its immediate neighbors to avoid having to intervene militarily and politically I think in fact prime minister Modi's neighborhood first policy is in some ways the evolution of that doctrine that he has also made an emphasis on strengthening strategic defense economic relationships with india's immediate neighborhood Prompted in no small part by the growing competition there with china So I think india wants to get away from the red lines and the no-gos and having to Having to act in a punitive manner But as the rivalry with china intensifies, I think there's going to be attention there Not just in Sri lanka, but in the paul in the maldives and potentially with butan at some point I'll take one last round of questions before we break so There are any so gentlemen, you're pleased I'm I'm said I intern here at Carnegie. Um in terms of the current border dispute in doklam I was just wondering how cpeg going to play out when china starts building a road along the Contessa territory of cashmere. How do you think the two countries are going to respond? And there was a second hand raised if I remember. Yes, ma'am Thank you. Hey malsha from the us chamber of commerce. Um in recent years. We've seen uh, india responding to china's assertion of the One china policy asking for asking china to respect its one india policy Do we know anything more about what this one india policy is and what's been conveyed to china? And what are the implications for the india-china relationship? Yeah, plus uh, so the change in Indian policy that you mentioned I think is actually quite significant because in some ways Marks the beginning of indian confidence and assertiveness back toward china In 2010 China denied a visa to an indian general from cashmere who was supposed to be traveling to bejane China had in the past Stapled separate visas to residents from aeronautical pradesh and from cashmere Essentially signaling that yes, we're going to provide you a visa But uh, we're recognizing that this is a disputed territory not really a full indian sovereign territory As far as I know, this was the first time they had denied a visa to an indian general And the indian response was quite swift and severe They had begun joint army exercises and military exercises only a few years prior in 2007. I believe They were suspended automatically bilateral defense dialogue between defense ministers suspended immediately and while those two Were restored about about a year later when this difference was papered over at the at a at a trip to deli by Premier Wenjiao Bao in late 2010 For the first time their joint statement omitted any reference to indian recognition of the one china policy And that has remained the case today Seven years now india has maintained this stance that for us to recognize a one china policy You have to recognize a one india policy. That's actually quite Remarkable, I don't know of any other country that has posed such terms to china and was something that I brought up in a piece for foreign policy when When Many commentators were extremely upset that the trump administration had begun had seemed to signal That there may be a gray area with the one china policy. Well, somebody else Has been flatly rejecting it and refusing to endorse it for almost seven years now What is the one india policy entail as far as I can tell it just means chinese recognition of indian sovereignty over cashmere and aeronautical pradesh And and probably the shakstand valley as well, which pakistan ceded to china in in 63 See makes well, you know, how are they likely to react? I think we've already seen india's reaction to cpec, which is That it's been the really the only country in the world to Withhold support for and vocally voice criticisms about the one belt one road initiative India did not send representation to the bri summit in may It has repeatedly voiced concerns about obor Um principally they relate to cpec But it has also suggested that it's not just elements of cpec It is the non inclusive nature of the connectivity projects The fact that they have not been consulted the fact that it's a chinese national project That they have concerns over the strategic motivations behind these ostensibly economic investments So I think India's opposition to cpec is a big component of its opposition to obor or bri more broadly, but not the only component On that note on behalf of all of you and myself I want to thank both jonathan and jeff for Really insightful remarks this morning, and I want to thank all of you for coming I hope to see you at some future point at kanagi again. So please stay in touch with us. Thank you You