 Hello everyone, welcome to another International Relations capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today our subject is China. In fact it was intended to be China-GCC relations but something very important has happened in the last few days and I thought I would summarize that before we go on to China and GCC. It appears that on the 9th of December there was some kind of incursion by Chinese soldiers into Kavang area, Yangtze region as it was known as and our forces quickly moved in and they were able to turn them back. In the process of course people were injured because they were not using guns or anything and they were using only the unconventional weapons and in the process some soldiers were injured on our side and maybe some more on their side. We do not know how this happened and why it happened because we are still waiting for disengagement in the dark sector. So this is rather mystifying that it happened just now and there are several theories as to why it happened. The first is that there is internal disturbances in China. We talked about it in one of our previous classes, how the zero COVID policy of treating Ping faced with tremendous opposition which is uncharacteristic of the Chinese but there are determinants sometimes in China. On this particular occasion it seemed to be gaining momentum and somehow they dealt with it by having relaxing a number of measures and also telling the people that if the measures were not imposed there could be another pandemic kind of situation. So it is after that that Xi Jinping went to Saudi Arabia and made a visit. We will come to that in a little while. The other theory is that there was a joint military exercise between India and the United States exactly 100 kilometers away from the line of actual control in the same region. So this was known that we had these exercises, nothing unusual or nothing new but apparently the Chinese were concerned about it and they wanted to oppose it or rather show that India, China is not very happy with this kind of exercises near the border. And the third possibility is this is related to the Dalai Lama because as you know, Dalai Lama is aged and there are some concerns about what happens when he passes away. The tradition in Tibet is that once a Dalai Lama passes then they wait for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama at a place determined by God as it were and recognize a boy who is through various prayers and all that they discuss. They decide who this boy is and once he is identified he is designated as the Dalai Lama and he undergoes all the training programs, this is the Tibetan practice and this is why Tibet has had long periods of non-government because the child has to be born then he has to be trained. So 10, 15, 18 years the Tibetan administration is not very effective. So that is part of the reason why maybe Tibet was not as strong as it could be. So the problem is that China is very anxious that we knew the Dalai Lama should be born or at least recognized in China and but most likely like the previous Dalai Lama the new one would be born in Taiwan and so China as you know is claiming Taiwan as their territory and therefore they wanted to show force to show that they are very interested in Taiwan. Taiwan is part of Arunachal Pradesh and they consider Arunachal Pradesh whole of it as part of China because they call it southern Tibet. So it is quite possible that they are preparing the ground for arguing that if the Dalai Lama is born in Taiwan it will be within their region and this is just a theory nobody knows, nobody has talked about it. And in general of course the intention of China is to keep the border alive, keep things happening so that there is no let go by either China or India. So we are also quite ready and when such things happen we immediately move in and resist it even if it means some loss of lives etc. But since there is an understanding that you know weapons like guns etc, grenades etc would not be used so the casualties are very few. In fact our defence minister in his statement in parliament said that there were no casualties nobody died on either side but certainly it was a matter of serious importance for us because the Indian Army is on a kind of ridge at a high level looking down to the other side of the LOAC with Chinese soldiers assembled there. And so it was very easy for India to spot this happened though at 3am in the morning they spotted them and called for reinforcements and within minutes they were able to send them back. So the Chinese reaction to this was also rather mild. They simply said that such things happen and when these things happen we'll deal with it in an appropriate manner by the commanders etc. But of course put the blame on India for taking the initiative in doing such things. So for the time being it looks as though the whole thing will not escalate and there has been no occupation of Indian Territory. They came in and left according to our own government and of course it is a bit of a mystery that has happened on the 9th but the government of India did not announce it till the 13th. So maybe they did not think this was a major incident and that may be the reason or maybe they didn't want to disturb the peace in the region and say that we had something but parliament was in session and the government was obliged to report to parliament and after a lot of protests and others by the opposition they convinced the parliament that this was the right thing to do and China should be unsettled for this and we only took defensive measures. So it looks it has been settled but all these reasons are disturbing because they're talking about the exercises in our own territory and they think that our patrols went beyond the LOC line of control, the line of actual control. So for the time being because we have said that we'll essentially be able to meet any crisis situation and of course the Chinese army said that their response was professional, firm and standard that's what they said and so there's nothing extraordinary and both sides disengaged and the border is generally stable so and the communications are continuing but some people some observers say that there could have been some risk of miscalculation on either side and India's position on the border is a little more advanced than before it's not just a presence but they're ready for action since 2020 since what happened in the dark of course 2017 it also happened on the border. So we take this in very seriously and therefore we maintain the communication but we are taking ready to take more risks in this situation and therefore they may have been proactive in dealing with the with the incursion. So this is something that we had to put at the back of our minds when we talk of things happening in China, one the revolts or the protests which have become very serious people thought that this might become like a Tiananmen Square massacre of 1979 so anyway sorry 1989 so whatever happened is now more or less settled but a lot of time will be taken in analyzing what it meant and what the consequences would be. Coming back to the visit of President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia this is being characterized by some commentators I said tectonic shift you know what the tectonic shift is that is what causes earthquakes and there are the tectonic level of the earth gets disturbed and there could be an earthquake or several things can happen and so tectonic shift means the shift is very very fundamental and it will have its consequences and this is being called so because there is a major change in Saudi Arabia's policies towards the United States and then towards China and Russia. So we know that President Trump when he went to Saudi Arabia he was given a very warm welcome because he was purchasing a lot of arms and armaments from them so the Saudi Crown Prince received him with all pomp and splendor when Mr. Donald Trump went there and he came back very happy that the Saudis are very friendly with the mess before but when President Biden went there more recently he did not get much of a warm welcome. It was fairly formal and a kind of stiff on both sides on the side of President Biden as well as on the side of the of the Crown Prince who is now Prime Minister. He is known all over the world as the most powerful man in Saudi Arabia and so but this time when Chinese President went there he went out of his way to be very friendly and very cordial with the Chinese President and this I believe and people describe it as a work in progress since about six years or so when the situation about the fuel you know the fossil fuels availability Americans as you know were very much dependent on the Gulf region and they thought that oil was thicker than blood and therefore the Iraq Kuwait war was initiated and so they had a major stake in the Middle East what they call the GCC the Gulf Council Cooperation Council. All those countries are together and Saudi Arabia is the biggest of them and so the GCC countries the United States had a dependent position because they had to buy oil from them but now with the oil production in the United States that priority is gone and therefore both are looking at alternate markets United States wants to sell their oil whoever can buy it the Saudis want to have full control of the oil situation in the in the Gulf and so they have been discussing various things and this has been going on and at the end of six years you have this meeting where President Xi Jinping was very well received and a large number of agreements were signed and particularly in the production oil production because China is the biggest buyer of Saudi Arabian oil so that way they have a stake in the country and they have now made political moves in order to distance themselves from the United States. This is very exceptional because Saudi Arabia was very close to United States because they were irritated by what happened about Khashoggi's murder. The journalist who was murdered in Istanbul in the consulate and that was being attributed to somebody and some people in Saudi Arabia who had ordered the murder of the central and about that United States has been fairly frank and loud about it and they have been saying that this was wrong but still at the same time Ronald Trump took a cool view of it because he felt that the business has to go on but President Biden has been more specific about criticism of what happened and he spoke about human rights in Saudi Arabia which is a big issue. So on the one side China was wooing Saudi Arabia on the other side United States was distancing itself from Saudi Arabia and in the middle of that Mr Biden went there to ask them to reduce the production of oil so that the prices can be kept under control but apparently Saudi Arabia did not agree to that not only that President Biden was given a cold shoulder by the Prince. So that is why they say that from a very friendly Saudi Arabia United States relationship to a better relationship with China reflecting the changes of circumstances in the world and Saudi Arabia has also been getting closer to Russia so with these major countries they are developing relationship moving away from the traditional friendship that they have enjoyed with the United States. So there was a lot of pomp and show there and they also had meetings with other GCC countries and Saudi also they warmed up to Russia and therefore contrary to the friend from the visit of President Biden the visit of Xi Jinping was extremely cordial and friendly and this as I said was developing over a period of time people say about six years this has been going on and then they not only held meetings between Saudi Arabia and China but also China and other GCC countries. So some GCC countries have called to Riyadh and they met the Chinese presidents. So people are seeing that this is a new era in China's relations with Saudi Arabia and also the GCC countries relations with China and as I mentioned earlier China is the largest consumer of oil and they would like to see how that situation can contribute to the region's growths and they are also looking for security and defense cooperation because they do not feel that the United States is totally committed to the security of Saudi Arabia. So this is yet another snap to Washington and so the grievances the United States had about the Biden visit still fresh in their memory in addition to that the visit of President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia. So this is part of China's influence increasing influence around the world particularly after his visit to the G20 meeting in Pali where he was very cordially received by everybody most of the countries of the world that came to shake hands with him even our president did that and he moved around there with some amount of new confidence because that was disturbed when he came back to China when these protests were being held and but this is given Xi Jinping another what shall we say opportunity to project their influence around the world and particularly in the Gulf countries of course China has been supportive of Palestine liberation and generally Gulf countries but now this is altogether a new stage in the relationship so it was a virtually a new policy in that sense there was a joint statement issued about 4000 words you know encompassing the very many activities that the two countries could undertake and it included space it concluded in the digital economy and even the nuclear program because China is concerned about nuclear program of other countries but in the case of GCC for peaceful use of nuclear energy they are willing to cooperate and they have been they have played down the other differences that they have on the question of Yemen and Russian war in Ukraine these things they have taken a the Chinese have not taken a serious view also because it is it is economic, political and defense and so on all these have come handy for them at this time they want to develop this much further so it has really made the region very close to China and everyone understands that this is a new alliance developing in the West there are certain issues like the oil what are the big plans how are they going to handle this so since the Americans are themselves in the market to sell oil to others so there is a little bit of competition between them and the Americans but they will remain you know tied to with the with the American relationship and so many projects which are ongoing with the Americans will not be disturbed so advance about the investments that is coming into side the Arabia will be very big and defense cooperation will also be promoted which will mean that United States will buy fewer weapons and maybe China will buy more of them there seems there was an understanding between China and Saudi Arabia generally GCC countries that there will be no interference in internal affairs because you know Chinese have certain concerns and the GCC has been criticizing minority human rights in China particularly the Muslim girls in China and so they agreed that such issues they will discuss in private and not discussed in public so there was some kind of advantage that they have said there have been talk about a new kind of currency for dealings in oil and China has proposed some kind of a China Chinese currency based new system and it will be based on Chinese currency and this will be a big change for China and Washington but it has already been made clear that the petrodollar which is the base for purchase of oil at the moment will not be changed altogether so there was fear that this would be completely suspended and China based the currency will become available for deals in oil but that has been put off they have said that those will be maintained while they develop a Chinese currency for these purposes petrodollar will be maintained because if it is not there then the US would be out of the game altogether so but in spite of all that Washington is not happy and the US is mindful of the the foray that China is making into the GCC so the competition in the marketplace is also important and US is trying to keep the momentum going to the extent possible but everybody understands that this is a new policy of China so it has to be seen how this develops because the US has very deep involvement in Saudi Arabia even at the time of Bin Laden and so on Saudi Arabia was very friendly with the United States so that they may want to maintain but on dollar because of the new situation it may not be possible for them to have a good cooperation and China is looking for bigger and bigger buyers and China is one of their biggest buyers so they are competitors now as against good friends and close friends here so as I said this has been considered a major shift in international geopolitics and national relations and we have to watch because we also have major interests in GCC and we have millions of Indians in that region and any kind of foray by the Chinese into the region because they are already there but that will also put us in competition with the Chinese so that also we have to bear in mind generally the growth of Chinese influence is not in our interest and therefore this might also not only cause concern to the United States but also concern to us this new Chinese policy in the Gulf what exactly is happening in China now and what is it for Xi Jinping whether his continuation or for life as the president will be affected by any of these things we don't know but certainly the confidence that the Chinese and the GCC countries are showing in each other is extremely significant and it will have its impact on not only on relations with Russia in the United States but also with India and the growing friendship within Russia and China is also of concern to the US and us but that is not directly linked with the relationship with the GCC so that is the situation on the one hand we have problems in the border which on the border with China is to be still analyzed and why it happened how it happened how it will develop why India did not announce it immediately when it happened why is it China and India seem to be very keen to play down all these questions we will know later but this is the situation that I wanted to talk to you about one other development which has been noticed is Saudi Arabia wants to become a member of BRICS you know BRICS is Brazil Russia India China South Africa a group of countries and China is quite dominant here because the the bank BRICS bank is located there and they are the strongest country within BRICS and so China has a has a big role there and maybe because of that Saudi Arabia has expressed as they said to join BRICS there are other countries also wanting to join BRICS but China wanting to join sorry Saudi Arabia wanting to join is being seen as a as a new development which has to be which has to be back watched BRICS does not do too much as they have ambitions to the bank wants to replace the Britain Woods institutions they want to remove the monopoly of West from the from the World Bank etc and so as a counter to the World Bank they are developing this a bank also so there could be some changes there too and as far as joining the BRICS is concerned of course all the member countries have to agree and we are not likely to object and this of course we feel that it is a compact organization it should remain so but that is something which we have to see but definitely Saudi Arabia is showing interest in joining BRICS and maybe then it'll become BRICSAR or something like that and for Saudi Arabia so that's it for today thank you very much well border issues we're not related immediately to territorial expansion territorial expansion is implied in all this but the border occurrences of you know events on the border is engineered by China continuously to keep India guessing about what is going to happen on the border because their main purpose is to teach India a lesson as they say keep saying and the lesson is that India will not have the predominant position in Asia that is China's and if your idea is willing to accept a secondary position then there'll be no problem so that is really the purpose expansion and so probably come later and that's a subsequent step so at the moment by keeping the LAC the line of sorry LAC undecided is so that they can whatever choose their own time and energy to come and cause trouble for us in the border so it is of course eventually it is territorial expansion but the motivation now is to keep India guessing and making sure that there is disruption in our growth and in our sense of security these are the two things that we are attacking and this will either lead to the solution of the border problem we do not know because the border discussion is being suspended while they are still occupying our land but in this particular incident they have no land occupied by China but this is also a sign of what is to come so it is very disturbing in every way the kind of frequent occurrences and this has happened every time there was something important in the world even when President Xi Jinping was sitting on a swing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi Chinese soldiers are walking into our territory across the line of actual control so this is a kind of exercise they do in order to keep their planes alive so that when discussions take place they can say these are the things that happen and should be avoided because that is far far away these discussions on the border have not made any headway because they are still discussing preliminary aspects and they have not even gone to tackle the main issue so it is a dual thing, territorial expansion certainly and also keeping the border restless and turbulent and that seems to be the motivation towards Israel they have a slowly making peace you know that the starting with Camp David Accords in 1979 Egypt was the first to normalize relations since then many Arab countries and of course latest was Abraham Accords and so the Arab countries are getting closer to Israel and of course that endangers the future of Palestine etc but still they are doing that and Israel is cooperating with them you may have heard that Israelis are landing up in hundreds in Dubai and others with investment there is even a Quad which includes UAE and India, UAE, India, Israel and USA so there's a Quad also has been formed so they are no more shy about dealing with Israel and the peace agreements are being signed with various countries some have not signed, Saudi Arabia has not signed so there may be indication that they will be closely working with Israel also I do not know what Israel buys oil from Saudi Arabia probably they do and that may be another factor so they are not particularly concerned about Israel anymore they think they can work with each other well any kind of sabotage is possible but there is no indication as such because they are all members of the OPEC and there are some rules and regulations in OPEC so you cannot suddenly change anything or monopolize something and that is not possible at least present circumstances maybe later years but as of now they are playing by the rules that's why they clarified that they were not changing into petrodollars they might use for limited purposes particularly during the war they may use it for limited purposes in order to they can survive and control the prices etc and as you know the price of oil is going to be the biggest casualty in the war because the war ends immediately there will be many many complications extending up to the fight against climate change and everything else so that is a big danger but the OPEC is very quite united when it comes to export and import of oil and they have held together you know in the climate change negotiations they don't support what the developing countries are asking for because they say that you know cutting off consumption of a few fossil fuels will harm the economies of these countries so there is that complication also so we cannot expect a big change in the oil industry but they they can in fact develop into a big thing and the Americans since they are now also sellers of oil so there will be no you know complicity possible between Saudi Arabia and the United States and that is why I think China is trying to make hay while the sun shines well NATO should have been abolished at the end of the full war and Warsaw Pact actually got abolished so for a long time the former Warsaw Pact countries were asking us to what is happening to NATO but by the NATO got involved in various things that United States wanted to happen in different parts of the world whether it was Libya or whatever it is Afghanistan so the fact that it was a European organization was forgotten mostly and they were operating in various areas so we don't know this present situation NATO plays a role and the war on Russia-Ukraine war is of course the Ukraine side is being supported by NATO in a big way even though Ukraine is not in NATO and also this whole suspicion of Western Europe by Russia and others is based on the fact that NATO is still very active and if these countries join NATO it will be troublesome for them because that will bring the NATO forces onto the borders of Russia so this whole thing originated from this quarrel about NATO that the old Russian republics will not be allowed to enter them but many of them have already entered and more want to do and Ukraine also but after starting the war Ukraine asked for an immediate entry into NATO emergency admission but that the NATO countries did not really give because once you do that if they become a regular member of the NATO then there is an obligation for NATO to fight the war which they do not want to do so they want to fight it only through sanctions and therefore any role for NATO in these countries will be resisted that is why Putin is taking this very strong stand that no country should be admitted you know that Finland and Denmark I think two countries have already applied and they are going slow on it and therefore NATO's role is a matter of concern to United Russia and also China China was calling the Quad an Asian NATO so that's the worst thing that they can call it and therefore they say that this will be against our interests so NATO has a role to play an increasing role now because of the war and with the war ends maybe there could be some change but as of now NATO is an important force to recognize in these countries no nuclear issue as you know I have a partial agreement was signed by Barack Obama which was broken by Trump because it said only restriction for 15 years so Trump naturally asked after 15 years what so let us give them much more you know restraint in a nuclear deal but Iran is getting worse and worse economically and they want to get out of the sanctions and that is why they have started negotiating with the United States and five European countries on a new deal and that was on the verge of being approved in Vienna but then it broke up so we do not know what the situation is but the American priority in Iran is to prevent Iran becoming an nuclear weapon state and there are no concessions because they know that Iran could be a terrorist state and that is an issue which concerns other countries even in India we have good relations with Iran but we do not want Iran to be an nuclear weapon state they have signed the NPT and they should abide by this and Iran has also been trying to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency so that this does not become a confrontation they abide by what IAEA tells them tells them and also sometimes go against it but they are adopting a friendly approach so that the anger of all the other countries also the non-government state so they plead with the neighboring countries and India etc that this is not a nuclear weapon program it's an energy program and it is needed for Iran and that is how they argue with us and also they have right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes so like we have so Iran was I got the impression talking to the Iranian Ambassador was sitting next to me in the IAEA for many years so I could see that he was very admiring of India how we have handled our nuclear issue because no big sanctions came against us till 98 till 98 if we managed it without any kind of international action against us even though we had not signed the NPT but after 1998 of course they're totally against India developing anything then in 2008 we signed this nuclear deal which has enabled us to work on power programs so this is a complex situation but many countries in the region whatever may be politics believe that the nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran will not be conducive to peace and stability in the in Asia and the world okay then thank you very much see you again bye bye