By Express News Service
Former Foreign Secretary, Padma Bhushan awardee and Prime Minister’s special envoy on Nuclear Deal and Climate Change, Shyam Saran in his latest book ‘How China sees India and the World’ unearths the complexities of Indo-China relationship. In an interview with Yeshi Seli he tells us that both India and China have stereotypical images of each other. Here’s an excerpt:
Q. How did you come about writing a book on China and its complex relationship with India?
A: Despite the fact that China is India’s neighbour and its most significant security and economic challenge, most Indians know very little about China and how its current perceptions of the world and India are influenced by its history and culture and the temperament of its people. Both India and China nurse stereotypical images of each other mostly negative I would say. My latest book, How China Sees India and the World is an attempt to help people understand China better, decode what to many people appears as an enigma.
Q. Your book will help give Indian people a perspective on China. Do you see the challenges between the two nations narrowing down in the future?
A: China and India are Asian civilizations with a long history and in some respects there are affinities between their cultures, for example, the importance of families, the respect for elders and a pride in their respective countries. But there are also significant differences. For example, the Chinese language has no alphabet and Chinese characters are ideograms, each character is a word. Even though spoken Chinese may be different in various parts of China, the written script is the same and this is a strong basis for the Chinese sense of common identity and unity. India on the other hand, has several languages and scripts and what is striking is India’s plurality with a certain deep underlying cultural unity. There is no reason why India and China cannot co-exist as proud and successful nations but this will be facilitated through better mutual understanding and engagement.
Q. Despite the challenges, China is India’s largest trading partner. Recently, Beijing had dismissed USA’s claim that it had pipped China to become India’s largest trading partner. Is trade between India and China likely to help improve diplomatic and political relations?
A: Trade and economic relations can help in promoting mutual understanding but cannot be a substitute for it. As you have stated China is today India’s largest trading partner but this has neither prevented the tensions at the border nor persuaded China to lower these tensions in order to enable the trade and economic engagement to expand. As you are aware even though it is difficult to find alternative sources of supply in the short term, it is the Government of India’s policy to progressively reduce trade dependence on China and restrict Chinese investment in sensitive areas such as India’s digital economy.
Q. What is the upcoming BRICS Summit likely to bring to the table for India?
A: The BRICS summit will be a virtual one so the awkwardness of meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping will be avoided. However, the optics of Prime Minister Modi meeting both Russian President Putin and Xi Jinping, both of whom are considered autocratic villains by the West, will be viewed negatively. I do not think anything substantive will be achieved in the current political environment but India’s persistence in maintaining its presence in a number of regional and international fora underscores its view that India’s range of interests today demands various interest-based coalitions rather than exclusive partnerships. Attendance at the BRICS summit will be an important demonstration of that.
Q. How does Pakistan’s proximity with China impact India?
A: Any coalition of two hostile powers ranged along our borders is a security challenge. The China-Pakistan alliance is a low-cost low-risk Chinese proxy to contain India within the sub-continent and constrain its efforts to play a larger regional and global role. There is also the potential danger of a “two front war” which India must always be prepared for.
Q. What role can India play in fortifying its relationships in the neighbourhood? Has India reduced China’s influence in their capacity building – especially in Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal?
A: India has adopted a Neighbourhood First policy and this reflects the reality that unless India gets its neighbourhood right and works towards a relatively benign periphery, it will not be able to pursue a credible regional and global policy. Obviously, if a hostile China entrenches itself across our borders, as it has done in Pakistan, India’s security interest will be threatened. China has much larger resources to deploy in our neighbouring countries than we can. But instead of trying to catch up with China, project for project, we should leverage areas where we have strengths and assets which China does not have. Our aim should be for India, as the largest economy in the sub-continent, to become an engine of growth for all our neighbours, leverage the strong cultural affinities that bind us and lead the way in helping resolve shared challenges such as Climate Change.
Currently, China has been preoccupied with its own domestic economic challenges and the disruptions caused by its strict implementation of a “zero Covid” policy. It has a relatively diminished profile in South Asia. Furthermore, some South Asian countries like Sri Lanka and the Maldives are heavily in debt to China and have become warier of Chinese presence in their countries. India, on the other hand, has extended prompt and significant assistance to help our neighbours to deal with the crises confronting them. One could say that India has to some extent retrieved its position in its neighbourhood.
Q. There was an outrage from the Muslim countries recently on remarks made on the Prophet. Does this reflect a shortcoming in diplomacy? What should be done to deter a similar situation from arising in the future?
A: In our globalised and densely inter-connected world, what happens in one country instantly becomes news across the world. It is very difficult to insulate foreign policy from domestic politics. Therefore, for every state, it is important that domestic political discourse does not complicate the safeguarding of the country’s national interests. This is not a shortcoming of diplomacy which has to do damage control. In the future, political leaders must ensure that such intemperate behaviour is no longer tolerated in competitive politics.
Q. Are there any suggestions you would like to make that would help India’s Foreign Policy?
A: For a country like India whose international engagement has been expanding rapidly, the small size of its Foreign Service is a major constraint. We have only a thousand or so IFS officers to handle a much larger foreign policy agenda than before. Furthermore, Indian diplomats are expected to handle all aspects of India’s foreign relations-political, economic, commercial and cultural. They need to be trained in different disciplines to enable them to become better negotiators. It is a much more challenging environment today when we have instant communications, pervasive social media and the need for rapid reactions to fast-moving events. Diplomacy is usually associated with carefully deliberated responses but there is a nimbleness which latter-day diplomacy requires. Diplomats need new skills and this, too, requires capacity building. We need to improve our delivery capability. We are weak when it comes to the implementation of commitments we make to our foreign partners and this affects the credibility of our foreign policy.
Finally, I would say that we need to pay greater and continuous attention to our neighbourhood. The Neighbourhood First policy needs to be backed up by far greater material and human resources than are deployed today. Our engagement with our neighbours is at times episodic, that is, we become intensely involved when a crisis erupts but then tend to lose interest when things settle down. Relations with neighbours need to be nurtured over the long term and at every level. Our best diplomats must be sent to neighbouring capitals.
