00:00Hello, and welcome to SAM Conversation, the video program of South Asia Monitor.
00:17I am Tarun Basu, and I'll be in conversation today with Commodore Uday Bhaskar, India's
00:26preeminent strategic analyst, and since we are largely focused on South Asia and the
00:33Indo-Pacific, the most important and seminal geopolitical event this week has been the
00:42SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in the eastern Chinese port city of
00:50Tiangin.
00:52The organization has grown in strength.
00:56It was started as, I think, half a dozen countries, and I think on Tengen there were
01:02about 20 global leaders in attendance, including heads of government of Russia, heads of state
01:10and government of Russia, China, of course, the host, India, Turkey, and Central Asian countries,
01:20and Pakistan, of course, is also part of this grouping.
01:25The optics from the summit, as far as India is concerned, has been fairly positive.
01:31The summit has sent a lot of signals to a lot of world capitals that have, I think, followed
01:41the summit, and the message is coming from it quite keenly.
01:45Prime Minister Modi has been seen in animated conversation with President Xi Jinping, whom we met after five
01:56years, or seven years, I think.
01:59And the first time that the two were meeting after the borders clashes in eastern Ladakh in 2020, they had met, I mean, I think four months ago in Kazan, but this was a much more structured meeting.
02:16And in fact, as some media were recording the number of times they met, I think this is the 20th meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping, since
02:32Mr. Modi came to power in 2014.
02:35The two were seen broadly smiling when they met, Xi Jinping, in his remarks, talked about that the two countries should be partners, not rivals.
02:50Mr. Modi talked about that the 2.8 billion people of both countries were looking to work together, and that cooperation would be important for the future of the two countries.
03:05And this future of Asia.
03:08Then there was this famous photograph, which was, again, pictured around the world, of Mr. Modi, in conversation, animated conversation with President Putin of Russia, and President Xi Jinping, and it led to a lot of talk of our RIC access, Russia, India, China access, talking about optics.
03:35Now, President Putin gave a ride to Prime Minister Modi in his limo, this spook for not just 15 minutes in the ride from the hotel to the summit venue, but also stayed on in the car for another 45-50 minutes to have a one-on-one conversation, which was, again, of great importance.
04:01Now, what are the messages that this conversations and the larger summit gave to the outside world?
04:10And here, Udaya, I would like to bring you in, to give us a larger perspective, especially what happened to India and the Trump tariffs and the 50% tariffs in India, and the kind of signaling that Tianjin has given to Washington and other world captives.
04:29Thanks, Udaya, thanks, Udaya, thanks, Udaya, for inviting me to be part of this conversation.
04:36And as you have indicated in your very comprehensive overview, the Tianjin Summit, the SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, is indeed a very consequential summit in terms of the geopolitical implications and signaling, the word that you used.
04:58And I would characterize it as being very rich in the symbolism at two levels.
05:05One, of course, is the bilateral between India and China, where Prime Minister Modi had a one-on-one with President Xi Jinping.
05:15And we saw the statement, definitely from the Indian side, was very upbeat and optimistic about what you might call as the beginning of a thaw in the India-China bilateral, which had gone into the freeze after Galwan in mid-2020.
05:36So that's almost five years.
05:39Yes, Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines in Kazan, Russia, at the previous summit.
05:47But that was a very short meeting, very brief meeting.
05:50But in a way, it paved the way.
05:52Kazan paved the way for Tianjin, where the agreements that had been identified broadly when the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Wang Yi,
06:03came to Delhi in the end of August, those have been formalized.
06:08So in many ways, I would describe the first bilateral between India and China as significant, rich in terms of the potential it holds for both countries to be able to work together.
06:23As of now, I'd be a bit cautious and just say that what it has led to is an improvement,
06:28so that the relationship that had been stored, a dialogue that had been stored, has now been brought back on track.
06:38Because there are a number of contentious issues that India and China have to address.
06:42The starting point is Galwan.
06:44I mean, what was Galwan?
06:45Galwan was a manifestation of this very complex territorial and border dispute.
06:50So now it's back, at least on the dialogue table.
06:52So that, I would say, is the first, you know, big takeaway at the bilateral level.
06:59The second, I would say, relates to the larger multilateral, which is what the SCO was all about, which China was hosting.
07:08It was a very big event for President Xi Jinping personally, against the backdrop of both the Ukraine war
07:16and the kind of pressure that U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to apply on China also,
07:23as far as tariffs and the relationship with Russia are concerned.
07:27So I would describe it as rich in symbolism at two levels.
07:33There's a lot that we can unpack in terms of what President Xi Jinping said in his opening remarks
07:38and what President Putin said, what Prime Minister Modi said, in terms of the content of the SCO itself.
07:44Tarun?
07:44Tarun, talking about the bilaterals first, can we say this is leading to a reset in relationship between India and China?
07:56I mean, the two sides have agreed to relax their relationship in a number of ways.
08:02The visas are being resumed.
08:04The flights are being resumed.
08:07And China is, I think, lifting its export restrictions on some critical items for India.
08:13The rare earth magnets, fertilizers, boring equipment for tunnels, etc., which India needed badly.
08:25But, you know, there have been critical voices in the Indian media because of the way that things have been worded.
08:34Not too many months ago, you would remember, Foreign Minister Jaishankar talked about the centrality of the border issue
08:42and said that unless the border issue was settled, the things between India and China cannot go back to normal.
08:51But now what we read, what we have seen from the statements so far, is that the border issue, if I might put it that way, has not been settled.
09:02There has been some pullback of troops, but there has been no de-escalation.
09:12There's no de-escalation.
09:16And both sides have agreed that the border issues are still much there.
09:21But China would like to keep it to the back burner, which has always been saying,
09:26and said and wanted that the other issues, the resumption of ties and the normalization
09:32and development of ties should not be held hostage to the border issue.
09:39But India would always wanted to make the border issue, the centrality of the border issue,
09:45and said that ties cannot be normalized until the border was settled.
09:49Do you think here India has kind of puffed on this issue because of the larger geopolitical churns that are happening,
09:58especially the push and pulls from Washington?
10:02Yeah, I think that would be a fair description that the word I would choose for describing the outcome of the bilateral
10:11between Modi and Xi Jinping would be a case of restoring a degree of normalcy in the bilateral.
10:19Because the bilateral got ruptured in Galwan in 2020.
10:26And all the kind of, shall we say, breakdown that takes place in the bilateral is in that period
10:31from Galwan to Tianjin.
10:35Post Tianjin, what we are seeing is number one, the resumption of dialogue,
10:40which was preceded by the two foreign ministers, Vangi and Yashankar,
10:45as also Ajit Goval and Vangi both wearing the hat of the special representative
10:50to discuss the border issue.
10:52So, I am repeating this, it is the resumption or a restoration of a degree of normalcy.
10:59But on this second part, I agree with you, India has always said,
11:02Jayashankar has said this many times,
11:04that we want a restoration of the status quo that prevailed before Galwan.
11:10All the reading that I have done, the Indian statement is a single statement by India.
11:17There was no joint statement after the bilateral meeting.
11:20And rightly so, because this was not a summit.
11:22This was a meeting on the sidelines.
11:25But the readout from Beijing is a little more circumspect.
11:30It's a little more, I would say, you know, doesn't give the meeting the kind of optics
11:35that we in India seem to have done, particularly some sections of the audio-visual media.
11:42I would say as an analyst, and I have been accused in the past of being cynical,
11:48being jaundiced and not joining the cheerleaders.
11:51But I think we have to proceed very cautiously and see how the disengagement that we have seen
11:58at Galwan will actually lead to substantive de-escalation
12:04and pull back.
12:06And will India have the same patrolling rights that it did before Galwan?
12:12As of now, I don't get that sense.
12:15Because if you remember, even after Kazan,
12:19India was very upbeat that, you know, there was some kind of a movement.
12:23But the buffer zones were introduced.
12:25So all that has happened as I see it is that the temperature,
12:29the military temperature tension or the eyeball to eyeball between the troops has been brought down.
12:36But whether or not India is actually able to return to pre-Galwan in terms of the patrolling
12:42and the status quo, at this point, you know, the perhaps most polite way of describing it
12:48is that it's a work in progress.
12:50So we have to see.
12:51But definitely, I think India has been more malleable in wanting to reach out.
12:56I dare say, even though the Chinese side, President Xi Jinping,
12:59wanted a successful SEO summit.
13:02Imagine if Mr. Modi, Prime Minister, had not gone.
13:05That would not have been the right optics.
13:07So I think China also had a lot of investment at the political and diplomatic level.
13:12Now look at, I mean, yesterday I saw the international media.
13:15Most of them were leading, particularly TV news, with the SEO summit.
13:20So that just shows that it has the potential to be an alternative
13:24to what President Donald Trump is trying to, in a way, advance
13:29as his vision of the global order, which also means the weaponization of tariffs.
13:36In fact, the American media has paid a lot of attention to this summit.
13:41And most of the TV channels and newspapers have given a lot of coverage
13:47to the meetings between Modi and Xi, and between Modi, Putin, and Xi Jinping,
13:56and talked about how Trump has driven Modi into Chinese arms.
14:04But really, is that the case, do you think?
14:07Or it has been more about the fact that India also needed more,
14:14for economic reasons than political, to have some kind of rapprochement with China.
14:19And this was going to happen.
14:21Some kind of stabilization was going to take place.
14:25Disengagement in Galwan had happened.
14:29But although there's no de-escalation on the table,
14:32but this was going to happen anyway.
14:35So is it what has happened in Tianjin, is it because of Trump,
14:43or there's a process that has been accelerated possibly by Trump and his tariffs?
14:49Well, again, I think I would describe it in the following manner,
14:53that the beginning of an improvement in the India-China bilateral, to my mind,
15:00began in Kazan, which is last year, 2024, where Xi and Modi met on the sidelines.
15:08Then, I think from then to now, 2024 to 2025,
15:12we saw President Trump entering the White House for his second term.
15:16And the steady kind of intimidation of India and other countries,
15:21where President Trump was using the tariffs as a weapon.
15:24And I think specific to India, the brief India-Pakistan war,
15:30and the fact that India did not accept the Trump formulation that he had,
15:35in a way, been responsible for, quote-unquote,
15:38stopping the war and therefore he should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
15:43India did not sign up to that as enthusiastically as Pakistan did.
15:46So, in a way, you see the introduction of the personal element, Pateek.
15:51And because of that, I think the improvement in the Sino-Indian relationship,
15:57India-China, was definitely catalyzed.
16:00So, I think it would be wrong to suggest that the improvement has happened only because of Trump.
16:06But perhaps...
16:06It might have got accelerated.
16:07The process might have got accelerated.
16:09But this does not mean that India is now going to, again, the word you used,
16:14will India embrace China?
16:15I think the answer is no.
16:17Will India sever its relations with America?
16:20The answer is no.
16:21Because if you go back to the starting point,
16:24India was buying oil from Russia because it was in India's national interest.
16:30Today, India's national interest is best served
16:32by remaining in contact with the United States as India has.
16:38You know, we still have a dialogue going on on defense,
16:41on technology, on the non-tariff trade.
16:44Because America is a very important interlocutor for India.
16:49And I keep saying this, that there is life after Trump for the bilateral relationship.
16:54Many Americans are saying that there is life for America after Trump.
16:58So, I think the domestic discord in America also is a major factor.
17:02But for now, my reading is India is going to open a dialogue with China.
17:08We are not embracing China.
17:10India is going to deal with America in a way where it will draw its own red lines.
17:15But this does not mean severing relations with the United States.
17:19Though Trump, mind you, is doing everything he can to make life tough for India,
17:25the fact that he has announced 60,000 visas for Chinese students
17:32in just one kind of decision,
17:35and the impact will be on the Indian students
17:38who would not get the visa that will now go to the Chinese.
17:41So, you know, these are the kind of, I would say,
17:43pinpricks that India would have to deal with
17:47for the next three years, three and a half years,
17:50until Mr. Trump is in the White House.
17:53But given the fact that the American media
17:57gave a lot of attention to the Tianjin summit,
18:01and the fact that a lot of them panned President Trump
18:05for the way he treated India, a fellow democracy,
18:10and trying to rupture, and having ruptured a relationship
18:14that had taken 25 years in the making
18:17and at the level it stands today,
18:22do you think there would be a,
18:24Trump would have some rethink on the way
18:28the whole thing has developed
18:31and the way he has treated India?
18:33If not, I mean, President, Prime Minister Modi himself?
18:37At this point, I think President Trump
18:40doesn't have enough of an incentive
18:42to revisit and review,
18:45because, you know, logic and the conduct
18:47of bilateral relations in a normative sense
18:50doesn't seem to be his USP.
18:54He's a deal maker.
18:55So he's looking for some deal
18:57that would also burnish his image
19:00in the domestic constituency.
19:03For instance, the last time I saw a program
19:04about him, he was taking a lot of credit
19:08for making the NATO countries
19:10increase their defense budget
19:11and buy American arms.
19:14This was in relation to the war in Ukraine.
19:16He was seeing this as a big win.
19:18But I think what could cause
19:21or, you know, trigger the difference
19:22and make him review his policies
19:24is if the American consumer
19:27is hit by the tariff war,
19:31because this tariff war is not just India.
19:33India and Brazil are at 50%,
19:35but he has also identified American allies,
19:39including Japan,
19:41including Western European countries
19:42like Germany and France and Britain and so on.
19:45And similarly, you know,
19:46countries like South Korea, Australia,
19:48so-called allies.
19:49So when the American consumer
19:52starts feeling the pinch,
19:54suppose prices go up,
19:56there was a scare that if Canada decides
19:58that it will not play ball with America,
20:01then basic products will also be affected.
20:03I think when that happens,
20:05we will see it politically in the elections
20:07to the House of Representatives.
20:11Because after all,
20:11both for Mr. Modi and for Mr. Trump,
20:13it's about domestic politics.
20:16Whatever they are doing
20:17will be to ensure that their own base
20:20and their electoral,
20:22shall we say,
20:22positioning is positive for them.
20:24So my reading is that
20:26I think Mr. Trump will revisit
20:28if there is an impact on his own profile.
20:32And the American consumer
20:33and the American citizen
20:34says enough is enough
20:35and that we need to have
20:37a more rational policy.
20:39You spoke about Japan.
20:40The road to Tianjin
20:43for India
20:44was to Tokyo
20:46because Prime Minister Modi
20:47made an official visit to Japan
20:50before he came to Tianjin,
20:53before he came to China.
20:54And there were a number of important
20:56economic and security-related agreements there.
21:00And that also sent a lot of signaling
21:02because in the context of Quad,
21:05because the reports have come from Washington
