00:00I now want to quickly cut across and bring into this conversation, on India first, Manish Tiwari,
00:06three-time Member of Parliament, current Member of Parliament from Chandigarh, former Union Minister
00:11for Information and Broadcasting, and one of India's foremost voices and commentators on
00:18national security and strategic affairs. Someone who truly keeps India first. Manish Tiwari,
00:23welcome. Xi Jinping's visit to India after seven years. Do you see this as a thaw in ties,
00:32an attempt at stabilisation? There have been multiple false starts in the past. But how
00:37do you look at this visit, sir? Sir, I request you to unmute yourself for a moment. On India
00:51first, the conversation is always free, fair and fearless.
00:55Thank you very much, Bauru, for inviting me.
00:59If I was to contextualise your question, India and China arrived at their respective destinies
01:07in the late 1940s from two absolutely different trajectories. While India became independent
01:15after a non-violent pacifist freedom struggle, which between 1914 and 1945 had consumed over
01:25one billion people dead and countless more injured. China came to its destiny through a protracted
01:33civil war after the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1912, with the communists fighting the nationalists,
01:41the communists and the nationalists together fighting the Japanese and then fighting each other again
01:49before the communist state came into existence in 1949. And this is fundamentally the reason why
01:56both India and China have not been able to find the modus vibandi over the past seven weeks.
02:02If you were to contextualise this tragedy, China had land-boundary disputes with 14 countries.
02:11They have settled them, they have settled 12 of them, often by agreeing to only one-third of their original
02:21claims.
02:22They have two outstanding land-boundary disputes, one with Bhutan, which is in the process of being negotiated,
02:29and the other with India, which seems interminable. And the rest of their six disputes are maritime disputes in the
02:38South China Sea
02:39and the East China Sea with their respective maritime neighbours.
02:43Now, this begs the question that if China was able to resolve the rest of its land-boundary disputes,
02:50why is the one along the line of actual control hanging fire?
02:56What is your reading?
02:57And the answer to that is very simple. Both India and China have to come to a fundamental agreement
03:06that in the remaining 74 years of the 21st century, there is enough space for both India and China to
03:15grow concurrently.
03:16One does not have to grow at the cost of the other.
03:19There is enough space and enough leverage, if I may use that word, which both these countries have because of
03:32their economic tragedies.
03:33But India has made this point repeatedly to China that there is enough space for both to grow.
03:40And yet, it seems, China seems to believe that you can't have two tigers in one forest or two swords
03:48in one scabbard.
03:50Is that the problem? China thinks only one can rule the other, has to be a vassal, or words to
03:57that effect?
03:58Well, that's clearly not happening.
04:01You know, two tigers will have to live in one forest, and two swords will have to coexist in the
04:08same scabbard.
04:09And that's the conundrum that we've unfortunately not been able to unpack.
04:14Otherwise, given the fact that we have a very high-level engagement on the border question to the special representative's
04:24process,
04:24and after 25 rounds of talk, that we cannot even seem to agree on the terms of reference as to
04:32how do we proceed to resolve the border question,
04:36obviously, there is a deeper theological or a philosophical or ideological or a strategic question beyond the delineation, determination, demarcation
04:49of the respective countries.
04:52And so, therefore, with President Xi Jinping coming to India to attend the BRICS summit,
04:57one would hope that there is forward movement on this very contentious question,
05:04which along with the huge trade deficit that we have for China, which is about $100 billion annually, as we
05:12speak,
05:12these are the two 600-pound gorillas in the room, which need to be resolved if this relationship has to
05:18go forward.
05:19So, let's take this step by step.
05:21And you're a student of history, and they say those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
05:27You know, whether it was Dr. Manmohan Singh's government pre-2014 or Narendra Modi's government post-2014,
05:35we've usually seen a pattern.
05:38There's a summit, a head of state coming to India or an Indian head of government going to China.
05:44Borders would suddenly flare up.
05:46You know, you've seen Chumar, you've seen Depsang, you've seen 2017 Dolom.
05:51And despite India's best efforts to have a good relationship with China, Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 2013,
05:58Prime Minister Narendra Modi inviting Xi Jinping to India, then you have tension at the borders,
06:02then you have a crisis at Wuhan, a crisis at Dolom that lasts 73 days, then you have Wuhan, then
06:08you have tensions again.
06:09You have 2019 Mahabalipuram, then 2020 flare up once again in Galwan.
06:13Will this time be any different or do we see friendship on one end and tensions at the border at
06:21the other?
06:22Well, Gaurav, you rightly described the pattern.
06:26And that's exactly what I'm saying, that both the countries will really have to address themselves
06:32to see as to how they break this logjam.
06:36As we currently speak, there is deployment on the borders from both sides.
06:42You know, though we had a disengagement agreement in 2024,
06:46and there have been multiple rounds at different border points,
06:50but the friction continues to persist as the latest flare-up in July 26th
06:56in the Subhansri district of Arunachal Pradesh demonstrated.
07:00So, yes, there has to be forward movement primarily,
07:03because if you were to contextualize the relationship in a larger perspective,
07:09given what has been going on between Russia and Ukraine,
07:11where Russia has taken over a million casualties,
07:15Ukraine has absorbed very severe punishment,
07:19then you have the situation in the greater Middle East,
07:22the Israel-Hamas conflict,
07:25which continues to flare up and then periodically settle down,
07:31notwithstanding the fact that there has been almost a genocide in Gaza
07:35between 2023 and 2026,
07:38Lebanon has become the collateral casualty in Israel-U.S. versus Iran,
07:44and the latest 2P advance in the states of Bab al-Mandaab,
07:50where they seized the city of Mocha,
07:53which means that their power projection capability
07:56in the Bab al-Mandaab state increases significantly,
08:05so which could mean that rather than one,
08:09you have two maritime disruptions,
08:11which would be extremely costly
08:13for all the energy-consuming economies downstream,
08:17in the Asia-Pacific,
08:19from India to China to South Korea,
08:23Japan, Indonesia, Philippines,
08:25and the other countries in the Asia-Pacific.
08:27So, right now,
08:29right now when you see that this charm,
08:31the Chinese charm offensive,
08:34when they say that they're looking at a long-term strategy,
08:37good neighborly relations with India,
08:40is China seeing reason?
08:42Or is China looking at this emerging situation
08:44and realizing it also needs the Indian market
08:47as India needs the Chinese market to grow?
08:49So, do you see this as a temporary spurt of good relations
08:55and then back to square one?
08:57Or do you see this as a new dawn in ties?
09:02Well, one thing that you need to remember, Gaurav,
09:04is that interests are permanent.
09:07And so, therefore,
09:08if one nation does not see its interest in a durable peace,
09:13then what you will have is episodical plateaus,
09:19whereby things appear to be normal
09:21or there's a semblance of normalcy.
09:23And then you go back to business as usual.
09:26So, as I was earlier saying,
09:28that the fact that we arrived at our respective destinies
09:32from two different trajectories,
09:35fighting the same colonial powers,
09:38it is, in fact,
09:40it defies the imagination
09:41why India and China are not able to resolve
09:46what, according to me,
09:47is not an infractable dispute.
09:49It is something which needs to be settled
09:53in terms of the international boundary
09:56between the two countries being demarcated.
09:58But we'll have to wait and see.
10:00But I do see a sliver of opportunity,
10:03given the fact that both India and China
10:06have huge populations,
10:07they are invested in ensuring
10:09that their respective countries do develop,
10:13their populations are able to get
10:15the basic developmental needs
10:17to locate it in the larger context
10:20of different conflicts playing out
10:23in different geographies of the world.
10:25Maybe both India and China do decide
10:28that as they are the two most populous nations
10:31on planet Earth,
10:33they need to do things differently.
10:35Okay. So, instead of going by what they say,
10:38should we look at what they do on ground
10:41in terms of, you know,
10:42whether there's talk of disengagement
10:44and there was phased disengagement?
10:46Do we, whether there is de-escalation
10:49at the borders, not just in Ladakh,
10:50but also in Arunachal Pradesh?
10:53Do we look at whether there's delineation
10:54of maps in the next one year?
10:56Because China would also want India to come
10:58for the BRICS summit.
11:00Do you think this is a window of opportunity?
11:02Is the trade imbalanced, adequately addressed?
11:05You know, there's another issue of rivers.
11:07I'll come to rivers in just a moment.
11:08But are these some of the benchmarks
11:11that we should look out for?
11:12Borders and trade?
11:14Well, the first thing you will have to,
11:16you should look out for is
11:18that whether what is mentioned
11:20in the latest statement
11:22of the special representative
11:26released after the meeting in Beijing
11:28in August this year,
11:30the terms of reference
11:32as to how you sort of earmarked
11:36the roadmap ahead
11:38to settle the border question
11:40whether those terms of reference
11:42get settled or not.
11:43Because that is the free primary step.
11:46Till the time you do not have
11:48an agreed modus vivendi,
11:50that this is the roadmap
11:52that we will walk upon
11:54in order to try and arrive
11:56at the destination.
11:57I think what you are then seeing
11:59is only crisis management
12:02whereby you have flare-ups,
12:04you have this engagement,
12:07and then you have a period
12:08of relative calm
12:09before each one tries to go back
12:12to what his or her perception
12:15of the line of actual control is.
12:17Because let's remember,
12:19the line of actual control
12:21is not demarcated.
12:22There are four different perceptions.
12:24There is India's perception
12:26of where its line
12:27of actual control lies.
12:29There is India's perception
12:31where the Chinese line
12:33of actual control lies.
12:34Then there is the Chinese perception
12:36as to where the Indian line
12:38of actual control should lie.
12:40And there is the Chinese perception
12:42of where their line
12:43of actual control should lie.
12:45So within these four perceptions,
12:47there is so much of play
12:48in the joints
12:49than the possibility of any misunderstanding or one trying to enforce what it thinks is a legitimate claim,
12:56obviously then leads to attritional conflict, as we saw in the case of Galwan in the June of 2020 and
13:05the subsequent standoff since.
13:07Trade is a different question altogether.
13:09You see, going back to the late 1970s, you know, after Henry Kissinger's secret visit to Beijing,
13:19you know, via Islamabad and then the demise of Mao Zedong and then Xiaofeng becoming the helmsman of China,
13:26the United States helped China to grow and China ended up becoming the default factory of the world.
13:34So, therefore, you know, it's very difficult to untangle established supply chains,
13:41supply chains which have been institutionalized with the investment of billions and billions of dollars of capital.
13:48So, that's a much tougher nut to crack in terms of as to how you will be able to mitigate
13:55your balance of trade,
13:59which India needs to do over a period of time.
14:02And as has been clearly demonstrated, we do not seem to be very successful at that.
14:08So, therefore, the easier one, if at all, there is political conviction and intent on both sides.
14:14And as you rightly pointed out, India has demonstrated that intent repeatedly.
14:23The delineation, demarcation of the line of actual control can actually be done,
14:32given the fact that China has already, as I was earlier pointed out, settled the boundary question with 12 of
14:4014 countries.
14:40And Bhutan is currently in the works that only leaves India and China.
14:46And that brings you back to the fundamental question that we started with.
14:51Both of them have to realize that there is enough space for both of them to grow,
14:55not only in Asia Pacific, but in the world per se.
14:59Oh, absolutely.
15:00So, 21 minutes to go.
15:02Will we see a new dawn when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi meet?
15:07That question remains, but Manish Tiwari for joining me here on this India Today special broadcast.
15:12As always, many thanks, sir.
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