WhatsApp Audio 2024-04-07 at 15 (mp3cut.

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Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.

You know, they are giving around, whether it is Sri Lanka or whether it is in African
countries. So, you know, how do you, successfully you think that they are going to sell
this particular thing into other continents or otherwise and profit from that, giving so
much of investment across. There, I think, there is also requirement, because Chinese
economy at the moment is fraying a bit.

There is no internal consumption, though there is a possibility that it is going to rise now.
And of course, the trade imbalance is going to continue as far as, because there has
been the worst factory. And supply chain management has always been from China.

So, how Chinese, you think they will change the tact in terms of trying to give this one
road, one, you know, silk road kind of old theory that they have. What is your view on it?
Okay, this Belt and Road initiative, it is, the comparison I can make is for everyone to
understand. I will simplify it a bit.

It is like digital India. When Prime Minister Modi said digital India, it did not mean we will
start the process of developing digital resources from the very scratch. It meant a
number of things that were already there from the mid-80s beginning with the telecom
revolution and everything.

So, it was a number of things that were already there everywhere. Departments of
telecom and electronics and various things, you know, you had the fiber optics and all
this. And how do you bring, capture it under a single programmatic thrust towards a
purposeful objective? In the same way, the Belt and Road initiative is a number of
projects that China has scattered everywhere.

In Central Asia, in East Asia, in other countries. They are trying to bring it together under
the Belt and Road initiative and try to make it something composite where it will serve a
larger purpose. Now, what is the larger purpose? One thing is, they have been explicit
about it.

It is about China spreading its economic influence. And it is about China establishing new
outposts in the prevailing geopolitics to shift the power. And I have been to some of
these Belt and Road initiative areas.

For instance, one of the areas I went to was Xinjiang. Xinjiang is the center of Asia. It is
one of the most backward regions.

And you have a lot of ethnic population. There are diverse ethnicities. There are
minorities from Russians and Tajiks and all these people are there.
And you will find actually Russian signboards, Tajik signboards and everything there. All
those food is available, people from Uzbekistan, all of them are there. And you also have
these Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

They are also a minority. But the Uyghurs are seen as a Muslim minority. They are, no
other Muslim community in the world identifies with the Uyghurs.

Neither the Shias nor the Sunnis anywhere in the world. None of them. They say they are
of Turkic origin.

But then so many of the Central Asian are of Turkic origin. Because they all came down
the Black Sea to Central Asia. Now, so China is expanding its influence.

Second thing I discovered is, when I went to Kazakhstan and also Uzbekistan and both
Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia, is that now, the Inner Mongolia and China has
become a hub. I was there in 2016, yes, in Ulaanbaatar for the Asia-Europe Editor's
Roundtable. And from Ulaanbaatar to Inner Mongolia, they have so many train
connections.

People don't need visas for a government because they are Mongolians. So, they have
those things for their own people, you know. And they know there will be no trouble
because both have controlled economies.

And they are nomadic people. It is difficult to develop them as an industrial workforce.
From Inner Mongolia, they have 230 trains that are carrying goods to Europe every day.

This is already happening. It started from 5-6 trains to 200. This is part of well-controlled
industry.

But it has already been there. Then I went to the north half of the border, the Siberia and
all that. And they have discovered oil there from 25-30 years ago.

That is also part of well-controlled industry. They are developing their own bloody
workshops on the Eastern coast of Austria. Then, in Central Asia, all the five states,
Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan, all these places, there are lot of these jihadis who
are misleading them from the Middle East, from Syria and all these places.

It can be ISIS and all these people. They are just the freaks. And then, actually there, the
Belt and Road Initiative is almost like a pact between China and Austria.

They feel this is happening because there is not enough employment, not enough
enterprises. So, we create more enterprises and this thing and let people have the job.
And both countries are now also exercising their security expertise in keeping up control.

They are set on people coming. Like now, for instance, it is very interesting that the five
people or eight people who are caught for the pro-fascist city hall terrorist attack in
Moscow, they are Tajiks. You know.

So, Tajiks are there in large parts of Russia from the days of the Soviet Union. So, from
where they came, what are their loyalty, the hand might have been the ISIS. But who
was holding that hand? This question is there.

Just like today it is unresolved that the LPP or its renegade might have killed Rajiv
Gandhi. But at the behest of which power or what power? So, these questions are there.
So, this is going.

Now, Tibet when you say, I visited Tibet. That was the last time I went to China. I have
said, I have been there enough times, I will not go again.

But then they had invited me and because it included Tibet and somehow I cannot
accept that Tibet is China. Tibet is Tibet too. So, it is the third pole, the world wide self
and the roof of the world.

It is a very fascinating place. So, I went to Tibet and I have found there is extraordinary
development in Tibet. Sooner or later the airport was built.

Unimaginable the kind of infrastructure they have developed in Tibet. As I am going

down the road, I can hear the Churchill of the Brahmaputra who are in China. And there
are those mountains.

They have built railways back from there. There are these roads. For hundreds of miles
there is no human habitation.

They have built airports, highways and banks, military, everything can go. They have
also built high speed trains which go at a speed of 350 kilometers between Shigatse and
Lhasa. And Shigatse is just a few hundred kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur.

So, they have many points of entry. They choose to. Earlier when we talked about China
on the border, we said either north or east.

But it is no longer north or east. Now it is north, east, it is coming around. So, and any
development, I am convinced, is for military usage.

And this has always been the case. All these roads and all these were not developed for
people to drive in cars. Most development at all times in the history has taken place for
conquest, for war.

So, it is no different in these times. So, but Tibet they will have to open up sooner or
later. And they will be planning to open.

There will be huge interest in Tibet. Just like US multinationals are the biggest investors
in China. World's largest Coca-Cola factory is in Xinjiang.
Why is it there? All this surveillance equipment that China is buying, the technology of
operation, everything is from American western companies. If they are serious about
democracy, why doesn't the West refuse to sell them this surveillance technology? All
these things that they are using on all the streets. Now, of course, it is happening
everywhere.

There are cameras on every road, everywhere. So, these things, but everybody wants to
do business with China. As you said, it is not only the East Asian mind, but the East
Asians have been clever.

I think India has something to learn from the policy of ASEAN also. They did not, for
instance, when there was a reduction of violence in Myanmar, and I think whether it was
Thailand or Malaysia, one of them was the chair, they did not take the position that the
US and the EU took on the violence in Myanmar. So, then India also moderated its
position.

So, I think we should always look both East and West before we arrive at a decision. We
cannot always look to Brussels, NATO, EU and then to Washington. We should look this
side because now there is an arc of power stretching from the Mediterranean to the
Pacific, beginning with Moscow, Iran, Saudi Arabia, all these things.

And we will have to face it. Tomorrow we may become friends with China. There might
be less violence, less violence.

But in the meantime, you have to build your resources and at all times you have to
safeguard your interests, you have to remain strong, and we cannot afford to have any
kind of slackness either in terms of security, but build our economic model. That is the
core, I think, for success. Very nice.

Thank you, Joseph. He mentions about one mountain, two tigers. So, hopefully that for
the Asian century, both India and China get together and then the Asian century really
comes into being.

So, now I will throw it open to the house and we will take three questions at a time. We
will take three questions at a time.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.