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It's a detailed book. It doesn't go chronologically, doesn't go with any particular theme or
any ideologically, but there are different, different chapters and very well structured
chapters on this. So, compliments to you once again.

So, let me start. I'm going to take about half an hour to question answers and thereafter
throw it over to the students in particular. You know, at the moment, like you said, I have
binaries and I like the quote that he has put on top, the Chinese proverb, that people
don't trip on the mountains but on the molehills.

At the moment, we have tripped on the mountains. And while you are at the end, you
say that why can't the trade be the foremost and then the flag can follow. At the
moment, the Indian policy is the other way around.

That we must resolve the border issue, the boundary issue, preferably, if not, at least the
border issue, disengage and then thereafter see, because trade is going on. But like
what your book talks about as to why can't we do more and more people-to-people
contact and why can't we, you know, progress on to that kind of a front. At the moment,
the policy certainly and general public, you know, doesn't look at China from that angle.

It still looks at China in kind of a hostile way, especially because out of the 15 neighbors,
we are the only ones where the boundary issue is not being discussed, hasn't stabilised
or hasn't been accepted. And then there is the so-called belligerence which happened in
Galwan Valley where they were supposed to use only sticks but then Baugwaar was
used, you know, all that. So, our media is very busy at the moment, naturally, talking
about anti-China as you would like to mention it.

And you have been rightly mentioned about the media's role in this entire thing. So, I
would like you to draw attention to your career as journalist in Beijing, where you have
been writing for these people daily initially, thereafter in China daily, and how censorship
has been in that particular editorial way. You have an editorial policy that you could not
transgress or if you feel to write whatever it is, you have mentioned something, one or
the issue about the, you know, you have mentioned is where we had the chemical, you
know, all out like that.

So, all those kind of thing you can just elaborate a little more on. Thank you. Thank you
very much.

That you say you wanted to speak about this thing. So, I don't know if all of you here are
only students of economics or are there also students of mass media and other
institutions. But there are important sections in this book which tell you a lot about
China's media.

There are many people with whom for instance I can discuss English literature in Marathi
or Tamil or Malayalam. They know the literature but they can't do it in English. So, I find
there is a similarity.

Secondly, I found there is no hostility when you meet people. Many people from here,
quite a few people I know came, visited me wherever. They say, but who came? Who
came? They were quite surprised.

That actually there is not very much interest in China. If you look at the newspaper, most
days there is nothing about India in the guide. You mentioned this in your book also that
the Indian journalists would be amazed to know that the Chinese don't look at India at
all.

They don't cover India at all. Actually, it is my experience also when I was visiting China
and I happened to ask a few people as to what are the news about India. They said, look
we are more concerned about what the Japanese did in Second World War than we are
ever talking in terms of India.

So, you are right in a way that India doesn't feature in the Chinese newspaper. But I want
to draw your attention to social media because we hear a lot about the Chinese social
media. And one of the ambassadors told us that the Chinese are concerned about their
own people getting more and more free because of this social media.

And the Indian democracy is something that they look up to. Because as you know, we
are a very vibrant democracy and going for Lok Sabha election shortly. And that is what
worries the higher authorities in China.

So, what is your take about social media especially talking in terms of one-child policy
which has now become two-child policy, three-child policy which is not working. There is
also this talk about lie low, lie flat. Young Chinese don't want to work.

They would much rather, you know, get some sort of degrees and go across to US or to
Canada or anywhere else. So, how do you look at the Chinese society in the years
ahead? I think I have come to three points that I would like to answer. One is social
media.

One is how young Chinese in the media sphere would go about their work. And third is
how it affects society. About social media, the important thing is that China has its own
social media wave.

They have an equivalent of Twitter. It's called Baibo. Then they similarly have their own
equivalent of Facebook and LinkedIn and all these things.
So, you have something like Baibo which is probably far more powerful, reaches far more
people than Google does. And that is why there was a huge campaign by Hillary Clinton.
This was in 2010, I guess, of that wanting that there should be internet freedom in China.

They said, this is the fifth freedom, you know, after the fourth estate. This is the fifth
estate. But this was primarily because they wanted more entry for Google and Microsoft
and all that.

And actually, although Google later made a lot of noises, the initial stages, they had
agreed to all the conditions that China wanted. And they also displayed the boundary
map as China wanted. Because they had more business interests, more to gain
financially by doing what China wanted.

It is only when that changed that they made these noises. So, this was out of business
interest. And Google was also deeply locked into the political campaign of the
democrats.

You know, beginning with Obama. Even when he was a candidate Obama, even before
he became president. So, on the one hand they have social media.

Social media is extraordinarily vibrant in China. It is not dull, it is not full of state
propaganda. No.

It would be very wrong to think that. It is as much full of state propaganda, government
propaganda, party propaganda as social media in this country is. With the difference that
here we have to deal with the propaganda of many parties.

There you have only one party. And one state and one government. That is not the case
here.

But the difference is that there is a certain vitality to the opposition there. For instance, I
don't know how many of you might be too young to know, but there are people here who
remember the mayor of a city called Chongqing, Bo Xilai, who was a member of the
Politburo. He was a very very powerful boss.

He used to come to parliament for the party clean-ups. Even the journalists used to clap
and applaud him. I criticized them in the Global Times when I was there.

So, I said, this is not the job of journalists at all. They have to cover what he says and do
it critically. And they carried this piece.

So, then I followed Bo Xilai's career. He was arrested. He was part of the corruption deal.

His wife was involved in a murder or something. Now, there is lot of criminality to his
political conduct. But there is also, I looked at by a different logic.
He was the mayor of a city which is perhaps the most densely populated city in the
world. Chongqing's population was something like 35-36 million in 2009. How do you run
such a city like this without a kind of network that includes a lot of illegal and criminal?
And you can't control a city like that given the so much of crime that is there in China
and this is not acknowledged.

So, when Bo Xilai was arrested, I remember, there were half a million micro-blogs that
erupted on Chinese social media. All their internet, firewalls, everything collapsed. Which
tells me, like in Tainan main square, that the Chinese, their dissidents, those who are
unhappy, they were wise to protest.

Not when either England or US or India think something is at issue. But when they are
wooed by something that is happening within their country and they feel fighting that,
overthrowing that, will bring about change for the better. They don't want to lose what
they have.

They have excellent economic conditions today. They have excellent total conditions.
They have excellent educational, medical, infrastructure, transport, all these things,
world class.

They would like things to get better. So, after Tainan main square, there was a long spell
of liberal regime by J-I-Z-N and then Wu-Jin-Tao and everything. And this became one of
the world's most permissive societies.

There was no part of the west, not even during the 60s of the hippie movement which
was as permissive as China was in the first 10-15 years of this century. So,
extraordinarily permissive including sexual permissiveness and all values from all over
the world. So, social media in China and now recently, they have attacked a lot of rich
people in China.

And they say the party is favoring these things. Then some time ago, Jack Ma proposed a
theory and which was taken up by lot of management in India where he said people
should work 9 to 9 into service. That is, people should work from 9 am to 9 pm, 7 days a
week.

And when Jack Ma said this also, there were a million bloggers who criticized him. So,
periodically you will find these. Second thing, how do you find out where there is trouble
in China? You can find out if you read between the lines.

And you must learn to read between the lines and also the lines. There is something
called the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. You can remember that, CISS.

It is a very influential international academy. But we have something called CISS in Pune
also, I think. So, they have brought out an annual report.
In that annual report, you will see, oh, there were 98000 mass incidents in the course of
the year. They will give you the details. They will not give you the details whether they
were firing how many were.

But if you follow that way, you will know what were the incidents. So, this is how the
guidance of life comes. Sir, second point you were asking is about society.

Yeah. The younger generation, just like in India also, when I teach in a journalism school,
all of them, they learn what they want. They are all progressive.

Many of them are even radical. Then when they come for an interview, whether it is to
Vion or Times of India, I am not the only interviewer in the college. They know, they are
smart enough to say exactly what they know the employers want to hear.

They will say that. They will say nahi, yeh bolne se hi job nahi milega. Baat ki hum jo
karna hai, hum kar lete hain.

I will write the poetry I want, I will do the Facebook posts I want, I will apply for the
universities I want, I will do the courses I want. But here I have to do this work, put on
this cap and go back and pick up. So, I, a lot of people who work with me in Global
Times, which is a state-owned newspaper, many of them moved to the South China
Morning Post, which is a part of the free bastion that Hong Kong was.

That paper is now owned by Jack Ma. But they are still catered to a lot of foreign press.
The same reports are written with greater objectivity, from a different perspective.

The second thing, many of them have moved to work for the Wall Street Journal.
Because they kept their politics down and they said, no, the world is interested in doing
business with China. If you understand the Chinese economy, if you understand the
Chinese business, culture of business, and you can help foreign companies, get in here,
then you have a way to make money.

And one of them who was there, I think most of the Chinese in the Chinese newspapers,
they have probably paid less than half or a fifth of what they call expatriate lesser pay.
She might be my boss, but she probably doesn't get 30% of what I get. But there is no
longer that issue.

Now, this guy, now I saw one of his posts. He earns $22,000 a month. And he is in his
late 30s.

Because he knows how to create those conversations in China that will open up business
for China and help businessmen find their way. So, nothing is done. And most Chinese
people in China are like one of the persons who was my boss in Global Times, a Chinese
woman.
She must be also probably early 40s now. She is in California. They launched Global
Times International Edition there.

We are setting up this. She does what they want there. And she is live for certain media
in California.

She is a US citizen. But she has a home. She has family.

She has investments in that. Her career is okay. I am a free person in the US.

When I come to China, I keep my mouth shut. I go around. I enjoy my life.

So, many of these people are living this split life. Some of them are quite happy. And
there is many of them are troubled that they have to do these things.

But there are also young people who are unhappy, who feel they have to stay in China
and fight. And you can find, like I said, some Sunday they have started talking about rich
people who are making the rules of the society. They have attacked the Communist
Party for having too many rich people.

Jack Ma is a member of the Communist Party. They say, they are driving the party in a
different direction. So, there are people who are angry with the Communist Party.

They are not keeping quiet. So, there are these groups. And you will find there are
certain book shops, they are called the Maoist group.

They are to the left. Because in a way, there are many people who say, what is the
difference? How is China a revolutionary society? It is as much a capitalist country as any
other country in the world. And it has got a lot of social malice in addition to that.

It does not have the infrastructure, social infrastructure. So, all these questions are being
asked. I remember they released a film on the 60th anniversary of the Chinese
Revolution, 1949.

They had all the great stars of China who acted in Hollywood and Singapore. And then a
lot of the Chinese, millions of them, they thrashed these films on the social media. They
said, all these people have gone out, they have enriched themselves making money
outside and they are throwing themselves as heroes in China.

What have they done for China? Why should we be serious? So, when this kind of
thinking is there, I think the state also allows them to let off. Because if you don't let off
steam, it can lead somewhere else. –Thank you.

You mentioned about Tiananmen. And as in your book, you talk about Jasper Revolution.
How far did it succeed and how did it go? And second thing I want to know is to, in your
opinion, what are the Chinese weaknesses or what are the, you know, areas that, I am
told that there is a, though they are food sufficient, I mean, in the sense, they bring food
from outside, but they don't grow inside.

Their, you know, total cultivable area is very less. And also, because they are upper
Italian state, most of the Southeast Asian countries are all the time, you know, sort of
worried as to what the big brother would do. So, you think that, you know, power has to
rise peacefully.

Isn't it better that he takes everybody along than to be so far, you know, a one man
show where, you know, you find that belligerents are moving forces, are being, you
know, strong, whether it is in Indo-Pacific, whether it is with Vietnam, with anybody else.
And, you know, there is a business about, even with India, not settling the boundary
issue is actually creating hurdles for trade to grow leaps and bounds like what you
mentioned. There is so much we can gain from China.

Why is it that, you know, they would not want to, you know, collaborate or why have a
compromise with India and move ahead? The question of the boundary issue in India is
very, very complex. They wanted to settle it. In fact, I was among the few gentlemen
invited before Prime Minister Mahindra Modi went to China in 2015.

And they invited us to give a salute to the person of the other country. So, kind of to do a
series of certain places where Prime Minister Modi wants to go in HR. Now, many of them
said that we have proposed a salute to the boundary issue, the India Open had
mentioned it to Rajiv Gandhi.

So, again that controversy came on what he has proposed. The reception for it was
adequate. It is probably easier for China in its present state of development or even 10
years ago or 15 years ago to have come to terms with India on the boundary.

I am not saying this as a cause of conflict, expanse. India has not been a militant power
like Japan. It is not accused of great military cruelties like Japan has.

So, it has not been militant but it has this expanse. But at that time when they raised it,
there was great expectation from Prime Minister Modi that what will you do, what will
you say. Nothing was said.

Why? Because first, you need to have a political climate at home where you can come to
terms with it. Now, one, you have created a situation of hostility. And I feel there is a
certain language, there is a certain kind of protocol one has to follow.

You will not find any western countries, regardless of the number of parties that they
have, that you will not find them talking about countries in which they have a conflict
like Indian political parties. Like if they are in opposition, they are saying one thing.
When they are in government, they are saying something else.
Whether it is the India-US nuclear deal, which BJP wants it. But when Manmohan Singh
became the Prime Minister and then he signed it, they criticized it. Then Rajesh Biswa,
who was the National Security Advisor, he came on television and he put a, I mean, gave
the quietness to the controversy.

When he said, no, we wanted this, this is the national interest, this is a bipartisan issue.
So, I think unless countries can rise to that level, it will stay. And also now in recent
years what has happened is, somehow this tendency of racial hostility has also crept into
Indian society.

Like people can't recognize our own people from the north. They will say, I will take
Chinese. And I remember in Noida and Delhi, which is a suburb, a lot of these Chinese
who were working there, they were targeted.

And then one of the pieces I wrote says, it is very difficult. Once I say somebody is a
Chinese, how do you tell people who think somebody is from Nagaland or Manipur is
Chinese? How do you tell them they are not Chinese? And how many Indians, once they
develop this kind of hostility, can they distinguish between a person of Chinese ethnic
origin in Singapore, in Malaysia, in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, in China? So, one thing is you
need to prepare a population. Political leadership is about a population being prepared
for hard decisions that the state can take.

So, unless that comes, there can be no resolution of the boundary issue. So, it is a
historical burden. It is best to leave it aside to be sorted out when the time is right for it.

But if you ask my personal opinion, I think as long as Xi Jinping is the President of China
and as long as Mr. Modi is the Prime Minister of India, I don't think there can be a political
meeting ground between them. Whatever political meeting ground was there when they
had good cordial relations, they met each other, lot of Konami was displayed in
Mahabalipuram, Sabarmati, all that, that is now so much history, it has been swept in the
past. Today the climate is very different after Galwan.

So, whatever was achieved the 45 years after Rajiv Gandhi's visits has been shot down
in Galwan. Galwan also tells us one very important thing that when you have the nuclear
bomb, it is no longer a deterrence to conflict. So, nuclear power can still get into conflict
which can be very dangerous.

It is a different matter that if India and China get into a conflict, China will be the greater
loser, not India. The second point you raised was about why can't a power voice be
useful? There is something called the Thucydides Clash. The attempt of any power to rise
up will see other countervailing forces trying to keep it down.

And this is as old as history. If you look at what happened when Italy and Spain were
both very powerful and Portugal, they were all Catholic powers in Europe. The Vatican
didn't want a conflict between them.

But it saw that a conflict could also be religious. So, the power of the church, they said
Spain goes to the west and Italy goes to the right. So, Italy had some small politics.

But then Portugal, they let them go both to the east and to the west. Then again, you
have something called the Mandrodoctrin, more than a hundred years ago. What is a
Mandrodoctrin? Mandrodoctrin is, no other power can enter the American continent.

That is, neither Soviet Union nor China nor anyone can come into South America which is
considered a backyard of the US. So, this doctrine was propounded by the
Mandrodoctrin. So, this is one aspect.

There will never be, because no existing power, will the five members of the UN Security
Council step aside and make space for India, South Africa, Brazil, Iran? No, they won't.
Why would they? Whoever has power, like you are sitting in a reserve compartment in a
train, you will not vacate your seat for those who are waiting outside to get inside. So,
this is the second thing about power.

The third thing is, power is what power does or what power does not allow to be done.
Now, the South China Sea, the problem is that they find Vietnam, all these things. I don't
think it is even about that.

I don't think it is about anything or anything like that. Any big power will reject all, all.
What is China trying to do? It is trying to do many things.

I can't go into all of them. But what are those things? China is trying to say, we are a
power, we will play by our rules. Just like that is what US did, that is what Britain did,
when it went to war against Argentina, that is what France did.

What is France doing in Lebanon today? Why are they still ordering Lebanon what they
should do? You know? And so, it is all big countries, they have rejected this international
criminal code. US, India, China, all of them. There is a law of the sea that Berlin has
given an order on the South China Sea.

China has objected to this. Other countries have also objected to this. US also did.

In fact, in US, if you are supportive of the UN, I spent a little time there, spoken to, they
will say, oh, all these communists in the United Nations, why should they contribute? And
it is so much that when Obama went to meet Emperor Hirohito in Japan, the big debate
in the US was, oh, why is he going to, he will have to bow to the emperor, how can the
US president bow to an emperor or whoever. So, they have this conception. This is what
is known as American exceptionalism.

So, now, China, which is G2, USA, there is something called Chinese exceptionalism that
is emerging. I would say India's interest lies not in taking sides between China and US.
Why should it be? Like it was during the non-aligned period.

India should make the most of whatever their conflict of China and US are still doing
business. Their trade has not come down. And in my book, I have said one thing which
can be debated.

It is just a good starting point. I have said, I have proposed, I am not an expert on
anything. There can be a hundred suggestions that India should deal with China exactly
as the US does.

We should not do what the US asks us to do, which is to pit us against China or US. We
should do exactly what the US does. So, we have to map what the US does.

I did it for a few years when they have this security and economic dialogue. There are no
fireworks there. They go quietly sit down and discuss how to take forward a relationship,
how it can be mutually profitable for both.

China is the largest holder of US treasury bonds. You see how they are locked? We will
say if China pulls out, the US economy will collapse. If China pulls out those bonds, there
will be no other place.

In the same way, just as the US cannot let it go, neither can the Chinese. They are locked
in the city and these are things we have to be acutely aware of. So, my last question
before I close.

We talk about CPEC, especially because when we talk about China, Pakistan also comes
into our view. And then we hear about Balochistan and Chinese having withdrawn from
CPEC in a way that it is a losing kind of a position. And then we just talk about debt.

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