China’s rise can be peaceful but outcome can’t be guaranteed: Ex-NSA

 

Chennai:

China’s rise can be peaceful but its outcome cannot be guaranteed as its action seem to correspond to a Game of Weiqi, a complicated game of encirclement in the chessboard of politics, according to West Bengal governor and former national security advisor M K Narayanan.



“Conflict is not inevitable, but as tensions increase, there always is the danger of miscalculation,” Narayanan said while delivering The Triplicane Cultural Academy’s Sixth Rajaji Memorial Lecture ‘China and India: More Rivals than Friends’ here on Thursday evening.



“If China’s efforts to reconcile the diverging legacies of Mao Tse Tung and Deng Xiaoping prove less than successful, and India meantime is seen to reap the benefits of its demographic and democratic dividend, then the existential question would be whether the rivalry would spill over into something more problematic,” the former national security advisor said.



“The Chinese leadership maintains that their priority remains sovereign security and next territorial integrity and national unification. If this leads to an excess of nationalism and nationalistic fervour, then it will not be possible to predict the outcome,” he added.



To a query on the India’s waning influence in Nepal, he said after the monarchy perished, it left a vacuum and China is trying to fill it in. “But it is careful and waiting for India and Nepal to mess up the situation,” he said.



He also said while the world is comfortable with India, countries in Latin America and Africa where China has poured in investments are concerned and worried as what the objective of China is. Because India doesn’t look down upon any country where as China has a superiority complex,” he said.



He however hoped the soft power tactics of India would be more fruitful in tackling Pakistan and China. He also said there is a link between economy and security and China has deep pockets and wants to be the economic superpower before 2050.



To another query on Tibet, the former national security advisor said it is a part of China and India is only for autonomy of Tibet. On the border conflicts, he said the Chinese are too good in map-making and are able to produce documentary evidence.

“On the other hand, ancient India does not have maps and the maps of India came into existence only during the British,” he said