Shyam Saran: India has no option but to countervail China

New Delhi, April 3

Former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran on Monday said India had no other option, but to countervail China. He recalled how the Sumdorong Chu standoff (with China along the LAC in 1986-87) laid the foundation for signing the peace and tranquillity agreement with China in 1993.

“China leveraged a moment in the 1970s when the US presumed the Soviet Union as its prime threat. It was the US that built China’s technology and China had free access to US and European markets,” Saran said after having delivered a talk at the third Gen K Sundarji memorial lecture organised by the Centre for Land Warfare Studies.

“China was positioned as a countervailing force to the Soviet Union. The US, Europe and Japan may be in a decline but they hold the capital and are the biggest markets. These nations have a stake in India’s success and to contain China’s unilateral assertion of power. India is the only country which can overtake China,” Saran added.

Former Army Commander Lt Gen Raj Shukla (retd), who was the other speaker, suggested that India needed a national security makeover.