lindsay: good morning, everyone. welcome tothe council on foreign relations. i am jim lindsay, senior vice president and directorof studies here at the council. it is my great pleasure to open today's symposium on thenew geopolitics of china, india, and pakistan. it's a crucial issue. and i want to thankall of you for taking the time to be here today.i want to give an extra-special thanks to everyone who had to take more than a car rideor a metro ride or a cab ride to get here, particularly to our speakers, five of whomtraveled all the way from asia to join in the conversation. having just recently comeback from singapore, i know it's quite a hike to make that trip. so i hope the jet lag isn'tkicking in at this moment.
i'd like to remind everybody that today'sevent is on the record. as stacy (sp) mentioned, we will be streaming it online to all thosepeople who are watching us from their computers and laptops. hello. welcome. after we concludetoday, the video will be available on cfr's youtube page. and you are welcome-actually,you're encouraged to live-tweet today's event using the hashtag #newgeopolitics.now, today's symposium comes at a time of increasingly complex and fraught relationsamong china, india, and pakistan. tensions have been rising throughout southern asia,raising concerns about the eruption of conflict. so today's panels will examine current regionalflashpoints with an eye toward steps each of the countries, as well as the united states,could take to dampen tensions and advance
regional stability.but southern asia isn't just a place about potential conflict. it is also a place wherethe benefits of cooperation are potentially immense. so today's panels will also be assessingopportunities to improve regional economic integration and exchange.now, today's symposium caps a two-year collaborative project examining the evolving relationshipsamong china, india, and pakistan. today's event, as well as the larger project, hasbeen made possible through the generous support of the macarthur foundation. on behalf ofthe council, i'd like to thank the macarthur foundation for its continued support of ourwork and for making today's symposium possible. i also want to recognize and thank three ofmy colleagues in cfr's asia studies program
for running the project and designing today'spanels. they are alyssa ayres, senior fellow for india, pakistan, and south asia-she directedthe project; elizabeth economy, who is the c.v. starr senior fellow and director of ourasia studies program; and dan markey, our adjunct senior fellow for pakistan and southasia. they have done a terrific job shepherding the project overall and pulling together today'sevent. so i want to say thanks to them. thanks are also due to cfr's meeting team,especially to dexter ndengabaganizi, as well as to ashlyn anderson in the studies program,for all their hard work in planning today's symposium. i also want to thank cfr's eventsteam, which is led by rachel lumpkin, for making everything run so smoothly. and i thinkyou're in for a very good event today.
we are lucky to begin with a keynote panelof former ambassadors who can tell us in very practical terms what the opportunities andchallenges look like on the ground. and again, given the incredible speakers we have heretoday, i have no doubt that this will be a productive and informative series of discussions.and so, with that, i will turn it over to ambassador rick inderfurth, former assistantsecretary of state for south asia, who will moderate our first session, which is majorflashpoints in southern asia. rick, over to you. i invite everybody to comeup to the stage. inderfurth: good to see you, jim.lindsay: good to see you. inderfurth: well, good morning, everyone.thanks to jim for his introductory remarks
about the symposium and our panel this morning.as he said, i am rick inderfurth. i'm also formerly known as karl. i apologize for theconfusion. i actually answer to both. so that's the case. i am very pleased to be a part ofthis great panel that we have this morning. we have certain time limits, so we're goingto move rather rapidly through this. i think we will be ending at 9:45. so we're goingto try to march through this and get as much of an exchange as we can.our topic is major flashpoints in southern asia. and our focus will be on current transformationsof asia's strategic landscape and how the return of geopolitics affects regional andpeace-regional peace and security issues. now, that's a lot of terrain to cover in ashort period of time, but i think that fortunately
we have four panelists, excellent panelists,who will be able to make the most of the time we have together.i'd like to give you a brief introduction of our four panelists.samina ahmed is project director for south asia for the international crisis group. herfocus is on the risks of extremism, terrorism, internal conflict, and war. to paraphrasesamantha powers' book, these truly are the problems from hell. so i sympathize.daniel markey is a senior adjunct fellow here at the council for india, pakistan, and southasia and a research professor at johns hopkins school of advanced international studies.previously he served at the state department on the policy planning staff. and i think,dan, that's where you and i first crossed
paths. so good to see you again.raja mohan is our next panelist. he is the director of carnegie india and is one of india'sleading strategic thinkers. fittingly, when he was here in washington at the library ofcongress, he held the henry a. kissinger chair in foreign policy, who also, as we know, isanother great strategic thinker. you're in good company, raja. raja is also a memberof india's prestigious national security advisory board.and wang xu is executive-our final speaker-executive deputy director of the center for south asianstudies at peking university. dr. wang has spent a lot of his time living and workingin pakistan and has devoted considerable attention to the chinese one belt, one road initiative.i've often wondered if perhaps one day the
one belt, one road initiative might intersectwith the u.s. silk road initiative, but i guess we'll have to see if that takes place.so those are our panelists. you have their fuller bios in the material in your packets.so i'm going to start off with a conversation for approximately the next 20, 30 minuteswith our panelists, posing three various questions to them. and then we will begin the open conversationwith the members here until 9:45. so to start, to start-a little bit early inthe morning for a broad geopolitical discussion, but i think we will-hopefully you've got enoughcoffee here to get you awake and moving. i'd like to start with a, as i said, a broad question,the 20,000-foot question to begin. and i'd like to direct this to our panelists fromindia and china, dr. mohan and dr. wang.
i want to take you back to a report by thenational intelligence council, the u.s. national intelligence council, in 2004, entitled "mappingthe global future." in that report, the nic, as it's called, made this prediction, andi will quote it. it said, "the likely emergence of china and india as new major global players"-andnow get this point-"similar to the advent of a united germany in the 19th century anda powerful united states in the 20th century, will transform the geopolitical landscapewith impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries." that's quitea statement. it's now been 12 years since the nic madethat prediction. and so that leads me to my first question for dr. mohan and dr. wang.the question is, is this transformation of
the geopolitical landscape in asia, as predictedby the national intelligence council, taking place? and, if so, in what ways? and whatimpact is it having on regional peace and security issues?raja, why don't we start with you? good. mohan: i think what was a prediction thenis a reality now, certainly with respect to china, which has, over the last decade, hasemerged as the second-largest economy. and consequentially its weight in the region hasdramatically increased. it's nearly now the largest trading partner for all of south asia,if not for much of the world. it's also begun to replace u.s.-led institutions. they'vecertainly created new ones; for example, like the asian infrastructure investment bank.along with india, they have the new development
bank under the brics formula.so on the economic side, today china's weight in the region is quite significant comparedto-for example, you mentioned the intersection between clinton's proposal of a new silk roadand the china's obor. there's no intersection. i mean, china has just overwhelmed the americanproposal, because the u.s. has a proposal but there's no money to back it, while thechinese today are bringing in money and can deliver projects in two years, three years,short order, depending on how cooperative you might be with the-with the chinese companiesand institutions. so i think it's really transformative in terms of what they're doing, in terms ofthe connectivity within the region. there's also backlash to it in some places,like sri lanka, where some of the projects
have been challenged for their financial conditions,et cetera. so, but, for good or bad, china's economic impact is quite dramatic.second thing i would say, the fact that the u.s. talks about a pivot to east asia butis eager to work with the americans in afghanistan tells you the relative weight of the chineseinfluence in the region. it tells you that even as you compete with them elsewhere, you'vegot to work with them within the region. so both on the political and economic side, thereis-the chinese weight today is quite significant. india's rise has been less dramatic, lessconsequential than the chinese. but there is a growing agency for india today, thatindia can actually shape quite a bit of the outcomes within the region.i'll conclude by saying that 25 years ago,
at the end of the cold war, it looked likeu.s. has the authority, power, and the resources to define the environment in the region. today,that capacity is being questioned, both because of the will in washington as well as the capacityto do things there, and that china and india today can do a lot more to shape the regionalenvironment from a time when we were merely passive players to one today, what we do willmake a difference to what the u.s. does. wang: both china and india has two promisingnew economy. definitely there will be huge expectations on china and india when theyare transforming about geopolitics in the region. but i'm afraid that, according tomy humble understanding, both china and india, as my friend raja mohan just mentioned, imean, a little bit overestimated about our
influence. i think, at current state, bothchina and india could be more influential on the regional issues.second point i want to mention is that i think both china and india, the engagement-moreengagement or more close agreement between india and china could help the regional stabilitya lot. for example, we have-both our new governments have this strong political willingness forbetterizing our relations. but given some historical issues, it still needs a long wayto have a more better relation. but still, we are focusing, as you just mentioned, aboutthe belt and road initiative. i think it's not like china buying something. but, forexample, everybody knows that in now, china, we have a slowed-down chinese economy. wehave the new norms.
but, at the same time, india has a promisingpotential rapid economic growth. so why not, let's say, converge the chinese industrialcooperation with india and make these two huge both manufacturers and also two big consumingmarkets to be a better future, regional economic integration? that will help a lot.the third point i want to mention, that more engagement between china and india might bea (rising-sum ?) thinking or concerns. but given the lessons learned from the last, wehave several rounds-more than seven rounds of the counterterrorism dialogues betweenindia and china. and also we have several rounds of the border discussions. so i thinkthat it could help at least-even if we can't solve the problems in short time, but we canhave a better crisis management, so that we
can help the regional stability a lot.inderfurth: good. let me just pursue a couple of things, because this focus on this panelis on the major flashpoints in southern asia and the question of the transformation ofthe geopolitical landscape of rising china and india on the issues relating to peaceand security. i'd like you both to comment a little bit more about that from the standpointof the two. we all know that in 1962 there was a definingmoment of the sino-indian border war, which is still a lingering legacy today in the relationship.and more recently we have-and i'm not raja's book agent, but we have this wonderful accountthat raja has written on samudra manthan, sino rivalry-sino-indian rivalry in the indo-pacific.both countries are moving forward with naval
modernization, a blue-water navy, the wholeissue of not only the indian ocean but the south china sea. you knew this was coming,i'm sure. there will be many questions during the audience participation on that, i wouldexpect. but where is the-in terms of transformingthe geopolitical landscape in the security realm, where is that heading right now? raja,do you want to start as- mohan: yeah.inderfurth: and do you want to explain the title of your book? i've often said this isone of the best titles that i've seen. using a hindu fable as a title of a book is prettygood. mohan: my wife always scolded me, saying thatnobody's going to understand that. (laughter.)
it's not really said, so.but nevertheless, i think it talks about the churning of the oceans. so that is the fablewhere actually the angels and the demons tried to fight for the kind of nectar or whateverit is. and in that fight, actually a third party, the lord himself, intervenes and ittilts to one side. some people have accused me of comparing the god to the united states,but a lot's happened since then. (laughter.) but the fact is this. i mean, the-i thinkthe key point there is, as a rising economic power-powers, if you will-both india and chinaare going to build large navies. i think, whether we like it or not-i mean, it's nota-it's like all the great trading powers of the past, that china and india today are goingto build navies. much like portugal, netherlands,
france, britain, and the united states, whocame to the indian ocean, the chinese are going to come to the indian ocean, whetherwe like it or not. so it's inevitable. the only thing is they're coming from the otherdirection. instead of coming from the west, they come from the east.and india is going to build its naval capabilities, seek to consolidate its primacy in the indianocean, and we'll also try and go in partnership with the americans and the japanese to thepacific ocean. and china, meanwhile, is creating partnerships. they've just announced the constructionof some new bases in the indian ocean. there was a time when we used to say, look, bases-rememberdiego garcia and all that stuff? but we love to do it ourselves these days, because i thinkit's in the scheme of things. if you want
a big navy that must operate beyond your shores,you need facilities. you need special relationships. you need access.i think both of us are doing that, and i think that's going to bring some friction. i mean,the chinese submarines show up in sri lanka, so there is delegates upset. indians are trainingthe vietnamese submarine crews, so that upsets the beijing. but this is going to be justthe beginning of a-of a friction that this book talks about. but the question is, weneed to live with that. we need to learn to manage that. and the question is, can we worktogether to limit some of the damage? that is a big question.but in the interim, the chinese partnership with pakistan on the naval side is of greatconcern to india. you know, india is concerned
about chinese navy tying up with some of herneighbors. so those issues are going to come to the fore. we're just not there yet. buti think it's a question of time. so the book talks about a security dilemma.the question is, then, do we find ways to manage it? but i think the maritime dimensionremains to be explored, because we've been so obsessed with the himalayas, both in india,pakistan, china, and the united states, that i think it's time to focus on what's happeningin the seas and how that has a bigger potential to shape the regional environment in southernasia. inderfurth: dr. wang.wang: i think this question is quite interesting, because as we just mentioned, that back inchina-i'm not speaking for the government,
but definitely i will say something aboutthis. for example, we have-we have another thinking of the-not zero-sum games. we believethat the writing of the chinese-even the military power is not as threatening to the peace ofthe world, but to keep the world at more peace. secondly-(chuckles)-secondly, i think youmentioned about very complicated issues between china, pakistan, and india. i think what ournew leadership has described as-our president xi made a speech in-(inaudible)-during hisvisit in 2014. he (restated ?) the strategic importance of india to our-chinese policytowards south asia. at the same time, we still want our old friend pakistan to be satisfiedwith our progress with india, more engagement with india. it is not, let's say, china-indiabetter, china-pakistan worse. no, it's a-(inaudible)-better
harmony, we call this, or we call this a communityof common destiny. the second point i want to mention is thatwe have a large oversea(s) investment nowadays, and we have a large population of the tourists.so definitely, back in beijing or back in china, it is very natural or very rational,logical concern about how the chinese government to protect at the same time when we have abig economic power. so the government has to think more about the responsibility ofprotecting overseas investment, also the personnels. so definitely the existence or the appearanceof the chinese navy in indian ocean should not be regarded as a threat to, let's say,the indian people or something. (inaudible)-i think we are-as i just mentioned, that weare more focusing on geoeconomic purpose.
but in south asia, we are facing quite securitythreats; i mean, the nontraditional security threats, either the piracies or the terroristattacks. so on the-maritime cooperation between chinaand india could help this region, even the indian ocean region, to be a more stable one.inderfurth: excellent. dan?markey: yeah, if i could, just on this point, because it relates very directly to one ofthe projects or one of the sub-projects that's a part of this macarthur project as a whole.i worked on a research agenda which was really focused on the question of could we see achina-india flashpoint in the relative near term, say, the next 12 to 18 months? and theregenerally the take-home was this is a relationship
that, in that timeframe, is actually remarkablystable. i think a lot of the kind of cooperative dynamics that dr. wang has pointed out dominatecertainly in this timeframe. but as raja has pointed out, if you look out further, a lotof the competitive instincts on both sides may come to the fore.so the conclusion of this piece was there were basically four potential flashpointsthat could come up in the near term. not one of them on its own was likely to bring indiaand china to blows. but if you had to put your finger on one, it would be the land border.but if you had a compounded crisis-that is, more than one crisis looming at roughly thesame time-then things might become less manageable. and so the potential candidates there wereupheaval related to tibet, a maritime dispute
related to raja's point, and a potential india-pakistancrisis that took place at roughly the same time as a china-india crisis. if you saw thismerger of crises, then you could begin to get into some very dangerous territory evenwithin the next 12 to 18 months. but still, at the end, we had to put this in the categoryof plausible but quite unlikely. inderfurth: great. wonderful segue to thesecond question i'd like to pose to all of our panelists regarding a major flashpointin southern asia today, and that is afghanistan. as we know, pakistan, india, and china allhave stakes in what is currently taking place in afghanistan, and especially what comesnext in afghanistan. china for some time now has been playing amore active and direct role in promoting reconciliation
talks between the afghan government of presidentghani and the taliban. unfortunately, i regret to say there's not been much success in bringingthose parties together. but there's no question that the stakes are high there. and i'd liketo ask our panelists to give their thoughts on this flashpoint and where it's heading.and i would like to begin with samina, and then we'll just go down the line.ahmed: as we speak, the spring offensive has started in afghanistan at a time when therewas talk about the taliban holding direct talks, direct negotiations, with kabul inmarch. quite obviously the attack, the most recent attack in the capital, which has beenthe worst since the international intervention, has changed afghan perceptions on the utilityof talks, not necessarily president ghani's,
but even the president will find it difficultnow to justify direct negotiations unless he sees the other three partners who werein this process of helping bridge the gaps-the united states, china, and pakistan-more effectivelyconvince the taliban into abandoning violence. the stakes are way too high. the politicalstakes are way too high. so whatever happens in the next few weeks-we'renot even talking months anymore-in afghanistan will determine two major issues-one, the relationshipand the directions of the relationship between islamabad and kabul. how much worse can itget? second-and this is equally important-is the internal political dynamics within kabuland the tensions within a national unity government stitched together by the united states, wherethere are different perceptions on the utility
of negotiations.so where afghanistan stands today, i think, is-should be a matter of concern. and quiteobviously pakistani policy and the afghan reaction, to a considerable extent, is goingto be dictated by u.s. policy choices in particular-and i know this is an issue that's going to betalked about-whether the u.s. troop presence is going to be reduced by the end of the yearor sustained, and what the role of the other major actors is going to be in dealing withthe pakistani-afghan relationship. markey: i just had a chance last week to goto brussels, to nato headquarters, and participate in a series of conversations about afghanistan.and it was interesting. it was revealing in part because there were some at least seriousconversation about whether afghanistan would
hold even through this summer. now, i wouldn'tsay that that was-reflects any kind of a consensus. but the fact that that was even being raisedin quite so dire terms, i thought, was important. that's my first point.my second point would be, with respect to the reconciliation dialogue, it is probablyat this point the right way to go. it is probably the only way to go, from a u.s. perspective,for u.s. policymakers. there aren't a lot of other great options on the table. but ithas always been an unlikely thing to work. and right now the dynamic is one in whichthe united states appears, pretty much from every perspective that i can see, to be theonly party that is as desperate for a deal in the short term as would be necessary toactually see serious and rapid progress.
third point, i would want to highlight somethingthat raja said about the chinese involvement in the region and the chinese involvementin reconciliation dialogue. this should not be taken lightly, although i don't see evidencethat the chinese have made moves that will determine or make more effective these talksin the near term. but the very fact that they have been involved is unprecedented.and i think it does, if we broaden out a little bit, reflect what i think will be the newreality of what i would call china's western periphery or western asia, where the unitedstates will have to take into account very seriously chinese diplomatic moves in muchof what it does, whether it's in south asia, central asia, and i think increasingly, ifwe're willing to look further afield, into
the middle east as well.china is going to have to be consulted. and in some cases there will be utility in bringingchina in directly in ways that american diplomats have been unfamiliar with for-well, forever.so that's a big change. mohan: rick, i think three points. i mean,i think, one, i wouldn't be honest if i don't share my skepticism of the flashpoint modelthat kind of is very common in washington. the idea somehow the u.s. is removed and thereis a dynamic in the region, and that u.s. can, you know, define policy choices thatwill define outcomes-you know, often it's defined in public good-you know, internationalterrorism norms, nonproliferation, all this stuff, you know-but the fact is, the u.s.has been in the gutter with us. so it's not
as if u.s. is above and we're all playersmoving around, and the u.s. can fix solutions for that.the choices the u.s. made in the cold war in the late '70s vis-�-vis russia-sovietrussia at that point-the choices it made vis-�-vis pakistan and afghanistan since then, they-sothey shape-they produce the reactions from the others. so therefore, you are very muchpart of the mix. so it's not something you stand about and can fix the problem. you'revery much part of it. and your domestic politics is going to play a big role in what happensin the-in the outcome. the second point, i think, is the-is the factthat the international occupation-or shall i put it more simply, the u.s. occupationof afghanistan-is going to be a failure, a
failure writ large today. this administrationwould want to keep it just standing so that when january 21st it will be somebody else'sproblem. and if we heard this president right, who said, look, he's not going to play bywashington's playbook in the middle east, my sense is the next president-one of themcertainly is not going to play by washington playbook on afghanistan. so you-so you have,actually, considerable uncertainty in terms of what the u.s. does.that opens-i think that brings me to the third point. there is going to be significant, substantiveregional jockeying for position in afghanistan. the chinese are just the one part of it. iran,i think, will play a much bigger role than india in terms of-because of their religious-ethnicconnection to afghanistan. they're going to
play a much bigger role. but my sense is india,iran, saudi arabia, russia, china, everyone is going to be jockeying around. of course,the u.s. can have a lot of fun just stepping back and watching it, but i suppose that won'tbe the policy line. but the fact is, the agency of the regional powers is going to grow, andi think how this plays out is going to be important.lastly, the point-pakistan is the hamlet in this play. they are the principal players.they've inherited the legacy of the british raj, someone who's going to extend influenceon the subcontinent into afghanistan. but the tragedy is pakistan is not the raj. itdoesn't have the resources of the raj. so it has the-its grasp-its ambition is beyondits grasp. that is, it wants to have a special
controlling partnership in afghanistan, butit doesn't have the resources or the political vision to construct an arrangement that wouldlegitimize it. inderfurth: dr. wang, could you tell us alittle bit about the evolution of chinese thinking about afghanistan? because i dealtwith china back in the 6+2 process, and china was certainly concerned about afghanistanbut was not-it was basically at arm's length. but there does seem to have been, over thenumber-last number of years and last number of months a greater chinese direct involvement,not only on the economic side and the copper realm and the rest, but also in the diplomacyand the security side. could you talk a little bit about that?wang: there are different arguments back in
china. so i can just speak on my own because,as always, i'm quite skeptical always of afghanistan, the future, even at the current stage. numberone is that i'm quite skeptical about these peace talks, because both the kabul regimecannot reach consensus about the negotiation and how the target they will achieve; andon the other side, the taliban, they're also-because they needs also a reorganizing process ofthe afghan taliban nowadays, so it is also difficult for them to reach the consensusof how much they could bargain. so it's hard to say about this.even china, for example, we have the qcg, quadrilateral coordination group, and thesefour-party dialogues; many high expectations about that. but i'm always, always very skeptical,because the key issue is that-at least of
qcg-is that if we can't persuade the afghantaliban back to the negotiation table, what the option b we could have? and what practicalmeasures we could have to persuade or by other means to bring the taliban back to the table?that is the key issue with the qcg nowadays. second is that i'm more concerned about notpeace talks. as i always mentioned, that enhancing the capability or stability of the kabul regimeshould be on the top of the list-the list of the top, because you see the nug governmentis dual-head, and the-it is not china who brokered the last deal. it is the united states,and with the help of the international community made a deal. but two years has come already,and they repeatedly postponed off the parliamentary elections and the unformed loya jirga. soit will be a concern, a natural concern about
if this government could collapse, if abdullahabdullah and dr. ghani couldn't make the further consensus of maintaining the government.the second point is that about the economy, because people never mention-seldom mentionabout the economy. we observed last year a significant declining of the afghanistan gdpgrowth. it's negative or minus 0.5, just, and also the high rate of unemployment, almostmore than 50 percent. so how could you expect, in such a circumstance, the government couldmaintain stable? and how more leverage they could have on the negotiation table if talibangot back into the government? sorry, to the negotiating table.the third point i want to mention is that even if, because of the rise of the is inafghanistan, we observe the-i almost describe
as three-three. three is that-the first threethat there's three types of militants or the forces or terrorist groups in afghanistan.namely, that's the afghan taliban, the al-qaida, and also the is.the second three is that they are fighting against-for example, the taliban is not onlyfighting against the government. the taliban is also fighting against the is. and the taliban,they are fighting against themselves, like the mullah mansoor and mullah rasool. so it'squite confusing. and also, there are different areas whichfocusing-also three areas: east part, the northern part, and the southern part. howcould the government, or with the help of the international community, along with china,india, and all the regional players, could
help the afghan government, and particularlythe ansf, to maintain a relatively stable afghan security situation? so that is my keypoint. i think, although i am quite-always very muchpessimistic about istanbul process-in my understanding it's dying process, but still they need toinject some (robust ?) in this. so the interesting thing is that, two years back, the third roundof istanbul process in beijing, we initiated about the direct peace talk between talibanand the kabul regime. last year, in islamabad, they initiate about this quadrilateral-qcgnegotiation. and this year, india will be host for the next round of istanbul process.the significance of istanbul process i want to mention is that it's-already it's lackof implementation. but the problem-the question
is that it is the only regional security cooperationor the cooperation mechanisms by afghan-led and afghan-owned process. so the key solutionfor this is that, without sitting aside and looking at its dying, but let's say the furtherimplementation of the cbms, and also more concentrating about, for example, the morecoordination between the supporting-leading states and the supporting countries-to makemore cooperation between these two parts, to have further real implementations of thecbm without just all promising too much. thank you.inderfurth: a lot of what they've just said, i hope that your questions will sort of pickup on some of these remarks, including i just heard a reference to isis and its concernsabout isis. and samina, during the q&a hopefully
you'll address that about the degree to whichisis is extending itself into southern asia-pakistan, afghanistan, and the rest; also more on thesubject of india's concerns about the direction that afghanistan is heading.i want to just throw out one more subject as a final question, which we'll try to dovery quickly, and that is another major flashpoint deals with the bomb. all three countries havenuclear weapons, lots of them. you could say actually that southern asia is the most nuclearizedregion of the world. all three countries are also modernizing their nuclear assets. it'sestimated that pakistan's nuclear arsenal may be on track to become the world's third-largestafter the u.s. and russia. so the question is, what do we make of this?clearly each state is looking over their shoulder
at the others. it's called the cascading effect.the question is, is there any possibility of the three beginning a dialogue about theirnuclear futures? and so my question is to each of the panelists very quickly, how seriousis this challenge? what do you think can be done? because clearly it's not going to goaway. samina. ahmed: there are very few chances of any kindof a dialogue between pakistan and india on what to do about the bomb, their bombs, andthe way they perceive each other's bombs. what we do see-and i completely agree withyou-this is no longer an arms crawl. this is an arms race, a nuclear arms race in theregion. it's hugely destabilizing. but if neither new delhi nor islamabad understandthe importance of putting some restraint on
developing their nuclear arsenals and thendealing with each other-i mean, you know, the concepts of deterrence are very odd. letme put it this way. they don't quite understand the concept.given the fact that there's such mutual mistrust and their ambitions, and they have nuclearweapons, and there's such short response times, and they have disputed borders, that is, inmy understanding, the major flashpoint in south asia.inderfurth: dan. markey: yeah, i would agree with the pessimism.i see very little opportunity for a traditional arms-control approach to the challenge ofnuclear weapons in south asia, in part because, as you mentioned, you do have this broaderdimension, which is south asia is not limited
to south asia. india is not looking simplyat pakistan. it's looking at china, and i think increasingly so. and it's looking bothat a nuclear china but also a major conventionally armed china.so when india makes its calculations, it invariably will have to make them with both china andpakistan in mind, which leads it to build accordingly, which then leads to pakistaniinsecurity. and it reinforces-and, of course, you can't subtract us from the equation becausechina is, of course, not just thinking about india. it's thinking principally about us.so when you play all these pieces together, you don't get to a simple unraveling. andeven if the united states were to take a leading role in an arms-control effort, you come backto the fundamental insecurities particularly
felt by pakistan and its sense that conventionalplus sort of the asymmetrical use of militant proxies is still not sufficient. and its leadersbelieve that the nuclear dimension is absolutely essential and that continuing to invest inthat is necessary. some efforts by local think tanks to convince pakistanis otherwise, tosuggest that enough is enough, that they have a minimal credible deterrent, have fallenon completely deaf ears. and i gather that similar approaches by the u.s. governmenthave as well. so the moment is, as they say, not ripe forthis conversation, even though the concerns are very real.mohan: rick, three quick notes. one, i don't think this is such a big deal as the americansmake it out to be, the nuclear flashpoint
in south asia. if you see what's going onin east asia right now, you have a presidential candidate who's saying if the japanese don'twant to pay for it, they're on their own; and if they're on their own, i don't mindtheir getting nuclear weapons. now, you're talking about a scale of a transformationin asia which is going to be far more consequential and powerful than the flashpoint argumentof south asia. we've kind of been at it for the last three decades or more. we've been-allof us have been part of that debate, which has actually not moved an inch since we startedthe debate, since '87. and second part is it is-one is what happensto u.s. extended deterrence in east asia is going to be a big issue. that's going to cometo haunt us in the next coming years. and
second, the question of what's happening betweenu.s. and china? i mean, what happens between india and pakistan is a picnic if we see-ifthe doctrine of the third offset strategy the americans are talking about, the chinesesay we're not going to let the americans operate too close to our shores, you're talking abouta tension out there between american forward military presence, the role of nuclear weaponsand extended deterrence, and the capacity of the chinese to push the americans furtheraway. that is the flashpoint. but that's a flashpointnobody wants to talk, because it's a work in progress. i'm sure it's a matter of timethat hopefully, within six months with the new president here, a lot of that is goingto come (here ?). so i would say we have to
wrack our brains with that.the second: in the subcontinent, the problem has not been with the nuclear weapons, butthe imaginative use to which pakistan has supported. i must give credit to our pakistanifriends where it is due, that pakistanis did not think like other nuclear powers-that thenuclear umbrella provided pakistan with the leverage to put india on the defensive. thatis the purpose of pakistani nuclear weapons. and i think it didn't matter whether theyhad a thousand or 5,000 or 10,000 or just one, because amritsar and lahore are barely40 kilometers away from each other. this idea that it is the structure of thenuclear arsenal that creates the problem in subcontinent, which washington is obsessed,the entire think-tank community here-the problem
is this: i mean, that pakistan is not buildingthis arsenal to-it has the capacity to put india on the defensive. and that using sub-conventionalconflict under the rubric of nuclear deterrence, that is the genius, evil or otherwise. thatis the difference. and i think, till we address that question-howthose sub-conventional conflict or terrorism fit into this equation, which americans andrussians never thought about it-but today, in this context, how that plays out, thatis the key issue. and i think that problem is not going to be solved by merely talking,getting the laundry list out of the conventional wisdom and then trying to impose it on southasia. it's not worked. and we figured out, both indians and pakistanis, how to manipulatewashington, because every time pakistanis
come here and say, hey, look, our problem,it's the indians' limited war. i mean, you ask the indian military, we're nowhere nearit, but that gives an excuse to the pakistanis. and then everybody here jumps up and down.so the problem is not the nature of the nuclear arsenal. the problem is the sub-conventionalconflict. and pakistanis use it to get attention here. we have sometimes used it to blackmailthe americans, too, i mean, which is in the-in the post-cargill period in 2001. if we don'tdo this, are we going to do something? so that's now-we know how to play washington.so you can keep doing what you want-(laughter)-but i think we know how to manage this.inderfurth: dr. wang? wang: in very short, i don't believe thatin current circumstance could china, pakistan,
and the indian state together in harmony away for constructive or productive negotiation about the nuclear issues. particularly, one,you have the civil nuclear deal with india, and also your rebalancing policies towardsthe asia-pacific. so there will be definitely more complicated issues between these threecountries. secondly is that i believe that the stablesouth asia is in line of our national interest. i don't believe that our government couldhave that much thought that maybe we could use this as leverage towards either indiaor pakistan. no, i don't believe so. the third point is that that is why we arefocusing on (socioeconomic ?) cooperations. we are more focusing on that. so, on the basisof this, i think on nuclear issues we could
have some sort of bilateral dialogues. (let'ssay ? ) we could have the civil nuclear cooperation with pakistan. at the same time, we also extendour cooperation and hands to the indian side when your prime minister visited china lastyear. mohan: a civilian nuclear deal as well.wang: yes. yeah, yeah, about this. so i think about the future on this could be-we couldhave another thought, at least, on these civil nuclear issues.inderfurth: good. ok. i think it's time now to turn to membersfor your questions and joining in the conversation. i think that a lot has been said here. i hopethat you pick up and pursue some of these as the follow-up questions.let me reiterate that this meeting is on the
record. also we have microphones located aroundthe room. so please wait for a microphone. state your name and affiliation. finally,please limit yourself to a brief comment if you want to make one, and only one question.and that does not mean one question with multiple parts. (laughter.) i've been accused of doingthat myself. so let's begin. who would like to start? ithink we have a person that might have something to say about afghanistan back here, barneyrubin. q: i do, but i'll say it later. this is aboutsomething else. barney rubin, center on international cooperation.in all my discussions with chinese about south asia and the possibility of u.s.-china cooperationover south asia, i have found that the single
issue on which we have the greatest disagreementand the greatest divergence of perception is pakistan's nuclear weapons in that theunited states is and has been concerned for quite some time about not nuclear weaponsper se, but the type of nuclear weapons, the turn toward conventional weapons, the doctrineof first use as a deterrent to conventional forces, and-whereas pakistan, which says thatstability of south asia is so important to it, has never shared those-china, rather-hasnever-it says stability is so important to it-does not appear to share those concerns.so i want to start with professor wang to comment on that.wang: my friend barney has raised a very tough question about this. i will try my best.according to my humble understanding, pakistan
use nuclear asset as a deterrence measures.i don't believe that pakistan will ever use this. well, it depends.second point is that you are seeing china's influence towards pakistan about these issues.but i would like to raise another issue that, for example, a few days back we met our commonafghan friend, old friends. and he also raised another issue about how china asked pakistanfor this qcg mechanism more effectively. the question is that, how could you-how couldyou ask the-raise the issues which they do not willing to negotiate with your side?second is that i think i'm more concerning about not in the conventional warfightingsusing the nuclear, but i'm personally quite concerned about the terrorist threat to thenuclear asset in pakistan. but, at the same
time, the pakistan government always promisedthat we have full protection of that, and we fully believe that the pakistan governmentand the military could have the capability of doing so.the question is that, how to prevent from the arm race in the region? then i would saysomething my indian friend might not-(chuckles)-pleased to listen. one is they could have less pressuresfrom the eastern border or the western border. then pakistan could have another thought,or the arguments-even inside pakistan if they have different arguments about the nuclearpolicies or strategies. but if they are still facing very strong pressures from both eastside and the west side, so how could they have very natural logic thinking on theirnuclear strategy?
mohan: just two things. i mean, i think thearms-race idea, again, i think it's, again, an overused metaphor. i mean, you see what-chinadid not follow the u.s. or the russians. i mean, after 40 years of having-50 years ofhaving nuclear weapons, they're still at 400-plus. that's not a race with anyone. india is a-isa lazy slob, i mean, that we're not even reprocessing the material that we have lying around-youknow, civilian things, which are unsafeguarded. so it's not-if anybody says, look, india iscrawling still, is not racing with anyone. pakistan, yes, has built a large arsenal.much of it, i believe, is directed to the fears that the u.s. might do something aboutit. because when the u.s. talks about, you know, preemptive, other stuff, that it's aresponse to having such kind of actions rather
than fearing a threat from india.but as far as the east front being volatile, i thought it was the americans who were droppingdrones on the western frontier. i mean, we haven't attacked pakistan by any stretch ofthe imagination. ever since pakistan has had nuclear weapons, the eastern front has beenrelatively quiet. in fact, any questions are from the other side, though some of us mightwant to do it other way. but the fact is, which frontier has been volatile? i mean,it is the americans who drop drones on pakistan's western frontiers. we don't.so i think this idea that somehow the eastern front is what drives pakistan-i mean, i thinkthe last 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, that india has had no option even to retaliateagainst pakistan terror. to say pakistan faces
a threat-i mean, i think, look, at some pointboth the u.s. and china will have to start asking basic questions and not repeat thesame mantra that you (conveniently think ?) that people have said for themselves.inderfurth: dan, quick comment. markey: yeah, just-inderfurth: then we'll turn to another question. markey: just to pick up on this last point,the situation, yes, between india and pakistan has certain aspects that have been the samefor now a couple of decades. and raja's right to see some reason to expect that to persist.but there are two dynamic elements that have come up already. one is china's evolving rolewith pakistan and china's increasing focus on pakistan and involvement in pakistan, whichi think and i'm hopeful will make china-chinese
scholars, chinese government officials-increasinglyconcerned about the development that pakistan's nuclear-weapons program is taking.and that's the other big development. it's not the change, rapid change in india's nucleararsenal that gets people concerned. it's the rapid development of pakistan's nuclear arsenal.so the two dynamic elements of this broader equation are right there-china's involvement,pakistan's development. those two things together have the potential to continue to be of greatconcern. or we might begin to see the chinese take a different approach, take a differentview toward pakistan's program. now, whether they would have then the leverage to do anythingabout it, that's a separate issue. inderfurth: questions? please. there's oneright-second table from the back.
q: hi. good morning, and thank you so muchfor the interesting conversation. my name is louis bergeron from booz allen hamilton,which is the company that coined the term string of pearls back in the mid-2000s, talkingabout chinese energy routes and the indian ocean.i'm just wondering if there's an update on the string of pearls. we've heard a lot aboutdevelopments in djibouti for the chinese pla, the people's liberation navy-army, or army-navy,in djibouti, and just wondering about india's developments in maybe east africa, the middleeast, and other bases in the indian ocean region, and also chinese developments in thatindian ocean region from east africa through southeast asia.inderfurth: let's do discuss that. i was hoping
that would come up. i have heard a great expressionthat the chinese are more interested in places, not bases, as their current strategy. indiamay be as well. so panelists, who would like to start?wang: i think this question should be already discussed. as i mentioned, the government-forexample, there is a huge lesson that we learned from the libya issues. one, there somethinghappened, and we want to withdraw our labors and our projects-(inaudible). but we havea very limited capability of withdrawal. and in the end the government was under huge pressure.we have a huge public media. and the government was blamed for lack of responsibility andthe lack of the capability of doing so. and then we have some military existence inindian ocean, in djibouti, or some-in aden
gulf. then we have the experience of yemenissues, and we could send our warships to withdraw our workers. and at the same time,we also withdraw some other international foreigners who worked in yemen. so that isa vivid example of how china's rational logic of military existence or presence in the differentareas. second is that how effective-how constructivea role china's military existence could play for world peace.mohan: i think chinese have moved beyond a places-and-bases debate. i mean, i think haveexplicitly stated they're building a base in djibouti. and djibouti has discovered thevirtues of nonalignment. they've offered it to you. they've offered it to the chinese.the japanese have a little base as well. if
you pay the right amount, i'm sure we'll getone as well. so there is, i think, everybody, every little speck, every little island inthe indian ocean today sees the opportunity that, look, china is emerging as a power;china will come to the indian ocean. so i don't think-there's no point grudgingthat. i mean, i think julie manderno (sp), the booz hamilton-who did the report, i think,saw what was coming. and i think it's inevitable. it's a natural occurrence. so i think we haveto deal with that reality, and i think india, too. i'm not-i don't represent the government,but i think the indian navy and the indian government should be looking for exactly thesame thing, which is bases, facilities. they already have some turnaround arrangements,i think, with some countries. and i think
we need to do a lot more, because if you wantto project power, you've got to have bases. i mean, i think it's as simple as that. youcan't fax a navy. so, therefore, whatever our rhetoric of nonalignment,blah, blah, blah, for 50 years has been, today as rising powers, we're going to do what othergreat powers did. so the question is, managing that is the issue. and there i think someinteresting things. i mean, if you noticed, we haven't said a word about diego garciafor how many years? i mean, maybe 20 years. we don't talk about americans should get outof the indian ocean. maybe you guys are supposed to leave at the end of this year, so maybethere's other arrangements we can make with each other.so there are going to be a huge number of
possibilities, from djibouti to india to madagascarto mauritius to sri lanka. everyone is playing this game. so it is going to be-bases is goingto be the name of the game in the indian ocean, and that game is going to be pretty activein the coming years. inderfurth: questions? we have two in theback. this gentleman's in the center and then to the right.q: andrew small from the german marshall fund. another question to wang xu to kick off with.i wondered if you might elaborate a little bit on how china sees these plan b optionsof peace negotiations in afghanistan fail. what role specifically does china see itselfplaying if peace negotiations don't move ahead? and specifically within that, we saw the visitof fang fenghui, the chief of-pla chief of
general staff to kabul. china's been veryreluctant traditionally in the past to expand its direct security and military cooperationwith afghanistan. what sort of scope for that do you now see, particularly in these kindof plan b scenarios? wang: the reason why i'm watching my watchis that i'm watching what date is today, because according to the last round of the qcg, theformal direct peace talks should be launched in early march. and actually, if you haveobserved that the mou signed by that qcg or the announcement on that, they have the planb or they have option b. option b is a general principle, which means take all necessarymeans to bring the taliban back to the-so, i mean, after almost one-half month, the fourparties could not find possible, practical
measures to deal with this. so that is thereason why i raised this question. but i'm looking from another issue, is that,as you mentioned, about the military existence or the military engagement of china towardsafghanistan. i think it's not a sudden change. actually, if you notice that the public mediafrom two years back we have sent some equipments for the afghan police and also afghan army,different range of that. it's a natural concern for our side. as ialways mention, afghanistan is very important for us, for our regional stability, and alsofor the west part of china-and also, more importantly, now for the belt and road initiative,because we have the silk road initiative crossing central asia. so the overflowing of the securitythreat from afghanistan could be a huge threat
for the energy supplies, from our road transportationof the energy supply for us. so the question is that whether we have enoughcapability for the military engaging in afghanistan. that is quite arguing nowadays back in china.and second thought is that, whether by military or by the force means, can you solve the afghanissues or not? so i personally believe that only by political means we can solve afghanissues at last. but, during the process of this, instead of rather more focusing on peacetalks-which, i mean, i personally believe that it's less hopeful in short term-why notwe more focusing on concentrating the afghan government so that you could have a more strongleverage or strong position in the negotiating table?second is that, when we talk about the is
issues, if the international community-becausewe saw a strong hesitation of the international community coming back again in afghanistanto fighting against the is. the problem with is, the influence, is that at their currentstage, the real existence of is members mostly coming from the so-called-the local, regional,or extremist and terrorist rebranding of that. but the threat is that if we cannot defeatthem at the very initial stage, then the peace talk between afghan taliban with the kabulregime would be maybe just a paper work, because after that part of the taliban would go toanother side for fighting under the flag of the is, so there will be another round ofafghan civil war. so what is the meaning of the current peace talk?so that is the key issue that, instead of
focusing on this less-meaningful peace talk,we should be focusing-more focusing on economic reform and political supporting to the kabulgovernment. that is my understanding. inderfurth: samina, do you want to mentionsomething on the question of isis and plan b, afghanistan and the rest?ahmed: i think it is so overrated, this notion that the islamic state is finding conduciveterritory and expansion, influence in afghanistan. it's not a matter of maybe they will in thefuture. it's a matter of who are the major players in afghanistan? the major player inafghanistan is the taliban. it is not is. the infighting between the taliban, i thinkthat's overrated as well, because, yes, there is factionalism. but the present leader, mullahmansoor, has fairly, i think, quickly consolidated
his authority. and that's largely becauseof the success of the military campaign. is is mentioned more, in fact, by afghan politicianswho are absolutely desperate that the international community remains engaged. and that's theone thing that captures their imagination. and does it matter? i think we tend to forgetthat al-qaida has a presence still in pakistan, in afghanistan. al-qaida in the indian subcontinentis now, in a minor way, but still; a presence in bangladesh, in the jihadi landscape. thatis a far more rooted group because it has links with local extremists, and longstandinglinks. so the less we talk about is, i think themore realistic we get about afghanistan and what needs to be done there.will the taliban talk? and here is where i
completely agree with you. i think the focusthere should not be necessarily on can we this year or in the next few months then onceagain make these promises of either pakistan or the qcg convincing, cajoling the talibanto come to the negotiating table? it's far more important to look at the issue of politicalstabilization. if that doesn't-if that factor is taken outof play, what kind of a reconciliation process can you have in the first place? there areany number of issues at stake here, including the future of the national unity government.i mean, i think the u.s. has made it amply clear that, no, we weren't talking about twoyears actually. and to be realistic, how could you have elections this year, which is whatwas supposed to happen? can you have elections
next year in afghanistan, given the challengesthat kabul faces? but what you can have is a dialogue, and ameaningful dialogue, between all the major afghan actors on reform, whether-and whetherit is political reform, electoral reform is a very central part of it; whether it is economicreform and what needs to be done as the war economy disappears and, you know, resourcesbecome scarce. president ghani took over power promising reform. that was his agenda. andthat's what he needs to be focusing on. inderfurth: this final question, so we willkeep to our timing. q: good morning. i'm from djibouti embassy.i'm mr. jama (sp). and talking about djibouti, i should intervene. (laughter.)i'm sorry for my poor english. english is
not my first language, but i will try.and, first of all, i would like to remind that djibouti always work with the internationalcommunity when crisis happen, locally or internationally. and when, after 9/11, the u.s. come to djiboutito ask to settle the base, we accept. now today we have nato also. we have japanesewhen the fight against piracy start. and we have also now the chinese will come. and everycountry have their own interest coming to djibouti. djibouti never asked for that. anddjibouti have its own interests, too. and the second point i would like to remindis, before coming to djibouti, china invest a lot in the economy, in the infrastructure,either in east africa-i'm talking about djibouti, ethiopia, kenya, mozambique-all these orientalcoast.
and my question is to the professor mohan.how india see this growing presence of china economically, and now military? and that-andwhat is the response of the indian government? thank you very much.mohan: look, i think the scale and scope of chinese activity in the indian ocean, i mean,both economic-not all of it is military. quite a bit of it is, as you pointed out, huge amountof infrastructure investments. and i think a lot of has preceded the obor campaign bypresident xi jinping, so it goes back certainly to the last 15 to 20 years. as the interestin the natural resources have grown, the chinese have come in a big way and i think have investedin east coast of africa, in the horn of africa, in southern africa.so i think it's part much like what we saw
the european capitalist expansion in the 17th,18th, 19th centuries, or even what british india did was to build these new ports inhong kong, in singapore, the subcontinental ports in madras, bombay, calcutta, aden. soi think what we're seeing is this dramatic expansion of chinese capital and its globalfootprint is reflecting itself in this new infrastructure that they're building. so ina sense it's historically in tune with what's happened before.the challenge is not that the chinese are bad and others were good. the fact is, today,the chinese have that capability, have the resources. some people say they have excessindustrial capacity at home, so they're really merely deploying it. whatever the reason is,the chinese presence in the economics of this
region-that's where we began our discussion-that'sa reality. now, what can india do about it? look, indiatoo-i think there was a lot of wariness, unhappiness in india in the past that-with the obor initiative,with other things. but the present government, i think, has come to a better judgment, ina sense. look, we're not going to oppose everything that the chinese do in the region. in thecase of china-pakistan corridor, because the sovereignty of kashmir is involved, indiais opposed to it. but where chinese-we are negotiating with chinese on building a differentcorridor in the eastern part of the subcontinent, through myanmar, bangladesh, and india. somy sense is, where there is a potential for collaboration with the chinese, i think indiais quite open.
but more interestingly, i think what indiais doing is india is working with japan and the united states. if you look at the obama-modistatement, that they talked about an indo-pacific corridor. india and japan are very eager towork together to develop the infrastructure in this part of the-in this part of the world.those plans are in the-i would say far less advanced than the chinese.but i think what it does, this competition for infrastructure, actually gives optionsto countries like djibouti that you can happily bargain. i mean, this was the original intentof, i think, the idea of nonalignment. i think that is a great recourse today, because ithink the presence of the chinese has given you options. and if you see what the japanesehave done-in fact, the japanese initiative,
because they don't have a japanese communistparty running that country, so their campaign is not as good. but they have something calledthe pqi, i mean, if you can remember that-partnership for quality infrastructure.abe has put $110 billion on the line. in fact, my sense is they're going to bring much betterterms. like india, they've given this high-speed train. they've given us, what, billions ofdollars, given at 0.01 percent interest rate, repayable over 50 years. there's no way thechinese are going to be able to match those terms.so there is huge potential for developing alternate frameworks. so rather than opposingwhat the chinese do, i think it is possible to construct alternate frameworks. and i thinkthat will force the chinese, i think eventually,
to offer better terms.so my sense is the game is on, so let's take advantage.inderfurth: i think raja's comment about the game is on could be a nice way to conclude.the game is on in southern asia. there is a transforming geopolitical landscape. clearlythe rise of china and india are a major part of that; the role that pakistan plays.one thing that i come away from this is i think we've had a good reality check on themajor flashpoints. we've spoken of those that are most commonly referred to, whether itbe maritime-south china sea, indian ocean-nuclear issues, the question of the spread of isis.i think we've gotten a really good reality check on where these stand today, what ourconcerns should be.
so i want to conclude the session by saying,on behalf of the council on foreign relations, thank you all for being here. and i thinkit only remains to express our appreciation to this excellent panel for all their commentsand their time. so thank you all very much. (applause.)(end)
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