India is not involved in any kind of “containment” of China even as it aligns its foreign policy objectives closely with the United States aimed mainly at achieving its own developmental goals, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran said at an event in Beijing. He was addressing the World Peace Forum, a non-governmental annual forum on international security hosted by Tsinghua University and co-organised by the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, held earlier this week at the Chinese capital.
This year, the theme of the conference was ‘Stabilizing An Unstable World Through Consensus and Cooperation’, and it was held from July 1-3.
“We are not in the business of containment and I think the perennial problem with China is that it continues to look at its relations with India not on its own merits but always through the prism of its own relations with the US. The sooner you dispense with that perspective, the better it would be in terms of taking India-China relations forward,” Saran said, addressing a query on India aligning more with the US to contain China.
He said for countries like India, economic and social development of its citizens had always been the primary objective, which is the reason why New Delhi is perceived to be moving closer to Washington, something that Beijing also did while strengthening its economy.
"The partnerships that we are looking at are precisely in order to and mainly in order to support our development. So when you (China) talk about India moving closer to United States or India joining some kind of a coalition against China, I think you neglect to learn from your own experience that you are a beneficiary of a very close relationship with United States and Japan and other developed countries in order to support your own development,” he said.
“Now when India is in that position I don’t think you should look at it from a different point of view,” said Saran, who has served in various capitals around the world including Beijing.
"The main driver of India's close partnership with the US, of course, we may be having a convergence of values or convergence of outlook with respect to certain issues, but the main driver is actually the development imperative. The US is an indispensable partner for India in terms of achieving its own developmental objectives. That is something that you have to keep in mind,” he stressed.
Saran also highlighted the fact that India, like China, has also been a beneficiary of globalisation.
"For countries like India, whose major preoccupation remains the economic and social development of its people, a polarised international environment is a particularly negative development. India has been the beneficiary, like China, of the process of globalisation – a much more open and liberal trade and investment regime,” he said, adding that the scenario is now changing.
Saran said that the challenge for development for India today has been much “greater” and on the contrary, China had a “very good run, in a sense that for several decades it has had a very benign and open global environment in which it could pursue its development". "For us, it is more difficult,” he added.
India and China had been engaged in a tough military standoff at the border areas since April-May 2020. China has also criticised India's joining of the Quad, which has the US, Australia and Japan as its members, often calling it an 'Asian NATO'.
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