Address by H.E. Mr. Song Deheng
Consul General of People's Republic of China
College of Naval Warfare, Mumbai
December 5th, 2006
Commodore. Satyen Sharma, Director of College of Naval Warfare,
Captains and Student Officers of 19th Naval Higher Command Course,
Good Morning!
It is my great pleasure to be here again with you officers of 19th Course even when those exciting hours I spent with the student officers of 18th Course eight months ago remains fresh in my memory. And it is also my second time to be assigned by your Director to elucidate the big theme "Indo-China Cooperation in the 21st Century" within one hour, I still feel obligated to try my best to share my view with you and look forward to hearing from you afterwards.
Firstly, let us review the history of Indo-China relationship briefly and then touch the actuality.
Today, no strategists, politicians and scholars who are concerning the future of the world could ignore the influence from China and India, the two most populous countries with fastest economic development, because the rise of the two great civilizations has certainly changed and has been keeping changing the international panorama. Consequently, Indo-China relations became one of the most important bilateral relations in current world.
The friendly exchanges between China and India could be traced back to more than 2200 years ago when some Chinese businessmen climbed over the precipice Himalayas and arrived in India subcontinent. Since then, the footprints of businessmen, monks and envoys that shuttled between India and China linked the two great nations closer. Two great civilizations have been benefited from the close and comprehensive interactions and exchanges: India became the terminal of the world-famous "Silk Road" in its southwest direction, the Chinese people's soul was enriched by Buddhism from India and Indian people learnt how to produce sugar from China, that is the reason why China is "Chini" in Hindi. Our friendship and cooperation went down to World War II when both of us were struggling for liberty from Fascist trample. Dr. Kotnis who was dispatched together with his comrades by Indian National Congress Party to China dedicated his young life to Chinese people's liberation. Up today, 61 years after World War II, Dr. Kotnis, a loyal friend and a great internationalist fighter, is still respected highly by the Chinese people: every Chinese pupil can learn Dr. Kotnis' great merit from the textbook. During his visit in Mumbai recently, President Hu Jintao met with Dr. Kotnis' relatives again to show respect to the hero.
Similar historical experiences and common international responsibilities made it natural for our two countries to establish a fraternal relationship after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the catchword of "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" had been chanted over Himalayas in 1950s. Solidarity and cooperation between us ever played the indispensable role in maintaining the national independency, sovereignty integrity and economic interests of developing countries. Panchasheela, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, jointly initiated by Prime Minister Nehru and Premier Zhou Enlai, a great ideal creation to guide nation-to-nation relationship, is still very much alive and functional nowadays.
Unfortunately, an undesirable boundary conflict suddenly interrupted the progress of our relations in 1960s', our two countries therefore isolated from each other for 20-odd years until the "ice break" visit to China by Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandi in 1988, which opened a new chapter of our relations. The friendly relations between China and India hereafter have been developing constantly with the persistent efforts by the leaders and the concerted efforts of the governments and peoples of both sides.
Entering the 21st century, the cooperation between China and India in every field is witnessing vigorous development momentum. At present, China and India are working hard to establish a "strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity" based on mutual security, development and prosperity of the two peoples; and making contributions to jointly addressing global challenges and threats. An all-round expansion of Sino-Indian economic cooperation, including trade and investment, constitutes an important dimension of stronger bilateral relations. In 2006, China became the second biggest trade partner of India with another boom of bilateral trade in the volume of more than US$20 billion. This has been coupled with the expansion of exchanges and cooperation in other fields in recent years. An "Agreement on Political Guiding Principles for Resolving the Boundary Issue", the first political document in the past 20 years which laid a solid foundation for resolving border dispute through peaceful negotiations on an equal and rational basis, was singed. The friendly exchanges between Indian armed forces and PLA are doing well. Since 1998, the formation warships of Indian Navy and PLA Navy have had couples of friendly mutual visits and held joint exercises successfully. Your then Minister of Defense now Minister of External Affairs, Mr. Mukherji, signed a MOU of Bilateral Military Exchange with his counterpart when he had his successful visit to China last May. During the visit, I heard, when the door of Commanding Center of Xi Chang Rocket Launching, one of the most confidential outfits in China, was opened for an Indian delegation the first time in history, Minister and his entourage were touched deeply by the friendly gesture from their counterparts in China.
Secondly, let us look forward to the future of two countries and their relations, especially the 2020, a "deadline of collision" or a jumping-off point of Chindia.
Today, both India and China are advancing in an unprecedented course of development, which foretells certainly the renaissance of our two great civilizations and contributes greatly to the world progress. As we know, to try to grasp the unknown future is one of the bred-in-the-bone natures of human being, so various predicts about the future of China and India can be heard all the time.
It is however regretful that among those predicts there are always some suspicions and even buzzes from some corner who blink at reality. The hue and cry are so-called: "China Collapse", "China Famine" and "China Threat" and so on. Fortunately, there is not any sign of "China Collapse" or "victims of Chinese famine pour into surrounding countries". While "China Threat" is appearing again in the form of "worries" showed in Quadrennial Defense Review Report and Report on National Security Strategy concocted by U.S.A. recently. I do not want to waste my energy on those hackneyed and stereotyped expressions, but I have to remind you again that a handful of biased westerners are self-interest seekers. They tried every means to bully you when you were weak; now they leave no stone unturned to slander you when you are getting stronger. As a populous big country, a strong China certainly impacts on the world enormously, but China is not celestial, its development is an important component of global development with her large contributions to the sustained development of human society; one word, China is not threat but opportunity to other countries. The so-called "China Threat" is one of their tricks in attempt to contain China. I can also predict that today the "China Threat" is here and tomorrow the "India Threat" will be there, what a sharklike logic they follow!
Very recently, the futurity viewed from crystal ball is described by a report "CHINDIA, the New World Economic Order in 2020" from CLSA, a authoritative European bank and investment institution that the total amount of GDP of China plus India will reach US$ 16 trillion by the current growth rate, its share of the global GDP will go up to 17% from current 7% in 2020; the total commodity demand of two countries will reach 40%-60% of global total demand. Now, to draw some conclusion is so easy as following:
1. There is no space for the coinstantaneous development of India and China, it is not acceptable by the world;
2. So as the result of struggling for energy sources and other resources supporting their respective development, a collision economically, politically and strategically between India and China is unavoidable.
We should be happy to look forward the forthcoming prosperity of our two countries with great efforts of our two peoples. But any conclusion by lineal and zero-sum logic is totally wrong and a shame to our wisdom. Certainly, the resource is limited but the creativity of our two great peoples and the ability produced by cooperation between our two countries is limitless. When some ill-disposed people were expecting drastic oil-conflict between India and China, IONGC and CNPC reached the co-purchase agreement; when some Western even Indian media tried to abet the border dispute, the serenity and peace has been remaining for 30-odd years on 2000-kilometer-odd Indo-China border. The real logic we are holding is win-win-sum.
Gentlemen, as a huge developing country and a responsible nation, the Chinese government and people believe that in future, only cooperation and harmony not confrontation and rivalry could produce wealth and prosperity. Therefore, in the past three years, the percentages of China's annual defense expenditure to its GDP and to the state financial expenditure in the same period have remained basically unchanged. For most of the years since the 1990s, the growth rate of China's defense expenditure has been lower than that of the state financial expenditure. From 1979 to 2004, the percentages of China's defense expenditure to its financial expenditure of the same period followed a downward curve on the whole. It was 17.37% in 1979, and 7.76% in 2004, down by about 10 percentage points. In the field of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, China's basic policy and position are persistent, active and cooperative. Since the mid-1980s, China has twice cut down its military by a total of 1.9 million and the size of the PLA decreased from 4.238 million to 2.3 million by the end of 2005. The wide scope and magnitude of China's unilateral disarmament in such a relatively short period of time are seldom seen in the history of international arms control and disarmament. At present, in nuclear, chemical, biological, conventional and other fields, China has successively joined and faithfully implemented 21 relevant international arms control and disarmament treaties, protocols and conventions including NPT-Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1992 and CNBT-Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Those have fully demonstrated the firm belief of the Chinese government and people on the arms control and disarmament cause as well as their sincere aspiration for peace and development.
Finally, my predict is that India plus China instead of India versus China is the only option for us.
Friends, India and China are linked not only by waters and lands. As two great nations with the longest history of civilization in the world, two biggest developing countries and two neighboring countries, the friendship and cooperation is bound for us. Fortunately, both of our two Governments, who recognized the mainstream in both of two countries is wishing to be benefited from improving friendship and cooperation between us, are wise enough to lead the bilateral relationship on the right way. China and India's sincerity in implementing the policy of "being a good neighbor and partner" and "bringing harmony, security and prosperity to neighbors", which is conducive to strengthening mutual trust between two countries, ensuring all countries in the region embark on the road of peaceful development and create a friendly and harmonious environment together. We destined to be stand up on the center of world stage again after centuries of being abased and downtrodden tragedies, only if we follow the path of peaceful development and mutual benefit. After all, compare to the longest friendly communications between our two countries for more than 2000 years, the unpleasant experience is minimum, which should be by every means forgettable.
Just few days ago, during his successful visit to India, H.E. Mr. Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China, attained important consensus with Prime Minister Manmoham Singh that "Both China and India are confident of our future relationship and are willing to work together to facilitate all-round and in-depth development of strategic and cooperative partnership," and "As two large Asian nations and as two of the fastest growing economies of the world, cooperation between India and China transcends the bilateral and has global significance." We signed 13 agreements, protocols and MOUs, promised to double the volume of trade to US$40 billion by 2010 and pledged to hold regular summit-level meetings, strengthen institutional contacts, promote bilateral investment and expand cooperation in fields as varied as trade, industry, finance, agriculture, water resources, energy, environment, information technology, tourism and other fields.
Dear friends, Sun Zi, one of the greatest Chinese military strategists who lived 2000 years ago, said in his famous military book, "Who comprehends the soul of military is always the one trying to avoid using military means in utmost". History shows that the result of war and rivalry is always a larger disaster. In an interdependent current world, we have no choice but cooperate with each other in the win-win format. Our ancestors had made the examples for us: 2000 years ago, Chinese people learnt more about tolerance, peace and leniency from those Buddhist preachers; 600 years ago, Zheng He, the famous navigator of the Ming Dynasty, led the then largest fleet in the world and made seven voyages to the "Western Seas," reaching more than 30 countries and regions, including India, in Asia and Africa. What he offered to the areas he visited was tealeaves, chinaware, silk and technology, etc. What he brought to the outside world were peace, civilization and common prosperity, which fully reflected the good faith of the ancient Chinese people in friendly exchanges with various peoples.
To build a harmonious country and then a harmonious world is not a dream but a sincere hope and unremitting pursuit of our peoples only if we are able to work for its realization heart to heart and hand in hand. I am confident that we two peoples are sagacious enough to overpower any challenge, because I believe that we are more intelligent than our ancestors.
Thanks a lot.