New Delhi
9 September 2009
There was no inevitability of conflict with China, Prime Minister's special envoy
Shyam Saran said, injecting a degree of pragmatism into the discourse about Sino-
Indian relations.
"... there is enough space in this region and beyond for both China and India to be
ascendant as we once were in history for an extended period of time," he recently told a
seminar held in Port Blair.
The two-day seminar on the security and development of the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands concluded over the last weekend. The Ministry of External Affairs released the
text of Mr Saran's speech here Wednesday.
Mr Saran qualified his remarks by saying that dealing with China's challenge was a
function not just of how India pursued her ties with China but how India ordered her
relations with a large number of countries, both regionally and globally.
India, he said, might not possess the same degree of economic and military power that
China commanded today but it was not necessary to aim at equivalence.
"What is important is to ensure that no regional architecture, or for that matter, no global
arrangement, can have credibility without India's active participation. Once this is
apparent to both friends and foes alike, India would have expanded its strategic space
and thereby its room for manoeuvre," he elaborated.
Mr Saran advocated a nuanced policy vis-a-vis China, which built upon possible areas of
congruence and dealt firmly, though prudently, with situations where India's interests
were being threatened.
One prong of such a policy would entail building on the economic and military strengths
of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He thought that would be the key to meeting the
challenge India perceived not only from China, but from unanticipated quarters too.
He mooted Andaman and Nicobar Islands for hosting the secretariat of BIMSTEC (Bay of
Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), which
comprises Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Nepal and Bhutan.
"This is still possible if we dare to act", Mr Saran said, in an oblique reference to the
bids by Colombo and Dhaka to host the BIMSTEC Secretariat.
Noting that Singapore was only 950 kilometres from Port Blair, Yangon 400 km and
Phuket also about the same distance, Mr Saran said Port Blair and the Campbell Bay in
the Great Nicobar could be developed into major sea-ports.
"My vision is to see these island territories moving from the periphery to the centre of
India's engagement with our eastern out-reach. They could then become a powerful
diplomatic tool in India's foreign policy," he added.
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