The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Raja Mohan: the Canada-India relationship hits a new low

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced that six Indian diplomats were being expelled from Canada due to an alleged campaign to threaten and kill Sikhs on Canadian soil. India responded by sending home six high level Canadian diplomats and issuing a tensely worded statement, accusing Trudeau of initiating and escalating this diplomatic dispute. Relations between the two countries are - needless to say - at their lowest point in recent memory. Dr. Raja Mohan, our guest on this Munk Dialogue, is widely recognized as India's foremost foreign policy expert. He is an Adviser to the Council for Strategic and Defense Research in New Delhi and was the founding director of Carnegie India. He speaks to us about the state of India-Canada relations, how to repair this diplomatic spat, and the unique and interesting role India is playing on the world stage as it finds its footing among fellow great powers, most importantly the United States and China.   The host of this Munk Dialogue is Rudyard Griffiths To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a paid Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to the livestream of our upcoming in person debates, ticketing privileges, and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Executive Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch  Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've tried socialism all through the 20th century, and it failed every time. We should restore dignity to the working class and stop saying you need a credential in order to achieve the most basic, modest version of the American dream. Netanyahu is the worst leader the Jewish people ever had. He should be impeached. Genocide is the latest modern blood liable that anti-Semites use to justify their anti-Zionism. We should prioritize making sure that no more Ukrainians do. die that this war is brought to an end. All parents want to help children with their feelings, but I argue that not every feeling is worth paying attention to.

Why are these students covering their faces? I think it says something about their movement, about their ideology, and also simply the fact that they're also cowards. Hello, Monk listeners, Rodyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this. Our continuing conversations called the Monk Dialogues. These are in-depth questions and answers with some of the world's sharpest minds and brightest thinkers On each monk dialogue, we go deep into the big issues and ideas that are driving the public conversation.

I think it is obvious that the government of India made a fundamental error in thinking that they could engage in supporting criminal activity against Canadians here on Canadian soil. That was Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. after his government announced that six Indian diplomats were being expelled from Canada due to an alleged campaign to threaten and kill Sikhs on Canadian soil. India responded by expelling in turn six high-level Canadian diplomats, including Canada's High Commissioner to India, and issuing a tensely worded statement accusing the Trudeau government of escalating its diplomatic dispute with the world's largest country by population.

Relations between Canada and India are needless to say at their lowest point in a long, long time. My guest on this week's Monk Dialogue was due to be with me in person here in Toronto to record this episode, but had to cancel his engagements in Canada due to the ongoing diplomatic crisis. We're extremely fortunate to get him on the line. His name is Raja Mohan. He is recognized as India's foremost foreign policy expert. He's an advisor to the prestigious council for strategic and defense research in New Delhi. He was a founding director of Carnegie India. Today, he's speaking with me about the state of Canada-India relations,

how we might move beyond this diplomatic spat to restabilize Canada's trade and political relations with New Delhi. And on the big role that India is increasingly playing on the world stage, how it is finding its footing as a pure great power alongside the United States, China, Russia, India is on the rise. We're going to get into all this and more with Dr. Raj Mohan, who joins me now. Dr. Mohan, welcome to the Monk Dialogues. Thank you for having me. Fortunate to speak with you today, we need to spend more time thinking about India's place in the world, a growing one of kind of, of prominence and influence.

But before we touch on some of these bigger geopolitical questions, I have to talk about, I have to begin with the state of India-Canada relations, which seems to have hit a new low as a result of a series of diplomatic expulsions between our two countries, all around allegations being made in Canada by the government of Justin Trudeau. regarding diplomats in India being involved in the harassment, even the allegation here of the assassination and murder of a Canadian dual citizen. What is your assessment, Professor Mohan, of what's happened here between Canada and India?

How serious is this breach in diplomatic relations and how serious is this incident? is this incident for the future of Indo-Canadian relations? I think it's pretty serious. As you rightly said, we've hit a new law just over the last decade. And hopefully, this crisis on the diplomatic front will not have too much impact on the business and other parts of the relationship, which are actually doing pretty robust and are doing pretty well.

In fact, the Canadian pension funds have emerged as a major investors in India, probably up to $70,80 billion. So I think what's happened here is a train wreck that has been in slow moment since Mr. Trudeau came to power. In the previous decade, we saw through the 2000s significant improvement in the Indo-Canadian relations under Stephen Harper. I'm not getting into domestic politics, but I'm just recording a fact that under Harper, we've seen, you know, a whole lot of new areas of cooperation emerged and a new level of political comfort between the, between the two sides. So when Mr. Trudeau got elected, Delhi knew that Trudeau

had the special deflation for the Punjabi voters, the Sikh voters in Canada, and that India has had a problem for almost 40 years with some of the Canadian Sea groups. You recall the bombing of Kanisca of Air India back in the mid-1980s, that Kilnale is. 300 people and most of them were Canadian citizens. So when Trudeau visited India in 2016, there was this expectation that look, you know, we know the labor, the liberals have a special issue there and that we can find ways to both expand the bilateral relationship and find new ways to manage the potential friction that was going to emerge. But I think it's just not been possible since then. And I think it is tied too closely to Mr. Trudeau's domestic politics. And I think the best

efforts in the last few years to manage this issue have really failed. But of course, now, you know, both countries have taken high-sounding positions. But I think it's a long story from the Indian side, the grievance that Canada has been far too permissive to groups that are, you know, the Sikh Khalistani separatism in Canada and merely brushing away Indian concerns saying this is all freedom of speech. And I think from the Canadian side, they see now India meddling around. So but I think at some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, and I think we've got to sit down like adults and say, look, you can't let politics come between this kind of domestic politics, this kind of politicking on a major relationship. After all, Canada is a member of the

J7. India is growing. It's soon to be the third largest economy. So I think we need to prevent our domestic political calculations from making too much of an impact on the bilateral relationship. I think it will take some doing, but I'm quite hopeful over the long term. We will pass this moment and find new way of understanding each other's concerns and better managing them. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit more about Indian government perceptions of the Calist-Sikh movement in Canada, which is at the kind of the center of this diplomatic blow-up between our two countries. My understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, Professor Mohan, is that the calisani movement in what is present-day Punjab in india is not a movement that has much in the way of

popular support it is a to say the least a kind of a fringe movement in your country so i'm trying to understand why the indian government places so much importance on what's happening with calistheni organizers and fundraising and agitation in Canada when it looks like the threat of this movement to you, your country, to its national unity remains quite lower, marginal, far less possibly than the threat that Quebec separatism, say, represents to Canada. Look, I think, you know, I would agree with you that, in fact, the Kalesani groups in Canada don't really have any impact at the political level on the Indian Sea.

in general, and even less probably on the Canadian Sikhs themselves. So it's really a small fringe group that has been at the forefront of this, constantly finding ways to be seen as staying below the law in Canada, but constant undertaking provocative activities. But I would say that, as I said, look, some of the activities of these groups in India, I mean, I think would be objected to by any state in terms of what they do. do. And I think what Deli had tried in the last few years is really to address this issue seriously. But I think those efforts have failed. I think there's scores of Indian extradition requests lying with Canada. As I said, look, there is deep reverence that even the Kanishka bombing has

not been fully punished. I think the latest trigger, I would say, was really in the farmer's agitation of 2020 when a major Indian reform was challenged by the Punjabi farmer protests and then the Canadian groups came in and kind of did everything too facilitated and we're trying to stoke the separatist things within India. So I think that's when the latest sense of latest set of events that have unfolded. So I think what you said is right that if we take it. take a more correct approach, both of us, we can easily put this issue behind because they don't really represent a large voting block. They're really an extremist group within a fringe

group within Canada. I would say mistakes have been made by both sides. And I think time to sit down and say, look, there is, given the growing size of the Indian diaspora in Canada and as in the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world, the intersection of domestic politics, you know, both our countries is going to get the interface. of that intersection is going to grow. Therefore, I think we need to find ways where the intelligence establishments work together, develop

protocols, to send warning signals, and to prevent incidents of the kind that have happened and wrecked the bilateral relationship. Hopefully, that dialogue will begin, but I would suspect as long as Mr. Trudeau is

there, the well has been so deeply poisoned, I don't see much prospect for it in the near term. From an Indian perspective, is there some questioning, again, of maybe why Canada and this government is not more sensitive to Indian concerns, given that we have had our own experiences with separatism in Canada, primarily in Quebec, that did at times have, unfortunately, acts of terrorism attached to it. It is part of the frustration here I'm trying to get it, is that a feeling in India that Canada should know better having dealt itself with the threats of separatism, including threats, unfortunately, that even in Canada turned violent. You know, see, look, as a realist, I would argue, till someone threatens your interests, you're not going to take that seriously. And I think that's where we are. I think Canada does not see Khalistani groups as threatening Canadian security.

security, although the Kaniska bombing saw the death of several Canadian citizens of Indian origin. So there is a sense that, look, it doesn't really affect the Canadian security, unlike the Quebec movement. Their efforts, their focus is really on India. So therefore, it's been relatively easy for Canadian politics because of the retail politics, you know, in the Anglo-Saxon world, in all parliamentary democracies, that you cultivate any group. And what we've seen, seen over the years is really not only that Canada doesn't see a threat, but it is actually encouraged organized migration by the Canadian Sikh groups and the kind of people which normal wouldn't get a visa, criminals from Punjab, whole villages have migrated. So I think that has created

a base for them and that in turn affects India. So I think there is clear frustration in Delhi that Canada doesn't even understand what these groups are doing in India and it just simply dismisses India's concerns because they're really seen as no threat to Canada. When the other party was in power, there was some attempt at moving forward. In fact, Mr. Harper and Mr. Modi once,

when Modi came to Canada, they visited a Gurudurah, Indian embassy tried to reach out the Sikh leaders there. But all that came apart once Mr. Trudeau came to power. In terms of the threat, there are allegations that the elements of this Calistani Sikh separatist movement in Canada are involved in various illicit activities that are meant to fund in part or enable a drug epidemic that is not unsurious in Punjab and that there are other other kind of nefarious actions on the part of the groups in Canada. to again try to either profit from the situation in Punjab and or so discord from there. Is that a significant part of the Indian narrative here? Or again, is this more about leader-to-leader, state-to-state relations?

No, it's not just a leader-to-leader thing. And I think you're absolutely right. And we know from across-the-world experience, once you have extremist groups, the connection to criminal, gangs inevitably shows up and drug running becomes an important thing. And over the years we've seen in Punjab, actually, the growing minutes of the drugs, narco-trafficking. So I would say this is what it's happened.

I think while many of the Khalistani groups degenerated into criminal gangs, but the way it politically meant politicians are not willing to confront it in Canada, and that leads to India's frustration. So I think if we approach it, come back to the basics. Look, here are groups whose activity is unacceptable and that let's focus on how to deal with them. Then I think we can start building trust between the two security establishments and take it from there.

But the moment you take this high posturing, you know, about interference, about violation of sovereignty, but exactly both sides are saying their sovereignty has been violated, right? India says, no, Canada doesn't respect India's territorial sovereignty and integrity, and Canada is saying Indian actions have violated their sovereignty. So the other side today is in a position because of the political chill to actually get down. Okay, here are these groups. What are each other's concerns and how do we deal with them?

Hopefully, in the next government, in Ottawa, we can start the process because, as I said, look, these overall stakes in the bilateral relationship are so high. and it's going to be growing one. It is one that will see more and more Indians coming to Canada, even with the recent restrictions. So there is a natural fit between Canada, which is resource rich, developed, and a growing India, this is a valuable partnership that we should not just squander

because of personal egos or personal clashes. I would also point to similar experience in Australia, which is actually having a growing population. They also have a large Sikh population. How Australia has managed this is hopefully some instructive to our Canadian friends. And similarly in the US,

US has similar complaints on India. There is a case going on. But no one is accusing from India that, look, President Biden or his party is playing politics with the Khalistani groups. While the charging Canada is really as part of the retail politics given their impact on their electoral

strength, it has become a compulsive thing to ignore what they mean for India. You mentioned, you know, an issue possibly to reset here with a new government in Canada. Some analysts have argued that part of what may have transpired again, the Canadian government has yet to release any public evidence to yet to back up its assertions of the complicity of Indian diplomats in harassment and even if, again, it is to be believed in evidence is to be furnished in the assassination of a Canadian Indian dual citizen, that this is part and parcel of a more muscular Indian foreign policy under the Modi government. You did just mention there's a similar but different case, a set of allegations working its way.

through the American judicial system regarding another attempted assassination. To what extent here possibly has the Modi government learned a lesson about the comportment of its diplomats, what the scope and ambit of their activities are in countries where they are running up against what they obviously perceive as opponents, a separatist movement that is dedicated to the breakup of India effectively. I think we all understand that. But is there a need on the part of the Modi government, possibly just as the Chinese government has decided to try to reset a little bit,

its international relations, and move off a more assertive stance towards its perceived opponents overseas? I think this is a cautionary tale, and I'm sure Indian system is beginning to, learn these lessons. I think, as I said, as Indian diaspora grows around the world, especially in the English-speaking world, this problem is going to be there. So in many ways, I think, what's happened between India and Canada and India and the US today is a warning sign for India, that look how it deals with groups abroad, must be some clear red lines. They must be clear

protocols laid out and better oversight of its activity. abroad. So already, I think, in India, the opposition parties are calling for similarly, full-fledged inquiry into this and an engagement on this. And I think the Modi government, whatever its initial calculations, whether it was a rogue operations or otherwise, today see the damage that it does to India's reputation and India's relationships with key, key countries of the west. And under Mr. Modi, for the last 10 years, that actually, India has never been as close to the, shall we say, the Anglo-Saxon countries, India's relationship with the U.S., with

UK, with Australia, with New Zealand, are all really in top level today. I mean, this has never been true in the past. The brisly Indian approach to mutual irritation or a range of issues have really subsided. And today, India is an important partner for the U.S. and India sees U.S. as a major partner. So I think, Mr. Modi, gets a lot of credit for changing the dynamic of India's relationship with the Anglo-Saxon world. But I think the idea that look, when other side does not take action, that you can take it into your own hands, is I think the dangers of that have been fully established and my senses lessons will be learned. But I think there is also an

important difference between China. In China, China's capacity as a one-party state with a thorough domination of the system by one-leader, one party, doesn't exist in India. India's problem is actually the opposite, which is how does it manage its domestic politics contestations within its domestic politics, reflecting in the diaspora and how that politics then connects with the democratic mobilization within the host countries. You'll have your members of your parliament or the US Congress. We might not know a thing about Punjab, but if a group of Punjabi voters go to them, they're willing to say things.

I mean, that's how we operate, right, in our democratic politics. So I think there are bigger dangers here. And the sources of the problem in the Indian case are different. And I think as Indian diaspora grows and Indian domestic politics is a contested one, like in all other democracies. So we got to draw up new rules, new redlines, in engagement between India and the, shall we say, the five-wise or the Anglo-Saxon world.

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Let's turn to that larger world now. India is playing an interesting role in the world stage, seemingly able to triangulate between its fellow great powers, the United States, China, I think. Specifically, I think about how India has handled its relationship with Russia and its position on the Ukraine war. Maybe we could start there and just have you talk a little bit about how the Ukraine war has kind of shown that, India enjoys this wider, maybe ambit of maneuver in international relations, maybe then people might have suspected. And what does that say about India's relative power and position amongst the other great powers? I would agree with you entirely. I think India's room for maneuver has grown on the global stage. As it rises, its economic weight grows. And,

and its technological strength begins to have an effect. Its options have certainly increased. But I would say Ukraine does not fully reflect that, actually. I mean, I think the Ukraine is actually a problem that has emerged where India's longstanding threat locks into a conflict with its new partners in the West. That is posed serious problems. And I think like everybody else in the world,

I mean, Delhi was surprised by a Russian invasion of Ukraine. but it's unwilling to condemn Russia because of the, shall be say, the path dependence, the inertia and the weight of Russian weapons in India's inventory accumulated over the last 70 years. All these factors and the question of Asian balance of power have compelled India to kind of pull its punches. But I think as the costs of this war have mounted, I mean, I think Delhi has moved from that kind of position, to one where it is willing to contribute to the peace. And the Europeans themselves who would initially angry, including the Ukrainians, the Poles and others, see India's

special relationship with Moscow provide a basis for a potentially helpful role for India in ending this war in Ukraine. So I wouldn't say India is going to be the pacemaker, that designation should only be applied to the U.S. leadership. And no one else, I don't think. think can give the Russians what they want. But anyway, that's a separate story. So I think the special relationship with Russia, Indians want to hang on to, doesn't mean Russia is in the same place as it was vis-a-vis India during the Cold War. Today, Russia's economic size is half of India's. Russia's economic alliance is one that is declining for India. And you can't do business with a friend who is locked in conflict with other friends. India's relationship with the

with Europe, with the Anglo-Saxon world, has dramatically grown. So the trade volumes with Russia are hardly comparable to what we do even with Britain. So I think Russia is a declining factor, is an important, but a declining factor in India's geopolitical calculus. But it's not something that India would simply want to abandon. For example, if you think of a balance of power in Asia, that Russian neutrality, if not Russian support, will be critical. Historically, Russians have helped us often deal with Chinese power.

So we need to keep lines of communication with them open. But today you can argue Russia and China have gotten so much closer. But the sections of India still hope Russia and China will not be completely together. Therefore, any long-term calculus of balance of power in Asia would require Russia to be part of it. But in the near term, I would say the Russian locked up in this conflict with the whole of the West is going to make a big difference. to how much India can do with Russia. Let's talk about Indo-Chinese relations. Just actually this week, there's a new kind of pact between India and China to try to reduce border tensions.

There's a long history of clashes along that shared border. The most recent, significant one, one only has to go back to 2020. So this is a kind of live security concern for the two countries. What is the basis of this kind of historical animus between Indian and China? Because one would think that as two of the world's kind of fast developing economies who share probably a certain geopolitical outlook that would like to see more maneuverability for themselves be the traditional great powers of the West and a relocation or re-centering. of global power more towards Asia, you know, one would think that they could or should be

natural allies, yet persistently they have clashed in tensions regardless of the governments in Delhi or Beijing have remained constant now over decades. I think you hit on something really accurate description of a tragedy that the deep desire of the two countries to work together. and the inability to do so has been a reality for nearly 100 years, say, even before independence, during the Second World War. In fact, the Indian nationalists and the Chinese nationalists match in Brussels and they said, look, guys, we're going to build a new post-Western order in Asia. We must work together. Asia, Asia for Asians and that kind of stuff. But then when the Second World

War broke out, Indians were fighting the British and the... the Chinese were fighting the Japanese and the Japanese and the British were fighting each other. So therefore, really Indian and Chinese nationalists could not work together. And I think that basic pattern has repeated itself repeatedly. Mr. Nehru, in the 1950s, professed great love for China, and you really hope that the two countries can build a post-war framework for Asian peace and prosperity. But that didn't work out because in the end, if you can't sort out your boundary dispute, disputes, disputes over Tibet.

It found that how much the grandiose your conception of the world order and Asian order is, the inability to settle the boundary dispute, put it, you know, they ended up in a clash in the 60s. And again, in the 90s, I would say, in the post-Cold War period, they say, look, let's all work together, build a multipolar world, India, Russia, China. But then India really believed that it can build a new multipolar world. world with the Chinese. But then as the Chinese power grew dramatically in the in the in the 21st century, India's problems today come from Chinese power and not from the Western power or to be more accurate American power. Therefore now India's challenges when China is sitting on its territory

India's deep structural problems with China beyond the boundary dispute there's a hundred billion dollar trade deficit China's growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean China's up gives weapons to all of India's neighbors. It tries to weaken India in the subcontinent. So I think those tensions have all come together in the last decade and have created a crisis. And then I would say, well, India would have lived with many of these problems. I think Xi Jinping's assertiveness on the boundary, I think tip things over. We had a serious military crisis in 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2020. This is not that the Chinese were being particularly difficult towards India, because they were asserting themselves in South China Sea,

the East China Sea, on all territorial disputes that they've had. But in the Indian case, that, which is what is played out in 2020, India reacted to Chinese military deployment in eastern Lodak, and since then we've had 50,000 troops on each side, locked up in a face-off at 17,000 feet. So I think what we're trying to do now is really last four years, intense negotiation to at least begin disengagement, which is what the pact that you refer to

just this week. That's what they agreed. So it's really easing of a military standoff at this Godforsaken place, but it doesn't change the structural reality. But I think it does provide a basis, a tactical space for both sides to take a fresh look at each other and to resume they can resume political dialogue and engage with each other. So I would say for India, here is a twin problem. It needs a reasonable, peaceful relationship with China, which is today the second largest power in the world, massive military growth, the big economy. Therefore, India needs a structure for peaceful coexistence with China.

But Chinese, on the other hand, see that they can set the terms for that engagement with India, and India is not willing to buy the terms of that engagement, certainly not on the boundary dispute. So that's one part of the problem. Second part of the problem is for India, how does it economically de-risk? Because India opened up its economy in the 90s. And today, Chinese manufacturing is simply swamped India. And there is this whole set of problems where Indian manufacturing is tied up with Chinese inputs.

And finding ways to overcome that has been the other problem. And as China challenge mounted on the security side, India has moved closer to the U.S. And today, that's one of the reasons why India and the US today are so close. But at the same time, while India will work with the US to balance China, it has to continue to engage China to maintain the border peace because you want to balance China, but you don't want to provoke China into premature conflict. So both the imperatives operate in India because we have 4,000 kilometers of disputed border, which can be blow up at any given time. So I think India, unlike most other countries which are problems with China, India's problems, I would say, are deeper, more unique, and managing it becomes really the principal challenge for India, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for a whole generation,

the rise of Chinese power and the imbalance in India-China equation. Chinese GDP today is five times bigger than India's. China's military spending is four times bigger than India's. So this imbalance needs to be bridged, and that's why the U.S. India hopes to work with the U.S. and its Asian allies, it's a member of the quad. But at the same time, it can't afford a provocation of China into premature or needless conflict on the boundary or in other areas. So many things to discuss with you. I just want to touch on a couple more because, again, you need to have an Indian perspective on this.

What does the Indian security establishment think about the dispute regarding Taiwan and Tijuana claims of independence and Xi Jinping's repeated claims that national unification is an inevitability for the island nation with the Chinese homeland. Does India have a POV on Taiwan

or is this more seen as a potentially as a China-U.S. dispute of which India would be on the sidelines? No, I think it's more complicated than that, than merely seeing it as a U.S.-China conflict. Because as a post-colonial nation, I mean, I think the concerns for putting your country back together or your claims of a single country and the nationalism that demands unification of territories that are not under your control, India can fully understand that concern. But I think India's, in fact, India was among the first countries in the world back in

1949 and since then to recognize the PRC as the legitimate representative of the Chinese people and to support a one-China policy well before many other Asian countries, or West of course was trying to isolate China at that point of time. But then India is also clear that you can't, you do this by force. In that sense, India's position is not different from that of the EU. West, while it understands the nationalist sentiments of China, but you can't force, forcefully integrate or change borders, because then, like all post-colonial countries, India has border disputes, China has border disputes. The idea that you can unilaterally change borders is not,

is again acceptable to India. Coming to the more contemporary period, I mean, I would say there was for a long time, the sense that the Taiwan conflict was a distant one, and that it doesn't really matter to India what happens in Taiwan's states. But today I think there is a recognition that if Taiwan falls to China, then the Chinese assertiveness on the Himalayan borders will get even worse. Therefore, I think for India that it would like to see a peaceful resolution of this, avoid a major conflict, but then what happens there is not in India's control. So my sense is there is much more consultation today between India and the US.

India and the Quad countries, how, what role would India play in the event of a US-China conflict, given the larger impact on India security, its economy? My own view is that while India will not send troops to work with its American friends, unlike the Australians or the Japanese, even there, there are a lot of questioning of that, that there are ways in which India can help the United States in terms of India undertaking tasks in the Indian Ocean, reinforcing the, you know, many, you know, doing undertaking tasks that the US was not, US is going to be distracted from or has to move to Taiwan states.

So I think if we take the Indo-Pacific geography as a whole, there are ways in which India can help the United States to deal with the crisis in Taiwan states. But the question of India's direct participation, putting boots on the ground, or sailing ships to battle with the Chinese does not arise because, as I said, we have a 4,000 kilometer frontier of our own with China. So what you see happening today, a greater integrated perspective of the Himalayan theater, East China Theater, the South China Theater, and the Taiwan Straits.

Within this, is there a way we can coordinate better, consult each other better, in order to ensure another war doesn't break out in the world today. We are already having enough in Ukraine and in the Middle East. So therefore, I think there are a different level of interest and concerns today. And just finally, I want to touch on the Middle East. How does India look at the current rising tensions between Israel and Iran, between the Sunni Arab world and its Shiite opponents, the so-called Shiite crescent, which Iran has.

assembled across a large section of the Middle East in opposition to the Gulf states. Is this a geography that India is interested in? Or, again, is this kind of peripheral right now, at least, to a perception of what India's core interests are? No, no, Middle East is absolutely core of India's geopolitics. In fact, if you go back to the British period, I mean, I think the Indian troops, Indian business people were quite central to the way Britain had organized the modern Middle East. But I think what's happened after independence was India's Neurobian period of ideological positions

on Arab solidarity, on fighting Zionism, supporting radical Arab positions, attended to mask the centrality of the economic and security relationship between what happens in the at least, on the Gulf in particular and India. That I think in the post-Cold War period, as India's economic interdependence with the Gulf has grown, we were talking about diaspora. India has nearly 10 million people in the Gulf alone, 10 million people.

So their security and safety becomes very, very important. The Gulf is a major trading partner for India. It's the biggest source of hydrocarbons for India, notwithstanding the recent dallions with the Russians. So I think the Gulf is quite central. But what has changed in the last decade is really in the India's relationship with Israel after 1991 have significantly improved. India's relationship with the Sunni Arab states has dramatically expanded. Historically, there was a bristling, you know, discomfort between India and Saudi and India and the UAE.

But today, MBS of Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed of Saudi and UAE, respectively, are very, very close partners for India. And there is a level of political comfort which we never had before. And the fact that there are Abraham Accords produced a piece between some of the Gulf Arab states and Sunni Arab states and Israel has also opened up space for India to see this region in more complex ways, rather than the old framework of simply saw Arabs against Israel. So that's the reason why India is part of the so-called I2U2, that is India, Israel, UAE and Israel, UA, and the IMEC, which we're talking about these days of connectivity projects

between India and Europe through the Arabian Peninsula. So I think there is a very, very different set of relationship. India has historically tried to maintain good relationship with Iran, but the weight of its relationship today with the Sunni Arabs, as I said, look, the 10 million people in the Sunni Arab world, and barely 10,000 in Iran. In Iran is locked in a fight with the West. So the scale of the India's economic relationship with the Arab Gulf has dramatically grown,

and not many people might in Delhi say this publicly, but I would say that today India is far less ideological in reacting to what's happening there. And its position, I would say, is this, that it's very unequivocal in condemning October 7th attacks. But at the same time, India would say, look, the rights of the Palestinians must be respected. And finally, there must be international laws of war, must be adhered to. So this is not the old ideological rhetoric, but this is one much more, shall we say, interest-driven. and in a situation where Delhi is closer to Israel and closer to the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf.

Well said. Well, you've given us a tour through an important moment in Indo-Canadian relations. We've touched on India's central place in many of the big great power competitions that are underway right now, from the Straits of Taiwan to Ukraine to the Middle East. So thank you so much, Professor Mohan, for this fascinating conversation. Let's do this again. It's important. to inform our Canadian and North American audience is more about an Indian perspective on the world and fast-changing events. So we greatly appreciate your time today. Thank you. And it's wonderful to be with the monk group here today. Well, that wraps up today's dialogue. I want to thank our guest, Rajah Mohan. He certainly gave us a lot to think about. If you have questions or feedback on what you just heard, please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK. Debates

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