India-China Luncheon Lectures – Where are India-China relations headed?

Where are India-China relations headed? After decades of incremental improvement, India-China relations entered a new period of turbulences in 2013. The numerous border incidents culminated in the summer of 2020 with the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops on the Galwan river in the Himalayas. How the relationship will evolve over the longer term is still uncertain but India no longer seems reluctant to set clear boundaries. The Indian government has already banned 118 Chinese mobile phone and desktop apps, and the telecoms ministry has recently excluded Chinese device makers Huawei and ZTE from its 5G trials.

The series of webinars will feature one prominent Indian speaker a month who will shed light on the various aspects of the Sino-Indian relationship and help to understand what the possible implications are for Europe’s growing engagement in the Indo-Pacific region. For this session, Ambassador Shivshankar Menon will discuss the political, economic and diplomatic factors that are likely to influence the course of what is potentially the most structuring and impactful rivalry in Asia today.

Shivshankar Menon is a visiting professor of International Relations at Ashoka University. He served as Foreign Secretary from 2006 to 2009 and as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India from 2010 to 2014. Prior to these postings, he served as Ambassador to China, Israel and Sri Lanka. His most recent book, “India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present”, was published in 2021 by Brookings Institution Press.