Beijing must moderate its behaviour, says Chinese scholar

Tribune News Service

Pune, September 15

Noted Chinese scholar Shen Dingli has questioned his government’s attitude towards two hot topics that have created bad blood with India.

The need for Beijing to “moderate its behavior” also applies to its dispute with the Philippines in South China Sea, the professor from a prestigious Shanghai-based university observed at the two-day Pune Dialogue on National Security that began here on Friday.  

“We are rich and strong and so we have to do something. But does it mean creating trouble for others?” asked Prof Shen while pointing out that Beijing should have handled more adroitly China’s standoff at Doklam and its unilateral push to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“How would China react if a third party starts building infrastructure in Senkaku islands (disputed between Japan and China)? No third party should participate in a dispute. Why did we fail to ask India? Why did China talk only to Pakistan? India may not succeed in militarily winning back the disputed area but it has not abandoned its claim.”

The Chinese academician was also critical of China’s road building in Doklam that triggered a military stand-off. The move to construct a road, he felt, was a violation of China’s assurance to Bhutan. He hoped China would not try to build the road again in the disputed place and must learn to express regret and finesse its responses.

“I am a friend of both India and Pakistan. We must not do unnecessary harm against a potentially greater friend India. Instead the strategy should be to evolve mutual understanding and provide mutual concessions,” he said.

Prof Shen also took on Beijing’s security managers for rubbing the Philippines the wrong way over some “artificial rocks’’ in South China Sea. “Why didn’t China send a lawyer to contest the Philippines’s claims before an international tribunal? This hurts me. We must moderate our behaviour. I don’t want China to lose face every year. Officially, we don’t admit, but money can’t buy respect, though money matters. When we have money trouble comes,” he cautioned.