Dalai: China will avoid military confrontation

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 27

Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama today said China would desist from military confrontation with India considering the latter’s military and geographical might.

While receiving “Professor ML Sondhi Prize for International Politics-2016”, the Dalia Lama ruled out China’s mis-adventurism against India and said the neighbouring country was a “totalitarian which has not much future. Its leaders are fighting how to retain power”. On China’s belligerence over his recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, he said: “India is not a small country; militarily it is gaining.”

“When they (China) think of indulging in conflict with India, they will have also to think of the simmering unrest in Tibet,” the spiritual leader said. He described the Chinese reaction as “sad” and “unusual”. He said India had a right on the environmental issues and ecology of Tibet. Hence, it should raise the issue of the Brahmaputra, which originates in Tibet, with Chinese authorities.

Several reports say the Chinese regime has been tampering with the flow of the river by diverting its course.

Prof Sondhi, a native of Punjab, was Bharatiya Jana Sangh MP from Delhi (1967-71). Earlier, he was in the India Foreign Service from which he resigned and joined Jawaharlal Nehru University to become Professor at International Affairs. The award was instituted by the Professor ML Sondhi Memorial Trust and the ML Sondshi Institute for Asia-Pacific Affairs in 2003. Former Union Minister Arun Shourie presented the award and addressed the gathering, besides former Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh and Madhur Santanam Sondhi.