The China Now special program informs about this country's news. The first segment of this episode analyzes the failure of U.S. technology war and sanctions against China. The second segment is an interview with Jayant Bhandari, editor, writer and consultant, about India and China’s economics and relation. teleSUR
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00:00 Hello, TELUS Re-English presents a new episode of China Now, a Wave Media's production that
00:13 showcases the culture, technology and politics of the ASEAN giant.
00:18 This first segment dives into the failure of the US technology war and sanctions against
00:23 China and how China is closing the gap between the two nations faster than anticipated.
00:28 We'll also learn more about how China is catching up with the US in areas where the
00:33 US is ahead in the game.
00:35 Let's see.
00:36 Are the US technology war and sanctions working on China?
00:43 Or is China closing the gap faster than anticipated?
00:47 Hi, I'm Lisa and this is Threshold in China.
00:51 Today we are all about competition.
00:54 We will talk about how China is catching up with the US in areas where the US is ahead
00:59 in the game.
01:00 First, let's see how China and the US is doing.
01:04 Who is leading in what sector?
01:07 So we are going to do this by looking at a list.
01:10 It is called the list of critical and emerging technologies.
01:14 It is released by a well-known Australian think tank, ASPI.
01:20 According to the list, China takes the lead in 53 categories of cutting-edge technologies
01:26 in areas like advanced materials and manufacturing, energy and environment, advanced information
01:32 and communication technologies.
01:35 China also has a sizable advantage in the domain of defense, space, robotics, transportation
01:41 and quantum technology.
01:43 And China is competing very fiercely with the US in areas such as AI technologies and
01:48 biotechnology, gene technology and vaccines.
01:52 The US still claims dominance over the 11 categories.
01:56 Remember, this is according to the list and they are in the field of life sciences, particularly
02:01 genetic engineering.
02:03 US also holds edge with natural language processing and advanced integrated circuit design and
02:09 fabrication.
02:10 They are vital for technologies like chat GPT and GPUs to train them.
02:15 And these are the areas that we are going to focus on today.
02:19 Let's start with high-performance computing.
02:22 The supercomputers are no doubt dominated by the US and no Chinese systems make it to
02:27 the top 10.
02:28 But interestingly, it was only a few years ago when Chinese systems such as Zengwei and
02:34 Tianhe claimed the top spot.
02:36 So there is a dramatic decline.
02:39 Many parts of this can be explained with the fact that they haven't submitted any key
02:43 data of their systems to the organization since 2020.
02:47 Apparently, due to the sensitivity of the matter, because Top 500 is a US organization.
02:54 In other words, the data Top 500 has regarding Chinese supercomputers are outdated.
03:00 So what is the current situation of Chinese supercomputers?
03:05 On December 6th, 2023, the Chinese National Supercomputing Centers in Guangzhou made an
03:11 announcement about the launch of Tianhexinyi, the next-generation supercomputer system.
03:18 It is equipped with M23000 processors, designed and manufactured completely in China.
03:25 The system has over 50,900,000 CPU cores and achieves a remarkable peak performance of
03:33 620 petaflops.
03:36 And this is higher than the Japanese Fugaku system, which is ranked fourth place on the
03:40 Top 500 list.
03:42 However, Tianhe is actually not the most powerful supercomputer in China.
03:47 Remember the Zengwei I mentioned earlier, the one that used to rank first?
03:51 Well, its latest addition is Zengwei Ocean Light.
03:55 It has the domestically developed Zengwei 26010 Pro processors.
04:01 The supercomputer stands out with a configuration of over 100,000 nodes, and it has 41 million
04:08 cores, and they are distributed across approximately 105 cabinets.
04:14 It achieves a remarkable peak performance of 1,500 petaflops.
04:19 And that makes it the second most powerful supercomputer globally, beaten by Frontier,
04:25 which is currently the world's fastest supercomputer, and it is based in the US.
04:31 But according to South China Morning Post, it also outperformed leading supercomputers,
04:36 including the Frontier, in computing efficiency.
04:40 And in an interview with the Post, the Chinese scientist said, "The processor is not new.
04:45 It has been used in China's supercomputing systems for the past two or three years.
04:50 But the public, especially the Western world, only just came to know it."
04:55 And there is one more thing.
04:57 Earlier versions of Zengwei and Tianhe used processors from Intel.
05:01 But after years of relentless research and development, they've become fully homegrown.
05:07 They are now immune to those US sanctions.
05:10 Next let's move on to AI.
05:12 We see that the US has been leading the way as the major powerhouse in this field.
05:17 Chaps GPT from OpenAI has started a revolution and pretty much changed the way we work and
05:23 study.
05:24 By comparison, you probably haven't heard of any Chinese AI models.
05:28 How are they doing?
05:29 Let's look again at international rankings.
05:32 One of these is released by Hugging Face, the biggest community of open-source AI models.
05:38 As of the OpenLLM leaderboard, the Qianwen 72B model from China's Alibaba tops the list,
05:45 beating the more popular Lama model from Meta.
05:48 Okay, so that's open-source models, but what about closed-source ones such as Chaps GPT-4?
05:55 So the main difference between open-source models and closed-source one is that open-source
06:00 models are freely available for everybody to view, modify, and distribute, while closed-source
06:05 models are exclusive and not publicly accessible.
06:10 Stanford University has got a leaderboard that tracks various language models, both
06:15 closed-source and open-source.
06:18 On the list, we can see the Chinese-made E34B Chad ranks just behind GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo,
06:25 securing the sad spot.
06:28 Given that Chad GPT was unveiled only a year ago, Chinese models are closing in on their
06:34 US counterparts, with a difference of less than a year.
06:38 But the government has restricted NVIDIA to sell its GPUs to China, and AI models are
06:43 trained on GPUs, so they're trying to slow down China's AI development.
06:49 How is it working so far?
06:50 Let's see what experts in China's AI community have to say about this.
06:56 In August, Liu Qingfeng, the chairman of Chinese AI giant iFlytec, commended Huawei for manufacturing
07:03 a GPU that he claimed was "essentially equivalent to NVIDIA's A100."
07:09 He stated that iFlytec was collaborating with Huawei to develop hardware.
07:14 It is believed that the hardware in question was powered by Huawei's GPU called Ascend
07:19 910B, which is a previously undisclosed model, and its capabilities were "on par with NVIDIA's
07:27 A100."
07:29 Like iFlytec, Baidu also ordered 1,600 Huawei 9110B chips for their development in 200 servers
07:38 during August.
07:39 Analysis and sources noted that while the 910B chips exhibit comparable raw computing
07:45 power to NVIDIA's offerings, they still lagged in terms of performance.
07:50 Nevertheless, they are considered to be the most advanced domestic options available within
07:56 China.
07:57 Moving on to quantum computing, it is another area where the list put the US ahead of China.
08:04 The strategic value of quantum computing is comparable to that of AI and potentially far-ranging
08:10 applications from scientific research to the military.
08:14 Here again, Chinese scientists have made exciting breakthroughs during 2023.
08:19 In October, the Chinese Academy of Science introduced a cutting-edge quantum computing
08:25 prototype, Jiuzhang-3, with 255 photons.
08:30 The processing speed of Jiuzhang-3 for Gaussian Boston sampling has skyrocketed by an astonishing
08:37 1 million times compared to its previous iteration, Jiuzhang-2.
08:42 To put this tremendous leap into perspective, the highest complex sample handled by Jiuzhang-3
08:49 within a mere one millionth of a second would demand over 20 billion years of computation
08:54 time from Frontier, the fastest supercomputer that we just talked about.
08:59 This achievement has not only set a new world record in the field of photonic quantum information
09:05 technology, but also demonstrated the remarkable capabilities of quantum computing.
09:11 In the next episode, we will continue this analysis, how is China and the US doing in
09:16 genetic engineering, vaccine, nuclear medicines, more satellites, and more.
09:22 Are they neck and neck?
09:23 How are they doing in comparison with each other?
09:26 Please feel free to let us know if there is any specific technology that you'd like us
09:30 to talk about and we'll look into it.
09:33 We will go for a short break now, but we'll be right back.
09:36 Stay with us.
09:55 Welcome back to China Now.
09:56 This second segment established comparisons between the Chinese and the Indian economies
10:01 and the relations between these two powerful nations.
10:04 Later on, the segment also puts the spotlight on the influence China has on the rest of
10:08 the world.
10:09 Let's see.
10:24 Welcome to Overlap, brought to you by Wave Media.
10:26 I'm Zephyr, content creator on YouTube and Bilibili.
10:29 I'm happy to be joined with Mr. Jayanth Bhandari.
10:32 Give a self-introduction to our audience, please.
10:35 Thanks for having me here, Zephyr.
10:37 My name is Jayanth Bhandari.
10:39 I live in the United States and I consult institutional investors on investing in private
10:44 companies and in the stock market.
10:47 I also do a lot of writing work on cultures and economics.
10:52 And I speak at a lot of conferences and some philosophy conferences as well.
10:57 Mr. Bhandari, I don't know if you know, several of your videos got viral on Chinese content
11:03 platforms.
11:04 People are saying your statement that India will never pass China is somewhat spiritual
11:11 Chinese in a way.
11:13 Are you still believing that India will never pass China judging on the current situation?
11:18 Yeah, this is this is very interesting.
11:20 A couple of times a year I'm in China and I often have this discussion with people when
11:26 I'm traveling in China, when I tell them that India will never surpass China.
11:32 In fact, Zephyr, the reality is that you should never be comparing China with India.
11:38 These are two different planets.
11:39 When I go to China from India, I have to remind myself that I'm not in a first world country.
11:47 That is how different China is from India today.
11:52 And the difference between China and India continues to grow.
11:57 Chinese economy on per capita basis is 550% that of Indian GDP per capita.
12:05 In 1970s and 1980s, China was behind India in GDP per capita basis.
12:12 What you see is the differential between Chinese GDP per capita and Indian GDP per capita continuing
12:19 to increase.
12:20 And what you also see is that inequality is continuing to increase in India.
12:26 And that's not what I see in China, because the lower class in China is becoming increasingly
12:33 rich with time.
12:35 And moreover, you know, India is falling apart.
12:38 Indian economy has been stagnant for almost five to 10 years now, if you look at the median
12:44 income per capita.
12:46 Okay.
12:47 Some would argue that for a country to be a powerhouse, the fundamental two parameters
12:53 will be a huge land and very much population.
12:58 So judging on India as being the biggest populated country in the world, how do you view that
13:06 kind of statement?
13:07 That statement makes absolutely no difference to anyone really.
13:12 Look at Hong Kong or Singapore.
13:15 They are dots on the map of the planet, but they are visible to everyone.
13:22 Everyone knows what these countries stand for.
13:24 So it does not matter how big, how many people you have.
13:28 What matters is what is the productivity of those people and how much do they contribute
13:35 to human welfare?
13:36 Now, Indian manufacturing is about two to three percent of the world's manufacturing.
13:41 Trade is about two to three percent of the world's trade.
13:43 So it is an insignificant trade and manufacturing of the world.
13:49 The world does not care.
13:51 So let me ask you a simple question.
13:54 What is in your surrounding that has been made in India?
14:00 Do you have a response to that?
14:02 Probably nothing.
14:03 There might be a couple of things from Bangladesh, but there's nothing made in India.
14:08 Let me tell you just about everything you see around me, despite that I'm not in China,
14:13 has been made in China.
14:15 That is the difference between the two countries.
14:17 Now, Zephyr, I'm an Indian guy.
14:20 I grew up in that country.
14:21 I want India to do well.
14:23 But the facts are facts and the truth is truth.
14:26 So I have to speak what the truth is.
14:29 What are some reasons that you believe India will never surpass China?
14:33 Because some would argue that a big population and some would argue is exporting huge amount
14:38 of most talented scholars.
14:42 And even we see Indian people being prime ministers, but we don't actually see much
14:48 Chinese prime ministers in UK or other Anglo-Saxon countries.
14:55 So people will argue both on a mass scale, the level of population, India's number one
15:00 right now, and exporting so many talents overseas.
15:05 So why do you think India is not going to surpass China if not considering it on a financial
15:11 or economic way?
15:12 Okay, so that makes the situation much worse because the very best of Indians are actually
15:19 rapidly leaving the country.
15:21 They are jumping the ship because the ship is starting to sink.
15:26 And that is why a lot of best people from India have left for the United States.
15:31 The best people of China increasingly return back to China.
15:37 I live in San Francisco and I meet a lot of Chinese there and a lot of them either return
15:43 back to China or they aspire to return back to China.
15:47 I meet no Indian who ever wants to return back to India.
15:52 So this is one big problem because the very best people of India have left India and they
15:57 continue to leave India, which means that the leadership in India has become non-existent
16:04 because all the best people are gone.
16:06 If you go to a government office in India, you will be confused because you will be talking
16:12 with really stupid people because unfortunately India just has this massive deficit of leadership
16:21 today.
16:22 The best people have gone and the Indian kind of democracy elevates the true psychopaths,
16:29 corrupt people to positions of power.
16:31 The world is so well connected today.
16:33 You can go to Narendra Modi's Twitter account or you can go to any of the things that he
16:39 participates in.
16:40 All you see is two or three things.
16:42 One is that there's this anti-Muslim propaganda.
16:46 There is a Hindu religiosity that he participates in.
16:50 He is every day celebrating something in a temple.
16:55 Now how does the leader of a 1.4 billion people get time to devote hours in a temple every
17:03 day?
17:04 And then, you know, they keep offering free stuff to people.
17:09 800 million Indians get free brains from the government.
17:15 65% or more of Indians live on less than $3.9 per capita on PPP basis, which means that
17:24 they live on less than $2.50 per capita per day.
17:29 65% of the population.
17:31 Now if you look at 800 million people, that is equivalent to the population of all of
17:37 the Western countries put together.
17:40 That is like about 30 countries in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand.
17:46 If you add up all the population, that comes to around 800 million.
17:51 That many Indians get free food.
17:54 Now these people are hungry, basically.
17:57 They are constantly hungry.
17:59 There is an increase of beggars that I have seen over the last five to seven years in
18:04 the country.
18:05 So Indian economy is actually worsening.
18:08 And here is the problem.
18:09 While you say that the best leaders have left India, also even the tradesmen have left India.
18:17 So you know, if you go to, let's say, Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Muscat, what you will see
18:23 is that Indian plumbers and Indian electricians work in those places.
18:29 Why?
18:31 Because now, because of ease of leaving the country, they have left India.
18:37 There's a huge deficit of tradesmen in the country, which means that if I want a plumber
18:41 in India, I will struggle to find one.
18:45 And Indian work ethic is extremely, extremely bad.
18:50 And this is the story you hear from the Korean and the Chinese companies who have set up
18:55 their manufacturing plants in India.
18:57 There is a problem with work ethics.
19:01 There's a huge defect rate in the Indian processing system.
19:06 Even though machines have come from either the West or from China, they are exactly the
19:11 same setups that they have in China, but the productivity is lower and the quality is much
19:18 worse.
19:19 Okay, that's a lot of information.
19:21 On the other side, there's critics that are saying that the Modi government has made India
19:26 most united ever on history using Hindu Dwaa or Hindu nationalism.
19:32 And the groups, they hate each other and anti-Muslim stuff.
19:35 They want to evacuate or basically pushing them to Myanmar and other places.
19:41 But they claim doing this, possibly some anti-human rights thing is making India united again.
19:50 It's a preparation stage to be ready to do something big, such as being the leader in
19:56 the global South, which Narendra Modi and Mr. Jai Shankar claimed during this, you know,
20:02 Palestine and Israel crisis that India is willing to help and India is willing to lead.
20:07 So on a political side, do you see India is making or playing a bigger role in the world
20:13 or going to lead for the global South to play a big role?
20:18 Modi has certainly united people.
20:20 Now, the problem, Zafar, is that you must get united because you have common values
20:28 or you want to work together, which means that you organize yourself in a harmonious
20:33 relationship to into a win-win relationship.
20:38 When you unite everyone to hate another person, that is a very fake unity because it will
20:46 fall away the moment the object of hate goes away.
20:51 And that hate, you know, hate has been developed among Hindus against Muslims.
20:58 And I'm not saying Muslims are innocent in that country.
21:00 They are the other side of the same coin.
21:03 But you know, they hate each other.
21:06 And as a result, they are able to unite in certain forums.
21:11 But they are atomized people, which means that everyone is trying to scam everyone else.
21:17 Everyone is trying to cheat everyone else.
21:20 And as I say, Zafar, an Indian organization of two people has one person too many.
21:25 They can't work together.
21:27 They constantly fight.
21:28 They constantly backstab each other.
21:30 So firstly, this unity is a fake unity.
21:33 And they, of course, you know, unite themselves, hating the neighbors as well.
21:38 India is among the most closed country on the planet.
21:42 It has closed borders with all the neighboring countries, basically, except for a couple
21:47 of roads for transportation purposes open.
21:50 So you know, this is not what makes India a country prosperous or on a path of growth.
21:58 As I said, Indians don't have the skills.
22:01 So what are they going to do?
22:02 800 billion people or probably 1.2 to 1.3 billion people are fit for nothing except
22:10 agricultural purposes and to act as security guards maybe.
22:14 And they don't do the job of security guard either.
22:17 If you go to an airport in India, and you know, a lot of people go pass through airports
22:22 in the world, you know, you usually get your boarding pass checked once or twice.
22:29 In India, if you go through any airports, they check your boarding pass and passport
22:33 five or six times because they can't trust even the security guards to do their job properly.
22:39 So that is how dysfunctional the country is.
22:43 Is that something to do with the caste system or just a plain distrust among each other?
22:50 Caste system is an outcome of this thing, because if two Indians are together, one of
22:56 them is going to act superior and one of them is going to act inferior.
23:00 The person who is going to act inferior is going to address the other person as Sir,
23:05 Sir, all the time.
23:06 And that is disgusting when Indians use Sir or Madam three times in a sentence.
23:12 So there's this always a hierarchical difference between any two Indians in any arena.
23:18 You know, the caste system is just one symptom of it.
23:22 There's no equality in that country.
23:25 And no one wants the other person to succeed.
23:30 They want themselves to win everything.
23:33 So win-win relationship is not what they like to do.
23:37 They always want win-lose relationship.
23:39 Zafar, this is something that we could have worked on.
23:43 The problem is the leadership.
23:45 The Indian leadership over the last 75 years has continued to worsen.
23:50 You know, we had Jawaharlal Nehru, who was among the best prime ministers of the country.
23:56 And then you can almost see a trend of quality of prime ministers going down and down.
24:02 And now we have a prime minister who, you know, I don't even know what words to use
24:07 for him.
24:08 He does not understand the country.
24:10 He does not, you know, he is a demagogue who is trying to win elections based on Hindutva,
24:17 on the basis of offering free stuff to people and creating hate within Indians against other
24:25 people.
24:26 But, you know, this is not what creates productivity in a society.
24:30 This does not create a harmonious society.
24:33 Hatred never easily goes away.
24:36 And for our audience, for your information, India has one of the most populous Muslim
24:42 population throughout the world.
24:44 Considering the population of India right now, it's almost equal to, I believe, Indonesia,
24:50 right?
24:51 Possibly Indonesia has more Muslims than India, but it's a huge population.
24:55 So government policy aiming or encouraging discrimination on Muslims is insane considering
25:02 a huge population.
25:04 But well, no judgment here, but I'm not commenting on policy right now, but it's just for information.
25:11 When you mentioned harmony, I've been watching several videos like several years ago.
25:17 You mentioned harmony in other videos saying Chinese are willing to see a prosperous country
25:22 and peace country.
25:24 We've been neighboring for thousands of years and we have a very close, tight relationships
25:28 before.
25:30 Pretty much harks back to our earlier symphonies in Tang Dynasty when the famous pilgrim, Xuan
25:36 Zang, he carried all the scriptures from India to China.
25:42 And I visited the pagoda in Xi'an this year.
25:46 I see all the people going around taking selfies and I think how people view India at that
25:52 time.
25:53 At that time, I believe India signifies advanced technology, understanding of the world, philosophies
26:00 and wisdom.
26:02 How India and China's relationship being drove to this position?
26:08 How do you think what drove us here that make us seem strangers to each other?
26:15 I barely see Chinese learning Hindi right now and I barely see Indian people learning
26:21 Chinese right now.
26:22 Yeah, it's a very sad thing, Zafar.
26:25 Again, there's a lot of hate being generated for Chinese within the country.
26:30 The mainstream media constantly does things and tells people things which are not just
26:40 complete lies.
26:41 They come out of their windows and throw away Chinese-made televisions to show that they
26:46 want to boycott Chinese products while they record everything on Chinese-made mobile phones.
26:53 So it's just a crazy situation in the country.
26:56 There wasn't really all that much of contact between India and China for a long time.
27:02 What you are talking about is a contact that happened a couple of thousand years back.
27:08 In recent times, I don't see much contact between the two countries.
27:12 They are two very different people.
27:15 What you see is a constant deterioration of relationship between the two countries for
27:21 the last 75 years, mostly because of useless land between the two countries.
27:29 I'm no expert on border issues, so I don't know where the border actually should be,
27:33 neither are you.
27:35 In fact, a lot of that land was no man's land, basically, because that is unproductive land.
27:44 No one really probably occupied some of those areas.
27:47 But Indians have a habit of fixating on one issue and cancelling everything else.
27:54 So if there's a problem with Pakistan, they stop doing business with Pakistan, trains
27:59 stop running, buses stop running, cricket matches stop between the two countries.
28:04 So if one thing is not working well, they stop everything else.
28:08 You know, there are border problems between every country, actually, on the planet.
28:12 But they say, hey, let's discuss border problems separately, but let's continue to encourage
28:18 people to people contact, open up trade between the two countries.
28:23 But India, the problem is that Indian politicians are very insecure people, primarily because
28:32 they are not very smart people.
28:35 They get to their positions because they are not meritocratic, because they are psychopathic,
28:40 because of only two reasons.
28:42 One is Hindutva and one is the offer of free monies.
28:45 You look at any election happening in India, they are run on two things, free money and
28:50 Hindutva.
28:51 There's nothing else happening in the country during election time.
28:55 So you know, you have no mindset and no motivation to work towards public policy, to think about
29:02 bigger things to do with the society.
29:04 And that goes back to your earlier question, that because there's no thinking about improving
29:10 law and order, improving public policy, there's no vision for the future.
29:17 And let me finally say this thing.
29:20 You know, I have yet to meet a public servant, a government person who does not ask for a
29:26 bribe.
29:27 Earlier, when I was working in India 20 years back, the bribe was something like 10 to 15
29:33 or 20 percent of the revenue.
29:35 Today, they openly ask for bribes and openly, without any fear, from the top politician
29:44 to the bottom bureaucrat, everyone consistently asks for bribes.
29:50 Nothing in that country happens without bribes.
29:52 If I have to bribe a local bureaucrat, I can go to a senior.
29:57 Senior will only ask for more bribe if I go to report to him.
30:01 If I go all the way to the chief minister, he will ask for more bribes.
30:05 If I go to the court, the court will ask for bribes.
30:08 So you know, there's no solution to the problem.
30:11 And as a result, what you come to an easy conclusion, and this is an easy conclusion,
30:17 there's no intelligence behind it.
30:19 If you understand how India works, you know that forget about India continuing to improve,
30:25 India will actually continue to worsen into the future.
30:28 And India has been stagnant for the last five to seven years, despite this so-called superficial
30:34 GDP growth.
30:36 I heard people were protesting for implementation of a zero rupee note, right, to fight bureaucracy
30:45 and bribery.
30:46 Do they really ask bribery from foreigners?
30:50 Everyone has to pay bribes.
30:51 You know, without bribes, nothing happens.
30:53 They don't ask you for bribes, then your work will not get done.
30:57 It's as simple as that.
30:58 Ah, okay.
30:59 Ah, okay.
31:00 They'll say, ah, functionally, you know, dysfunctions or wait for a week or stuff like that, right?
31:07 Yeah, and you will wait forever.
31:09 You know, of course, you might as a foreigner get a train ticket more easily because you
31:14 are just more visible.
31:16 But if you really start doing business in India, you still have to pay them bribes.
31:22 And you know, bribes is an inherent part of the Indian culture.
31:28 So how do people actually know how much they're going to pay to bribe?
31:33 Say I'm a foreigner, I go to India and I want to buy a ticket.
31:37 How much I should pay for each officer or policeman asking for bribery?
31:43 Because you're a foreigner and because you're Chinese, you will pay more than an Indian,
31:47 but you will pay less than an American.
31:51 So the bribes depend on how much money they think that you might be able to give to them.
31:57 But also when you go to another officer in the country, he will always ask you how much
32:03 bribe you paid to the other guy because he wants to make sure what the current trend
32:10 in bribes is.
32:11 And if he needs to get a cut from that bribe, whether that bribe is coming to him or not.
32:18 Okay.
32:19 It's almost like getting robbed in Boston, in Chicago.
32:23 The local mafias would ask how much you get robbed last night.
32:28 I call Indian bureaucrats spineless robbers because they don't take the risk that a robber
32:34 takes.
32:35 A robber can get caught with the police, by the police eventually, or end up in the court.
32:40 But a corrupt policeman in India takes zero risk because everyone in the system is corrupt.
32:47 Every bureaucrat is going to help him because he's a part of the system in which corruption
32:53 runs in the veins.
32:55 You also remember that because bribe connection, religiosity is the only thing that runs that
33:01 country.
33:02 You can get anything done.
33:04 I can murder someone and get away with it by paying bribes.
33:09 Everything runs on bribes.
33:11 If you want information from some very secret organization in India, all you have to do
33:17 is supply women and pay bribes and you will get what you want.
33:22 Again, whatever I have said, I want India to do well and you want India to do well.
33:28 You are peaceful only as long as your neighboring country is prosperous and peaceful.
33:33 But you have to be aware of the problems of the country.
33:37 Otherwise, you can't really know where you are starting from.
33:41 Indians don't even know where they are starting from because they think they are dominating
33:44 the world.
33:45 Remember, the GDP per capita of India is $2,500 per capita.
33:53 This is similar to sub-Saharan level GDP per capita.
33:56 Let alone the per capita thing, India still has a very huge total amount of national power
34:03 and capital to play a big role in this chaotic world.
34:09 How do you anticipate India playing a bigger role or playing a vital role in leading the
34:15 globe south or joining the so-called modernized western part?
34:21 India is a non-entity.
34:22 No one cares about India.
34:24 People pay lip service to India.
34:27 I go to investment conferences and there are speeches on Vietnam, there are speeches on
34:34 Cambodia, there are speeches on Bangladesh.
34:38 But then at the closing panel, there's some small talk about how India is an emerging
34:45 country.
34:46 No one really cares about India.
34:47 People don't really invest in that country.
34:50 Politically, it's an irrelevant country.
34:53 India applied to join APEC in 1991.
34:57 They don't want India to be a part of that.
35:00 India is a chaos and the only thing India will export to the world over the next decade
35:07 or two will be chaos because there will be a lot of refugees entering the West from India.
35:15 For me, saying on a Chinese view perspective, I feel India may not be playing a critical
35:20 or dominating role on this international affairs.
35:24 But in fact, I feel India is very qualified to play a, let's say, critical minority role
35:32 in this affairs.
35:33 Saying maybe Chinese and American relationships, India is not going to play a dominating role,
35:39 but to get inside and make stuff chaotic or leaning to one or other is enough to shake
35:48 the equilibrium.
35:49 - Jaffer, I was recently reading the autobiography of Lee Kuan Yew, again, a dot on the planet.
35:57 And you read this autobiography and you realize how much influence that dot on the planet,
36:04 Lee Kuan Yew, had on world affairs.
36:08 He changed Singapore from a third world country to a first world country, which is now the
36:14 richest country on the planet.
36:16 It has changed the economies of Indonesia and Malaysia to a large extent.
36:21 Neither of those countries would be where they are without Singapore.
36:26 Singapore had a huge influence on Deng Xiaoping in China.
36:31 They were talking with each other.
36:33 There was an influence because of this one small dot on the planet.
36:40 And then you also realize, if you go back to what the discussions he was doing with
36:46 Americans and with Margaret Thatcher, he had a huge impact on world affairs in '80s and
36:55 '90s, a dot on the planet.
36:58 Your influence on the world is dependent on how balanced, how rational, how solidly grounded
37:05 you are, not on the basis of self-serving expediency.
37:10 - I've been reading Mr. Jai Shankar's book, "The India Way", recommending foreigners to
37:14 read at least Ramayana to understand Hindu dvaa or the way Indian act better.
37:21 So he thinks, and it's a genre lasting for at least 20-something years, that Indians
37:26 live in the conflict possibly generated from US against China, India will be the winner,
37:33 just like how China got actually the trophy in the US and Soviet conflict.
37:41 How do you evaluate that statement?
37:43 - Well, Jai Shankar speaks very well.
37:47 He has lived outside India for a long time.
37:51 His children live in the United States, so they don't live in India.
37:55 They remember this thing.
37:57 He is just a good packaging for Modi's government.
38:01 He is probably the most sophisticated looking person in Modi's government.
38:08 Jai Shankar provides a nice packaging because he speaks well, he's well-dressed, unlike
38:15 virtually every other Indian politician.
38:18 He can sit down and talk with virtually everyone, but that does not mean that the way he looks
38:25 is a good reflection of India.
38:28 In fact, he is just a packaging.
38:31 He's the lipstick on the pig.
38:32 The reality is that India and China will never have a good relationship because the border
38:39 problem can never be solved, and it will be the top thing in the agenda for Indian politicians.
38:46 - Well, I do believe that, but do those Indians really believe, even fantasizing that India
38:53 will be in China's place right now, the US and the so-called Western modernized world
38:59 will accept India as a whole?
39:01 - The United States is favoring India right now because they want to have access to Indian
39:06 bases in case there's a war between the US and China.
39:10 Apart from that, no one has any purpose.
39:13 Me as a Chinese, I want to see China and India go well with each other because we're neighboring
39:18 for thousands of years.
39:20 And even if we hate each other, the border is there.
39:22 We're still neighboring each other.
39:24 So since we're neighbors, why don't we get along each other good, just like thousands
39:30 of years ago?
39:31 All right, we're running out of time right now.
39:34 Thank you, Mr. John DeBandery, for our splendid conversation, and thank you for your watching.
39:41 We'll see you next time.
39:43 - Zephyr, thanks very much for the opportunity.
39:45 I really enjoyed it.
39:46 Thank you.
39:47 - And this was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the present
39:55 and future of the Asian giant.
39:57 Hope you enjoyed it.
39:58 See you next time.
39:59 (upbeat music)