China always sees it to be contained, constrained and threatened. She spends more on internal security than she does on national defence. That tells me something about what the leadership thinks of the stability of their society. They have built, perhaps, the most effective surveillance state in the world, which makes me think that their priority is internal control, stability and regime security. Everything else, including the rest of the world, will be handled depending on how it affects them. It makes the idea of creating a China-centric Asia difficult.
Q/ How do you see the India-China relationship?
A/ If you look at the last 10 to 20 years, India, Japan, Australia, Indonesia—all of us cooperate more in defence, security and intelligence. This is a steady process. Many of us share concerns about China, but we don’t expect others to solve our problems with China. When we had a problem last year on the border with China, we did not turn to them. What we share with them is a desire for certain positive outcomes. We want freedom of navigation and maritime security and safety of our sealanes in the Indo-Pacific. [We are not] in a purely antagonistic relationship with China. We might be competing with China. But we are also cooperating with it.
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