EVENTS

International relations are an agglomerate of many geographical areas with their multi-spectral bilateral relations. China and India are exemplars of just one constant determinant - divergences. As states with the rubric of civilizational continuum, their Westphalian expressions have embedded characteristics of deep misgivings about the ‘other.’ The bilateral between the two countries brings forth aspects of institutional and political differences, where society is co-opted into a discourse where ‘otherness’ prevails over the conspicuous rational. This makes the China-India bilateral a unique extant where vacuous space exists, with the ‘formal’ prevailing over nascent ‘informal’. What can be done? For scholars of the bilateral, ongoing narratives are dominated by a tone where ‘alternate’ is considered obtuse and refutable. More than seven decades of Westphalian geographical neighbourliness has not paved the path for unique theoretical approaches to understand one another beyond the fixed frameworks. Fresh new methodologies are required to decipher the bilateral, including the Himalayan grievances and other specific civilizational characteristics. While conforming to Westphalian-ism, fresh thinking can contribute by crafting new epistemic dialogues, beyond existing constraints. This presentation seeks to differentiate the intractable from the retrievable and suggests the need for more clarity on the multi-spectral bilateral.

About the Speaker

Raviprasad Narayanan has been with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) since October 2015. His teaching and research interests focus on China, its foreign policy, economic reforms and pedagogies explaining China. International Relations and theories explaining state behaviour, motivate his research and publications. At JNU, he has taught MPhil/PhD and MA students. He was earlier an Associate Research Fellow / Associate Professor with the Institute of International Relations (IIR), National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taipei, Taiwan from 2009 to 2015. Prior to that, he was with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA, now MP-IDSA), New Delhi from 2003 to 2009. His book titled Decision-making in Foreign Policy India-China Bilateral Relations was published in 2022.

About the Chair

Vijay K Nambiar joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1967. He studied Chinese in Hong Kong, and served in China from 1970-72 and returned to South Block and Udyog Bhavan until 1976. He then served as First Secretary in Tito’s Yugoslavia. He was posted from 1979 to 1982 in the Indian Mission at the United Nations (UN) in New York and served in Delhi during the 1983 NAM Summit and after. From 1985 to 1987, he was India’s Ambassador to Algeria. He returned to Delhi as Joint Secretary (East Asia) in the MEA in 1987 and helped prepare for Rajiv Gandhi’s historic visit to China in 1988. Subsequently, he served as India’s Ambassador/ High Commissioner to Afghanistan (1990-1992), Malaysia (1993-1996), China (1996-2000), Pakistan (2000-2001) and Permanent Representative to the UN in New York (2002-2004). Post-retirement, he served as Deputy National Security Adviser of India (2004-2006). He was then deputed by the Government of India to serve in the United Nations Secretariat as Under-Secretary-General, Special Adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan (2006-2007), then as Chef de Cabinet to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (2007-2012) and later as Adviser on Myanmar (2012-2016).

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