On September 6th, Amb. Shyam Saran, one of India’s foremost experts on China, was at the Pune International Centre to discuss his latest book, How China Sees India and the World. Mr. Saran has served as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for Indo-US Civil Nuclear issues and special envoy and chief negotiator on climate change. He was in conversation with Mr. Vijay Gokhale, former Foreign Secretary of India and trustee, PIC, and the event chair, Mr. Amit Paranjape, co-founder, ReliScore, PuneTech, and Member, PIC.
Politics, diplomacy, and economy were the key points of the discussion. Amb. Saran noted that China identifies herself as an ancient civilization with a rich culture and this is now bolstered by China’s spectacular economic development. In the geopolitical sense, the diplomatic gap between India and China as well as US and China started shrinking vis-à-vis the common challenges to the world, like climate change. China’s economic performance is 5x of India, but China’s economic slowdown will certainly impact the future. The world sees China as a big threat and this perception will pose great challenges to China in terms of being a ground for ease of doing business.
This session saw a lively round of Q&A.