The book Unwrapping the China Enigma was launched by The Hindu Group at the India International Centre, New Delhi on Thursday (September 18, 2025).

Over the course of the evening, the event was joined by experts on China, who in conversation with The Hindu's Suhasini Haidar and Ananth Krishnan, pieced together China's drastic rise and its dynamic relationship with India.

The Hindu's Ms. Haidar, Mr. Krishnan, Varghese K. George spoke at the event. The event also hosted Shivshankar Menon, a career diplomat who served as National Security Advisor to thePrime Minister of India from January 2010 to May 2014, and previously as Foreign Secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009.

The first discussion had three panelists, Ashok Kantha, Manoj Joshi, and Santhosh Pai who spoke on where India-China ties are headed. The discussion was moderated by the Diplomatic Editor of The Hindu Ms. Haidar.

The second panel, moderated by Mr. Krishnan had Vijay Gokhale, Poonam Surie, Antara Ghoshal Singh, and Veda Vaidyanathan speak on Unwrapping the China Enigma.

This LIVE is now closed.

Dr. Veda Vaidyanathan says how other countries apart from India look at China is changing. The foreign policy that China puts forth, going forward, will be heavily negotiated and contested, Dr. Vaidyanathan points out.

Elaborating on what Ms. Singh has written on China in the book, she says, she wanted to write on where does India stand in China's strategic outlay. "My chapter tries to capture the changing trend in China's public perception of India," she adds.

Speaking on the GenZ in China, Ms. Surie says that the particular demographic of GenZ is not entirely happy with present conditions in China.

The GenZ demographic should be given respect in working conditions in China, Ms. Surie says.

Vijay Gokhale, speaking on the comparisons between India and China, says, "I believe India is one of the most of stable economies in Asia and not China. All cannot be hunky dory in any country and we have always given the benefit of the doubt to China, and we have always doubted the political system in India as well."

He further says, when a regime is tightening its security, then it's an insure regime.

"I think Chinese President's Jinping's policies to control China and centralise power is strangling China's economic growth. The relative freedom should be there," Mr. Gokhale says.

As Dr. Veda Vaidyanathan speaks on her experiences with studying China, she says perspectives change once we hit the ground. "What we hear about China in the media and what we see on the ground are two very different things," Dr. Vaidyanathan says.

As Mr. Krishnan directs his focus on Antara Ghoshal Singh's work on China, Ms. Singh says the research on China is mostly based on official sources and state handouts. Since China is an autocratic country, the media there is highly censored.

Having personally experienced debates in China, one can see lively debates that happen in China, in Chinese universities and their social media platforms, Ms. Singh emphasises.

The public sentiment in China has a direct impact on Chinese policy-making, she says.

"India and China's relationship transcends border, economic and security issues. There are many cultural, historical and religious commonalities between India and China. It's very important that we should know about the basic society in China, Ms. Surie says.

Ms. Surie is the author of "Contemporary China: Tradition and Modernity".

I realised we have more in common with China than we think and know, Ms. Surie adds.

It's not Government's job alone to promote the perspective of how China is viewed from an Indian lens. Businesses should step up, and should promote the study of culture of China in India, Mr. Gokhale says.

The China we see through media and the actual China that there is is very different, Mr. Gokhale says. "China has grown very fast and it's because the country is under an autocratic regime. It makes a lot of difference because in that sense, India is a democracy.

"Having said that, we need to admit that the party in China takes a lot of risks, and that has propelled China in its reformation," he says.

We now move to our second and final discussion of the day.

Vijay Gokhale, Poonam Surie, Antara Ghoshal Singh, and Veda Vaidyanathan will share their insights on Unwrapping the China Enigma.

Vijay Gokhale is a former Foreign Secretary who retired in January 2020 after a diplomatic career that spanned 39 years. Between January 2016 to October 2017, he served as Ambassador of India to the People's Republic of China. Mr. Gokhale is the author of numerous books on China. His book The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India was awarded the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (Non-fiction) for 2021.

Ms. Surie is an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi, an author, educator and independent researcher. She is the author of "Contemporary China: Tradition and Modernity.

Ms. Ghoshal Singh is a Fellow at the Strategic Studies Programme at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. She is a graduate from Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management in Beijing and has been a Chinese language fellow at the National Central University, Taiwan.

Dr. Vaidyanathan is a Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social Economic Progress and is affiliated to the Harvard University Asia Center and the Institute of Chinese Studies. She researches Asian engagement in Africa from the grassroots, across multiple sectors and countries. She was a 2022-23 Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University, and an ICS-Harvard Yenching Institute Doctoral Fellow from 2014-17.

This discussion will be moderated by Mr. Krishnan, who served as Beijing correspondent for The Hindu newspaper for over a decade. His reporting in China has taken him to all but three of China's thirty-three provinces and regions. His interests include India-China relations as well as Tibet, Xinjiang and ethnic minorities in China.

As an answer to a question from audience at the event, Mr. Kantha says India needs to engage with China at different levels. 'Tourism, culture studies should be looked at more closely. These are feasible. They are really low-hanging fruits," he says.

Dr. Kantha points out that the Chinese are not interested in clarifying the border issue between India and China. "They are not interested in clarifying the Line of Actual Control. It's a very convenient pressure point for them. Ambiguity is a tool, a weapon and an instrument for China."

What we must do is, we must make sure we are stable and clear as to what we want at the border, he says. "We must go forward with a step-by-step approach in resolving the issue."

Tibet is a point of conversation between India and China. Tibet is important to India from geographical and religious perspective. Tibet opens up many conversations as to where India stands with China, and we need to look at it from that standpoint, Dr. Joshi says.

Developing from what he has written in the book, Dr. Joshi says the issue between India and China is not restricted to the border issue anymore. It has taken a geopolitical perspective over the years.

The book answers this question in a chapter where Mr. Kantha writes.

Elaborating on what he has written, Mr. Kantha says, even now we know so little of the engagement with China. "Disengagement with China at the border is one the of major issues that India still faces today."

"PM Modi may have spoken about China a few times in the past, but we need to see what will happen," he adds.

The last five years have not been kind from the the economic perspective between the two countries, Mr. Pai says.

Any small elbow room, so to speak, will set the tone to what we can expect, he adds.

The summit has set the stage for what we can expect in the months to come, Mr. Pai says.

The Tianjin summit was a process in in repairing the relationship broken in 2020, Dr. Joshi says.

"No one knows why China did what it did in 2020, but this meeting certainly propels the relationship to where it stands today," he says.

But, let's not overstate the value of the summit, he adds.

The 2025 Tianjin summit is a step forward in building a damaged relationship between China and India, Mr. Kantha says.

The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping has made a headway towards establishing a stability between the relationship between the two countries.

Ashok Kantha is a former Indian diplomat and is currently associated with think tanks. He served as India's Ambassador to China until January 2016. Prior to that he served as Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 2009-2013 and as Indian High Commissioner to Malaysia from2007-2009.

Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A commentator and journalist specialising in national security and foreign affairs, he has been a member of the National Security Council's Advisory Board. He is the author of two books on the Kashmir issue and, most recently, of a book on the India- China Border.

Santosh Pai is a Partner with Dentons Link Legal. A Mandarin-speaker, he has cross-border work experience in M&A, joint ventures, greenfield investments, technical collaborations and policy research spanning India, China, Europe and South-East Asia. He is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) Core Group on China and is Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi.

The discussion will be moderated by Ms. Haidar, who in her career has a reporter, has covered the most challenging stories and conflicts from the most diverse regions including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Libya, Lebanon and Syria.

Vijay Gokhale, Shivshankar Menon, Shyam Saran, Ashok Kantha and The Hindu's Editor Suresh Nambath are presented with the first copies of the book, to mark the official launch of the book.

Shivshankar Menon takes the stage. He begins the speech by bringing China into perspective and underlines the importance of China as a country and its impact on how we see the world politics that unfold before us.

The book is an Indian view of China, he says.

He elaborates on the history of China and India and how they have intertwined and points out that the book tells us how to look at China in the future. Mr. Menon served as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India from January 2010 to May 2014, and previously as Foreign Secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009.

Between 2000 and 2003, he served as the Ambassador of India to the People's Republic of China.

The discussion would focus on the rise of China, the country's economy, in the perspective of a larger social and cultural context, which goes beyond security and foreign policy.

Foreign experts on China will be in conversation with The Hindu's Suhasini Haidar and Ananth Krishnan, who will piece together China's drastic rise and its dynamic relationship with India.

Resident Editor at The Hindu, in New Delhi, Varghese K. George introduces The Hindu's events in Delhi. He also introduces the book.

We have launched The Hindu Mind, a platform to have calm and thoughtful conversations, Mr. George says.

Unwrapping the China Enigma book launch highlights