Recently, an interview video circulated on the Internet, which is an interview with the country's former ambassador to Russia, Pankaje Saran, which mainly involves the relationship between China, Russia, India and the United States.
In this interview, Saran said: "At present, China has far surpassed Russia in terms of strength"; "But from the point of view of sociology and political science, it is impossible to make Russia subordinate to China"; "The fundamental contradiction between China and Russia is that China is not only friends with Russia, but also has contacts with Europe and the United States"; "A strong Russia, for India, is beneficial to its confrontation with the two great powers, China and the United States; India has a choice other than China (against Russia), and does not want the emergence of the twin giants of China and the United States to dominate the world, and the world power should be more dispersed, and there will be multipolarity, and India will become one of the poles.
These views are basically well-known and do not seem to have much new meaning.
However, in the interview, the interviewer said: "China has no friends", and Saran took it and added "China only has bad friends", and after saying that, the two couldn't help laughing.
This seems to be a joke told by the two, and it is not that they are not serious - but obviously, this "joke" is indeed a bit cold!
First of all, does China really have no friends internationally?
In fact, this must be defined first: what is a "friend between nations"? Since the formation of the nation-state, the exchanges and interests between countries are actually the first - in this, there are not only practical interests such as material interests, but also spiritual interests such as culture and values!
The path China is now taking is a socialist system and values that adapt to its own historical process – of course, after the reform and opening up, we have also filled it with elements of the market economy.
In foreign relations, in fact, China has long given up the empty slogan of "liberating all mankind", that is to say, ideology has been diluted to the greatest extent in foreign exchanges and state-to-state relations -- in China's foreign relations, it no longer deliberately emphasizes and uses ideological means as the premise and basis of state-to-state exchanges.
However, obviously, the United States and the West, and even India and Russia, are more dominated by the ideology of the capitalist system, so in the eyes of India or Europe and the United States, the "friends" between countries are still very strong in values and ideologies.
And the sense of identity of values and ideology may make the Indian ambassador's perception of friends more profound and dense than simple practical interests, right? INTERVIEWER If the two Indians think that "China has no friends" from this point of view, there may be some truth in their self-righteousness, right?
But in essence, the most important premise of interaction between countries is still the cornerstone of interests – the brutal "law of the forest", which has not only not failed, but is still strong. Therefore, if it is a friend based on practical interests, in fact, it is really difficult for India to talk big, and it must have more friends than China. For example, China's friends in Asia, Africa and Latin America, not to mention all over the world, are there a lot more than India's, right?
Moreover, what is even more progressive for China is that it no longer only provides endless free assistance to friends in Asia, Africa and Latin America as in the past, but has become an important investor, which is fundamentally helping Asia, Africa and Latin America to achieve real common development and progress together with friends in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Therefore, China is acting as a real investor and helper, rather than the kind of interaction that is premised on colonization in the history of Europe and the United States, and it is obvious that this has won us a lot of "friends" in Asia, Africa and Latin America!
At this point, India is only envious, after all, although it is currently among the "BRICS", but it is not possible to have a "Belt and Road" big deal like China, so it can be said that even if it is only based on practical interests, India does not have as many friends as ours, right?
Of course, if India only refers to being friends with developed countries, this seems to be a fact - after all, it is involved in the rise of China, which has generated competitive pressure on Western developed countries, and with the difference in traditional ideologies, it seems that China has fewer friends than India in this regard.
Even in Asia, China still has iron-clad friends like North Korea and Pakistan – and does India have such iron-clad friends in Asia? In fact, India's suppression of its neighboring small countries is also obvious to all, so in terms of feeling more real good neighbors, China seems to have more and more iron friends, no worse than India, right?
Second, this sentence about "China only has friends who are bad" does hurt China's self-esteem a little.
It is obvious that saying that "China has no friends, only bad friends" is still a partial generalization and exaggeration, but we have to admit that the words of India's two bad friends are not completely groundless -- in the history of China's foreign exchanges, our "bad friends" do exist, and they are not one or two.
For example, China and Russia, which are now in a relatively normal and relatively friendly relationship, have also been friends and enemies in the past, and the Russians have also changed from "friends" to "bad friends" of China many times.
For example, the Comintern single-handedly helped and supported the founding of the Communist Party of China, and once dominated the initial development strategy of the CCP, but at that time, the Soviet Union under the rule of Stalin still forcibly created the so-called "referendum independence" of Outer Mongolia - so under the continuous aggression and manipulation of the Russians, China lost nearly one-fifth of its land in total.
Even after the founding of New China, although it had the same system, the "friendship" in terms of values and ideology was still inferior to the reality of interests - after the bitter relations between China and the Soviet Union, there was also an incident of the Soviet Union's invasion of Zhenbao Island, a Chinese territory; Russia even threatened to use nuclear weapons against China at one time, which was the main reason why the great man proposed to "dig deep and accumulate grain."
And Russia has been using Vietnam and India, the two Chinese territories, to carry out all kinds of strategic containment against us, which has long been on the table -- this has led China to launch a war of self-defense and counterattack against Vietnam, as well as a war against India's invasion of China's territory.
In addition, there are also some socialist countries in Eastern Europe, such as Albania, which have changed from "friends" of China to "friends of loss".
However, on the contrary, there are also many countries that were originally "friends who are friends", but they have become "friends" - this also proves the saying: between countries, there are neither eternal friends nor eternal enemies, only eternal interests!
Another point is that the so-called countries that have become China's "friends who have lost friends" mostly happened when China was not strong and overemphasized ideology, and with China's reform and opening up, the market economy has become an important foundation and element of China's development, and China has embraced the world with a completely open attitude, so it is logical to put forward the concept of "community with a shared future for mankind" - as long as China adheres to this goal and ideal, I believe that China's friends in the international community will be more and more, and the so-called "friends will be relatively few"!
Of course, "China has no friends, only bad friends", although the two Indians are more watching China's jokes, but we have to admit that it does have a bit of real "coldness", and there is still something worth thinking about, so that we can learn a lesson, so that this kind of cold ridicule will eventually become useless and disappear with the wind.
However, in the end, I would like to ask my Indian neighbors: Do you want to be friends with China? Or is it a bad friend? - Different choices, it is likely that there is a difference between the clouds and mud, or even the world, the past, the present and the future will prove it, our third brother, what do you say? [Original Comment: Yu Says It's Closed]