China overplayed its cards, says Gurumurthy

New Delhi: Amid the ongoing border row between New Delhi and Beijing, RSS ideologue Swaminathan Gurumurthy said on Saturday that China has overplayed its cards, unmindful of its highly indebted financial position.

Gurumurthy further said China’s debt to GDP ratio is 250 per cent and with this kind of unsustainable debt level and overdependence on the global market they should not behave in this manner in politics.

“China has overplayed its card…it does not know how to play its card (in ways that are) acceptable to others,” he said while addressing the 10th Annual Prof P N Srivastava Memorial Lecture on ‘Covid-19: World & India’ organised by JNU.

Gurumurthy’s comments assume significance as they come days after India lost 20 of its army personnel, including a colonel, in the violent face-off on the night of June 15-16 in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, the biggest confrontation between the militaries of India and China after their 1967 clashes in Nathu La when India lost around 80 soldiers while the death toll on the Chinese side was over 300.

“China is opening on too many fronts. Its financial condition, despite having huge production infrastructure, is not very good because its debt level is very high,” he pointed out.

Noting that China’s debt to GDP ratio is 250 per cent, Gurumurthy said, “With this kind of unsustainable debt level and overdependence on the global market, they should not behave in this manner in politics.” He also said that China is facing a huge identity crisis.

“Chinese were basically empire builders and empire building has no place in the modern world,” Gurumurthy opined.