On November 28, local time, Senior Colonel (Ret.) Zhou Bo, senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) of Tsinghua University and China Forum expert, Han Hua, executive committee member of China Forum, and Shi Yan, fellow at CISS, visited the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in the UK.

In the morning, the CISS delegation compared notes with Veerle Nouwens, senior research fellow at RUSI, on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the risk of nuclear war and nuclear testing, high-tech export controls, China-UK relations, and the prospects of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.

In the afternoon, Zhou Bo was invited as a keynote speaker at a seminar on South Asia, which was organized and moderated by Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, senior fellow for South and Central Asian Defence, Strategy and Diplomacy at IISS. In the seminar, Zhou discussed relevant issues with more than 20 panelists, and pointed out that China is not the sole protagonist of the ‘Asian Century,’ but also India, Indonesia, ASEAN and more. He stressed that China takes a longrange view towards border disputes, and that both China and India will stay rational and aware of the cost of conflict. He then made in-depth responses to the questions raised by other panelists regarding China-India relations, China-Pakistan relations and India’s economic outlook.

The seminar featured IISS Senior Adviser Nigel Inkster, Senior Fellow Meia Nouwens, Research Fellow Antoine Levesques, Professor Katharine Adeney at the University of Nottingham, Professor Chris Alden at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and senior diplomat Professor Chris Olsen at King’s College London, among others.

The event was also attended by Brigadier General Gavin Thompson, former defence attaché at the British High Commission in New Delhi; Raj Baisya, head of the Foreign and Security Policy Working Group on India, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO); Alex Pykett, deputy head of the China Department, FCDO; Joe Cowen, Working Group on China, FCDO; and Sam Navaratnam, head of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, FCDO, among others.