EXCLUSIVE: 'China's expansionist agenda destabilises world order'

Denmark's envoy to India Freddy Svane discusses his interaction with the BJP members, including party President JP Nadda, the situation in Ukraine and its consequences across the globe and the future trajectory of India-Denmark bilateral relations in an exclusive interview with Saurabh Sharma of ETV Bharat.

New Delhi:Denmark's envoy to India Freddy Svane discusses his interaction with the BJP members, including party President JP Nadda, the situation in Ukraine and its consequences across the globe and the future trajectory of India-Denmark bilateral relations in an exclusive with Saurabh Sharma of ETV Bharat.

QHow was your interaction with the BJP leaders, including party President JP Nadda?

It was a really good interaction. A lot of misconceptions were cleared. We discussed several issues in our capacities. Secondly, I also asked about RSS as people from Europe are not aware of its functioning, including in my country as well. Is it a super nationalist party and what role does it plays in the country?

Q How do you see BJP's political ideology and its relationship with RSS?

No doubt BJP is a well-organised party with a very good system. Given the size of India, the BJP has a membership of more than 108 million people, BJP indeed is the biggest political party. During our meeting at the BJP headquarters, they explained the party's functioning. When I asked that there are different views on RSS like terming it as an anti-Muslim and Hindu nationalist group and in turn, JP Nadda said that it is a social-cultural organisation, which is striving to keep culture, tradition and values of Indians intact. On minorities, Nadda explained where they are placed. I also spoke to Syed Zafar Islam, who is a Rajya Sabha member, and he gave a good explanation of the party's stand on minority issues.

QPrime Minister Narendra Modi during his three-day visit to Europe met his Denmark counterpart and discussed the ongoing war in Ukraine, Indo-Pacific and bilateral relations by signing various pacts. How do you define India- Denmark's future relations?

Our relationship with India was very cold in the past. But, we have now strengthened our ties. In the last three years, we have had three summits between our Prime Minister and PM Modi. And of course, we have our green strategic partnership. We are not teaching and preaching what India should do. A number of agreements between India and Denmark have been signed. The two sides also discussed the Ukrainian issue where we had a very open discussion. We reiterated Denmark's position on this and PM Modi explained why India has placed herself in this position.

QDid you predict that the consequences would be this bad when Russia begana war against Ukraine?

I think it's important to keep in mind that India and other countries primarily focused on evacuating their citizens while India had evacuated all its students except one, who unfortunately died. Even Denmark's PM told PM Modi to use his influence to stop the war as it wreaked havoc across the globe as energy supplies have been disrupted, inflation hit the rooftop and food shortage has been troubling the people. It's unprovoked aggression by Russia on Ukraine. We knew that the consequences would be bad not only in Ukraine, but also across the globe, but we did not predict that devastation would be at this level.

Now, PM Modi is going to the G7 Summit in Germany and hopefully, there would be some discussions on this. Next week, the QUAD Summit will take place and we are pretty sure that this crisis would be discussed in order to bring stability at the global level.This is the worst crisis we are witnessing since World War II. Russia had violated all the established protocols and its consequences are being heavily felt across the world.

QTalks are going on inthe EU over how to cut its dependency on Russian energy and how Denmark is planning to cut its energy dependence on Russia?

We know that we depend upon Russia for energy supply, including gas and oil. But, our government has made a clear decision to ban Russia's supply as soon as possible.

Q Turkey is now opposing the inclusion of Sweden and Finland into NATO, How do you see this?

War has never created any positive tangible result. We have seen thousands being killed, hundreds getting tortured. War has to come to an end, the sooner and better. On NATO, I don't keep track of this. NATO chief has made it clear that all issues will be taken care of.

QHas the war in Ukraine overshadowed the situation in Afghanistan?

Yes, indeed it is. It is unfortunate that the Taliban now had been reversing all its promises.

Q How do you see China's actions in the Indo-Pacific, the South China Sea and other parts of the world as well?

We see China is developing an expansionist policy. Their actions in South China and other parts are visible. The upcoming QUAD summit will surely discuss this and will come up with a statement. This expansionist agenda destabilises world order and brings in insecurity and instability. Be it the EU and even Denmark is seeing China's actions and every country has their concern. India has their concern at the LAC and we have our own.