India can't claim strategic autonomy without own weapons:Menon

New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) Observing that China's rise is
likely to be an issue in India's ability to transform in
future, National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon Thursday
said that the country can't claim "true strategic autonomy"
unless it improves its defence production capabilities.
Delivering the Prem Bhatia Memorial lecture, he said,
"Talk of strategic autonomy has little meaning unless our
defence production or innovation capabilities undergo a
quantum improvement."
"A country that doesn't develop and produce its own major
weapon platforms has a major strategic weakness, and cannot
claim true strategic autonomy. This is a real challenge for us
all," Menon said.
India, which is one of the world's largest spenders on
military hardware, depends on imports for over 70 per cent of
its defence needs.
The NSA said Naxalism was one of the major challenges
facing the country's development strategy.
"We know that it is neither the application of force
alone or a single-minded focus on development can solve the
problem," he said.
Listing China's rise as the first of the three issues
which could affect India's transformation abilities in future,
the NSA said the relations of the two countries have elements
of cooperation and competition at the same time.
"We have a boundary dispute, and overlapping peripheries
in our extended neighbourhood which is also China's
neighbourhood. As long as we stick to our internal
transformations, cooperate on common interests, we can expect
the current relationship to continue," he said.