Attack could hit China-India ties
BEIJING: The Pulwama terror attack could impact China-India ties as New Delhi and Beijing continue to differ over listing Pakistan-based outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) chief, Masood Azhar, as a terrorist at the UN.
The JeM has claimed responsibility for the attack. China has repeatedly blocked India’s efforts to list Azhar as a terrorist at the UN. China condemned the attack but gave enough indications on Friday that its stand remained the same.
Azhar’s listing has remained a major bilateral squabble between the two neighbours despite the bonhomie generated after the informal Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping last April. Union home minister Rajnath Singh highlighted the issue in China last year.
Discussions to resolve the issue were pushed to the background in the atmosphere of geniality between India and China after both the troops confronted each other at the Doklam plateau near the borders of India Bhutan, and China in 2017.
Chinese academics have called for a dialogue to resolve the issue and asked India to furnish more evidence against Azhar to China.
Bilateral ties as well as broad relations between India, China and Pakistan could run into difficult times in the aftermath, said Hu Shisheng, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceania Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.
It is difficult to say how China will respond when India brings up the issue next time at the UN, Hu added. “There should be a mutual dialogue between India and China to resolve this issue.”
Hu, an expert on South Asia, said it was possible that Beijing directly talked to Islamabad about the attack and its impact.
Wang Dehua, South Asia expert at the Shanghai Municipal Centre for International Studies, agreed, saying that India and China’s different views over JeM and Azhar could only be solved through dialogue.
Wang argued that India needs to do more to change China’s stand. “As early as 2009, India tried to place Azhar on the UN sanctions list. At that time, the United Kingdom, as a permanent member of the Security Council, also expressed its opposition and asked India to present more evidence. India launched a strong diplomatic offensive for this and finally changed the attitude of the UK but China still has reservations on this issue,” he said.
Wang added, according to the United Nations al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Act, India only needs to submit evidence to the UN Security Council CounterTerrorism Committee to prove that Azhar is a member of al Qaida or the Taliban or both. “There is a link. But India is not submitting such evidence and it is useless to blame China for obstructing. That is to say, no matter what the nature of the JeM, there is no evidence that its leader Azhar is subordinate to terrorist organisations such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Therefore, the JeM is not subject to Resolution 1267, which specifically attacks the two organisations, and naturally cannot be included on the list,” Wang said.