BRICS TERROR DECLARATION A MISTAKE BY CHINA: EXPERTS

: China has made a mistake by including terrorist groups based in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Xiamen declaration as the move could prove costly for its ties with countries in the region, Chinese experts said.

They said the agenda of Brics, which is an economic forum, was hijacked.

The Xiamen declaration endorsed and issued by the five Brics countries on Monday listed the “Taliban, ISIL/DAISH, Al-Qaida and its affiliates, including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-eTaiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP and Hizb ut-Tahrir,” as terrorist groups.

But Chinese experts questioned what they described as the selective inclusion of groups in the list. “The China-Pakistan relationship will face its biggest, biggest challenge since the 1960s,” Hu Shisheng, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceania Studies at the China Institutes of ContemporaryInternationalRelations,told Hindustan Times.

“I think this is too costly. It is really a big mistake, which the Chinese government will feel in the coming years.”

A leading expert on south Asia echoed Hu’s view.

“India won the game and the statement is what India wanted and got. It’s not a step that China should have allowed,” the expert, who did not wish to be identified, said. According to Hu, the Haqqani network is in a commanding position within the Afghan Taliban, which now controls more than 40% of the territory in Afghanistan.