Beijing’s allegiance to Pak key roadblock in India-china ties
AT THE HEART OF INDIACHINA MISTRUST LIES BEIJING’S ALL-WEATHER ALLY ISLAMABAD, WITH THE MIDDLE KINGDOM BACKING PAK ON ISSUES LIKE CROSS-BORDER TERRORISM, FATF AND JAMMU AND KASHMIR
India, the summit will take the relationship forward; or else t h i s wi l l b e just another milestone.
Fact is that at the heart of India-china mistrust lies Beijing’s all-weather ally, Islamabad, with the middle kingdom backing Pakistan entirely on issues like cross-border terrorism, nuclear suppliers group, UN expansion, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Jammu and Kashmir. The other source of mistrust is China’s unwillingness to give India space on the global high table and its efforts to confine New Delhi to a regional power locked in death combat with Pakistan.
Although India and China have had a border dispute for the past 50 years, the two sides have managed occasional flareups very astutely with not a single bullet being fired since the Nathu La skirmish in 1967.
The two sides have convergence on global issues like climate change and are focused on greening their countries.
At the informal summit, President Xi will have the option of either reading the laundry list of Pakistan’s concerns with India or explore new areas of cooperation with PM Modi.
After hosting Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing on October 8-10 and hearing out his litany of complaints against India, President Xi will have to make a superhuman effort to not let Islamabad overshadow the summit.
Xi’s test on Pakistan will start from October 13-18, when FATF holds a plenary meeting under the presidentship of China in Paris to consider blacklisting Islamabad for its failure to comply with over 20 out of 27 key parameters laid down in an action plan to deal with money laundering and terrorist financing As the FATF acts on consensus, it is quite evident that Pakistan will remain on a grey list with China, Malaysia and Turkey responding to PM Imran Khan’s call for support.
While India has conveyed its stand on the revocation of Article 370, which did away with special status for Jammu and on Kashmir, directly to China at the foreign ministers’ level, President Xi may see the August 5 move as a precursor to a possible flare-up between India and Pakistan on the Line of Control (LOC), leading to instability in the region. This is the line PM Khan has been promoting with the ubiquitous Pakistani threat of a nuclear war.
Rather than derailing the entire exercise over Pakistan, President Xi, already facing flak over Hong Kong protests, may like to take the informal summit towards a positive direction where both countries expand bilateral trade beyond $100 billion while balancing India’s bilateral deficit.
The other option for a successful summit is that both sides decide to resolve the boundary dispute on a sectoral basis and narrow their differences. The only beneficiary of a China at loggerheads with India is Pakistan.