The Guardian view on Trump in Asia: the crisis is in Kashmir
As the crisis between two nucleararmed states mounts in south Asia, the US president, Donald Trump, sits a few thousand miles away in Vietnam, playing at fixing another that was largely of his creation. Neither India nor Pakistan want war. Both believe they are calibrating their responses. This is familiar terrain: their 1999 clash over Kashmir was only the most recent. Yet the most serious military standoff for two decades is becoming more perilous, with the risk of miscalculation growing as they up the ante.
India’s airstrikes on Tuesday were the first inside Pakistan since 1971. It claimed to have killed militants from the Jaish-e-Mohammed group, which claimed the suicide bombing that killed more than 40 paramilitaries in Indian-administered Kashmir and which continues to operate in Pakistan despite a supposed ban. Pakistan said the payloads were dropped on unoccupied land, and responded with similar strikes in Indian-administered Kashmir. It looked as though both might be able to step away. Then, on Wednesday, the two sides said they had shot down each other’s aircraft and Pakistan broadcast images of a captured Indian pilot.
Two decades ago, Bill Clinton’s forceful diplomacy pulled things back from the brink. We will not see such a US intercession this time. The messy, confusing events unfolding in south Asia are in stark contrast to the choreographed pomp of Mr Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi. The US president’s desire to announce a personal triumph is supercharged this time by his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s scathing testimony in Washington. The bar for this meeting has been set absurdly low. This is a performative event, designed to present a feelgood outcome rather than truly get to grips with the immensely difficult long-term challenge of dealing with North Korea’s weapons programme. It was Mr Trump who dramatically escalated matters with his threats of fire and fury, only to start giving handouts to Mr Kim.
India and Pakistan should perhaps be grateful that he is otherwise occupied. In this charged and volatile situation, the prospect of a broker as ignorant and impatient as Mr Trump would be a cause for alarm rather than relief. But the loss of presidential engagement matters: state department expertise is significantly thinner; and US relations with Pakistan have deteriorated sharply, particularly after it cut military aid last year.
The question is whether other players will seriously invest in de-escalation, and have sufficient leverage. China, the EU, Russia and others all urge restraint. Saudi Arabia too has vowed to help calm tensions. Critically, close military ties are at the heart of China’s longstanding “all-weather friendship” with Pakistan; it talks to the people who really call the shots. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is central to Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, giving it every interest in peace and stability there.
China’s relations with India have thawed somewhat in recent months. It does not want to be sheriff, but nor can it pretend it has no interests to protect. Meanwhile, non-state actors are likely to hinder rather than help: jingoistic media and over-heated social media add to the public pressure on leaders to talk tough rather than doing the right thing – all the worse with Pakistan’s new prime minister, Imran Khan, attempting to establish credibility, and with the nationalist Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, heading towards elections. Those who have created this problem will need help to fix it.