Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s recent visit (August 12-14) was intended more to keep the channels of political dialogue with India open rather than satisfactorily address some serious issues that have arisen lately between the two countries. China wants to skirt them and downplay their importance and focus instead on shared strategic goals and common interests.
It suits China to highlight climate change parleys, reform of the international political and financial institutions, a greater say for developing countries in international governance, boosting Asia’s role in global affairs in productive areas of cooperation, besides the gains to be derived from amplifying the bilateral economic agenda. This is because China’s strategy is to keep its options open on key issues of contention, be in no hurry to resolve them, and use them as instruments of pressure, while working together with India on multilateral issues where interests converge.
China’s huge economic success has increased its political weight and has enabled it to build impressive defence capabilities. It is increasingly in a position to challenge the traditional hegemony of the West. Having India by its side gives strength to China’s challenge and any shift in the balance of power with the West, especially in the broader region we are in, will serve its ambitions the most, not India’s, as the gap between the two has widened enormously and China will largely fill the space created. With China asserting its core concerns and disregarding India’s, the irony is that as China becomes stronger in the emerging tussle of power — for which it would have also leveraged India’s support — it will be able to exert even more pressure on us on bilateral differences.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is set to emerge as a major issue of contention. China has announced this massive project — with major strategic, political and economic implications for India and the region as a whole — keeping New Delhi out of the loop. If it was conceived as a regional cooperative project, India as the biggest country in the region, with the greatest capacity to contribute to it, would have been consulted. China’s post script that the project can benefit the entire region and that stabilising Pakistan economically through it can serve even India’s interest is disingenuous. Calling it the CPEC is itself objectionable because it implies that China and Pakistan are now legally contiguous, and that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (a description that would automatically include Gilgit/Baltistan and would preclude the need to speak of PoK plus Gilgit/Baltistan to clarify the territorial scope of Pakistan’s illegal occupation) is Pakistani territory. China could have legitimately called it the Islamabad-Gwadar Economic Corridor, as in the case of the Japanese-promoted Delhi-Mumbai or Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridors, neither of which is described as Japan-India Economic Corridor.
{{/usCountry}}The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is set to emerge as a major issue of contention. China has announced this massive project — with major strategic, political and economic implications for India and the region as a whole — keeping New Delhi out of the loop. If it was conceived as a regional cooperative project, India as the biggest country in the region, with the greatest capacity to contribute to it, would have been consulted. China’s post script that the project can benefit the entire region and that stabilising Pakistan economically through it can serve even India’s interest is disingenuous. Calling it the CPEC is itself objectionable because it implies that China and Pakistan are now legally contiguous, and that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (a description that would automatically include Gilgit/Baltistan and would preclude the need to speak of PoK plus Gilgit/Baltistan to clarify the territorial scope of Pakistan’s illegal occupation) is Pakistani territory. China could have legitimately called it the Islamabad-Gwadar Economic Corridor, as in the case of the Japanese-promoted Delhi-Mumbai or Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridors, neither of which is described as Japan-India Economic Corridor.
{{/usCountry}}Chinese experts declare rather facetiously that they have no choice but to go through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir because that is the only geographically contiguous area with Pakistan, and that India should understand this compulsion. China is building nuclear, thermal and hydroelectric power plants, the Gwadar port and roads in Pakistan, and has become the country’s biggest defence supplier, not because of access through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. China has no geographical contiguity with its largest economic partners such as the US, Japan or South Korea. It is not through border trade that it has become one of India’s largest trading partners. China dissembles when it claims that the CPEC is an economic development project and not a strategic one. Wang Yi was communicated our concerns about the CPEC passing through territory that is legally ours, but he seems to have parried the known Chinese position of seeking our understanding of geographical compulsions.
China’s open opposition to India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was a serious provocation. Its arguments for thwarting India are spurious and patronising. Besides belittling India politically and exposing the limits of US support for our membership, China wants to open the door for NSG membership for Pakistan. If Xi was unmoved by Modi’s personal appeal to him on our membership, Wang Yi could hardly have come here with a positive brief. He made it known that in China’s considered view NPT (non-proliferation treaty) membership was a pre-requisite for NSG membership.
The decision to hold further discussions on the subject at official level suits both sides because it offers India a chance to maintain pressure and China to defuse the issue before the G-20 and BRICS summits. On China’s deplorable conduct at the UN Security Council on the designation of JeM chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist, Wang Yi advised us to sort out the issue with Pakistan, implying that for China terrorism is a bilateral India-Pakistan affair.
Wang Yi apparently did not raise the South China Sea issue with his counterpart. India has stated its position already on the arbitration award, emphasising freedom of navigation and overflight and unimpeded commerce, and calling for showing the utmost respect for UNCLOS (UN Convention on the Law of Sea) by all parties. China’s counsel to India to stay away from the South China Sea is absurd as issues there impinge on our interests. Interestingly, in April this year the trilateral India-Russia-China statement on the South China Sea also called for “full respect of all provisions of UNCLOS”. China is hosting the G-20 summit at Hangzhou in September. Its endeavour would be to mute the reference in the G-20 communique to the South China Sea issue and the arbitral award against it. We should keep in mind China’s persistent indifference to our concerns and sensitivities on a host of issues while preparing our position for the September summit. We should coordinate closely with the US, Japan and others at Hangzhou.
Kanwal Sibal is a former foreign secretary. The views expressed are personal.