Xi coming to India with a bagful of messages for Modi
If the strategic calculus of the two neighbours, where the
U.S. is the elephant in the room, does not align, then Beijing also has a
plan-B.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to Chennai on Friday
with a clear message — Beijing wants to develop a 360-degree relationship with
India.
But if the strategic calculus of the two neighbours, where
the U.S. is the elephant in the room, does not align, then Beijing also has a
plan-B.
Analysts say that if India continues to develop a security
dimension to its Indo-Pacific strategy, through the weaponisation of the
India-U.S.-Japan-Australia Quad, then Beijing’s strategic ties with Pakistan, a
common neighbour to both countries, are likely to further consolidate.
Ahead of Mr. Xi’s departure, China, which views the
formation of the Quad as an instrument to contain Beijing, has taken umbrage at
the decision of the four countries to raise the level of their consultations to
the Foreign Minister level in New York, on the sidelines of last month’s UN
General Assembly session, official sources said.
Indian red line
Despite China’s discomfort, an official said India had
legitimate reasons to change tack. China had crossed the Indian red line of
internationalising the Kashmir issue, in support of Pakistan, at the UN
Security Council, following India’s August 5 decision to end Jammu and
Kashmir’s special status. In a thinly veiled protest, India had also
“postponed” border talks between Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister
Wang Yi and National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval that were scheduled last
month.
Analysis: Modi-Xi Summit: what to expect
President Xi’s bagful of pre-departure messages can be
traced to the Bishkek summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in
June. The Hindu has learnt that the Chinese side had offered its good offices
to resolve the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan, which New Delhi
politely declined. Earlier in March, Foreign Minister Wang had publicly offered
to mediate to resolve Indo-Pak differences.
The intensity of China’s intent to help resolve the Indo-Pak
row may have diminished, but not extinguished. The reasons for China’s
persistence to see peace break out between New Delhi and Islamabad is fairly
obvious. With a breakthrough in Kashmir, India will no longer have an argument
to reject the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship of
President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
A quadrilateral cooperative relationship among India, China
and Pakistan, with the likely participation of Russia, will also significantly
boost the global profile of the SCO, which is at the heart of the revival of
Eurasia as a salient geopolitical and geo-economic construct.
Track-2 dialogue
Chinese officials, who did not wish to named, have told The
Hindu that in the backdrop of the post August 5 situation, Beijing would
support a track-2 dialogue among China, India and Pakistan to address each
other’s concerns.
Analysts point out that the Chinese side, which wanted to
“hear out” Pakistan’s views on Kashmir and other issues, including Afghanistan
and CPEC, had virtually “summoned” both the civilian and military components of
the establishment in Islamabad, before Mr. Xi left for India to break bread
with Prime Minister Modi. “It was his (President Xi’s) desire and ours to take
each other into confidence (prior to the informal summit with Mr. Modi),” Pakistan’s
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi has been quoted as saying.
Apart from Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army Chief Qamar
Javed Bajwa, the Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, was also present in the Pakistani delegation,
signalling that apart from Kashmir, the Afghanistan situation, over which the
ISI maintains a tight grip, was also prominently on the agenda during talks in
Beijing.
An official, who did not wish to be quoted, said, “talks
with Mr. Xi prior to his India meetings have been symbolically important as
they have been viewed in Islamabad as a special gesture reinforcing Beijing’s
special ties with Pakistan”. He also pointed out that the high profile
civil-military meetings also signal that India’s growing ties with the
Indo-Pacific Quad had now firmly entered the China-Pakistan equation.
