By Shashi Malla
China’s Delicate Stand on the Kashmir Issue
During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s official visit to India this week, discussion of the Kashmir problem seem to have been out of bounds for both sides that desperately want to mend ties, above all to facilitate trade relations. Just before Xi’s visit, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan attempted to bolster Pakistan’s position by his blitz travel to Beijing. Xi, however, was very diplomatic and non-committal, even neutral: “China supports Pakistan to safeguard its own legitimate rights and hopes that the relevant parties can solve their disputes through peaceful dialogue.”
China does indeed have close economic, political and military ties with Pakistan, making it the country’s closest ally in South Asia. In defence cooperation, Islamabad purchased more than US Dollar $ 6 billion of Chinese arms between 2008 and 2017. China has also invested billions in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and integral part of Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the trade and infrastructure megaproject spanning continents, but of which India is still not a part.
However, the Sino-Indian bilateral economic relations seem to dwarf everything. Sino-Indian trade has grown in immense importance, especially in light of the continuing trade war between Washington and Beijing, unleashed by economic ignoramus Trump and even causing havoc in world trade generally. Pakistan may be the much vaunted “all-weather friend”, but India is the necessary trade partner and its teeming, prosperous middle classes the sine qua non for keeping China out of economic depression.
When Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi met last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the state-run newspaper “China Daily” wrote very pregnant: “The common interests of China and India far outweigh their differences.” Since that summit the much celebrated “Wuhan Spirit” has repeatedly been called upon. China’s vice foreign minister and former ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui said this week that “relations have entered a new stage of growth, with cooperation and exchanges being carried out in various fields and differences being properly managed.”
Modi and Xi held informal talks on Friday as they took a walk around Mamallapuram’s ancient monuments at the 1,400-year-old temple complex by the sea [near Chennai]. The scene shifted on the second day Saturday to the Taj Fisherman’s Cove Resort overlooking the Bay of Bengal, where the delegation-level talks were also held.
The private dinner between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi that capped the first day of the India-China informal summit on Friday lasted more than double the scheduled duration. According to The Hindustan Times this was an indication that both sides were making efforts to work out differences that had recently strained ties because of China’s strong support to Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.
President Xi is slated to visit the Himalayan Republic of Nepal on a two-day visit Saturday afternoon. The political implications of a Chinese president’s visit after a hiatus of 23 years are yet to be evaluated. Xi is expected to oversee the signing of at least a dozen agreements between the two countries, including the high-profile mountain railway project connecting Kerung in Tibet and Kathmandu.
Login to add a comment