The Chinese-Pakistan romance

New Delhi should respond with building upon its ties with Beijing

Inder Malhotra

In Kathmandu the Saarc summit is grinding on, caught in the coils of the mounting tension between India and Pakistan, the subject uppermost in the minds of those present at this forum. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the sub-continent on a mission to defuse the tensions, has to wait for the return to Delhi of his Indian opposite number, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Clearly, at this stage, nothing definitive can be said about the state of the play focused on the paramount issue of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of this country.

Except to record, of course, that conflicting signals continue to emanate from both sides. Pakistan’s military ruler and self-appointed President, General Pervez Musharraf, has found it necessary to contradict his own foreign minister Abdul Sattar’s mildly accommodative stance on the issue of repatriation to India of the 20 “most wanted” whose list was sent to Islamabad last week. The General has ruled out their extradition under any circumstances. All he is prepared to countenance is a trial in Pakistan under Pakistani laws but only if India furnishes “credible” and convincing evidence in support of its accusations.

This, it is perhaps needless to add, is a very big if. For, all the spin-doctors of the Pakistani ruler are aggressively questioning the “credibility” and “accuracy” of Indian allegations. If the voluminous information released by foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, in the Nepali capital — cataloguing all the evidence supplied to Pakistan by six successive Indian governments under four different prime ministers — hasn’t persuaded Islamabad, nothing will.

On the Indian side, the Prime Minister spoke in different tones in Lucknow and Kathmandu, his first message being unusually sharp and the second conciliatory, specifically discouraging the talk of war. But he was firm on an end to cross-border terrorism. To this the controversially resurrected defence minister, George Fernandes, has added that if diplomatic measures to persuade Pakistan failed, military option would have to be exercised. All this is posturing. What India and Pakistan say to each other is immaterial. The key to the problem lies in the United States. That country alone seems able to call the shots in both, India and Pakistan. Blair is at best the US’ most exalted emissary.

One peculiar feature of the Saarc summit at Kathmandu has been Musharraf’s arrival there via Beijing. This, and his preceding official visit to China lasting five days, has pushed to the fore the Chinese dimension of the India-China-Pakistan triangle that hasn’t received adequate attention. During Musharraf’s earlier visit to China, amidst the tensions bred by the dastardly attack on the Indian Parliament, his hosts went out of their way to show sympathy and support for him. In an extraordinary gesture, the Chinese even signed an agreement with Pakistan’s ministry of Kashmir affairs. The agreement’s content was inconsequential but the message underlying it could not have been clearer. This caused disquiet in Delhi but South Block refrained from reacting publicly. The foreign office, however, did react sharply when the Chinese described Kashmir as the “core issue”.

On its part, the Chinese embassy briefed the foreign office on the Musharraf visit. It emphasised that all statements should be viewed in their “context” and reported that while in China, the Pakistani leader had condemned terrorism in China’s Muslim-majority Xingjian province. It also stressed that China wanted India-Pakistan problems to be settled peacefully.

Meanwhile, immediately after the December 13 outrage, Chinese foreign minister, Tang Jiaxuan, had written to Jaswant Singh condemning the attack on Parliament, expressing sympathy with its victims as well as India, and reaffirming China’s opposition to terrorism everywhere. Rather belatedly, Jaswant Singh cited this letter as “positive”.

Against this backdrop, it is rather ironic that Musharraf should have got a second opportunity to demonstrate the growing friendship between his country and China as a result of the ban on the use of Indian air space by Pakistan. Some Indian observers have drawn comfort from the fact that in Beijing Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, and not President Jiang Zemin, received the General. But this is pettyfoggery.

The critical point is that at a time of a major stand-off with Pakistan, it would be wrong to let the slow but steady improvement in India-China relations be affected adversely. Diplomatic exchanges between the two countries ought to have been more vigorous than has been the case so far. Doubtless China’s political and military support to Pakistan and, more particularly, China’s supply to Pakistan of nuclear know-how and missiles irk New Delhi. But that is a reason for a friendly but forthright dialogue with China and not for sulking or talking to China in a stilted and even slurred manner. Luckily, Zhu Rongji’s visit to this country from January 13 provides an excellent opportunity for the necessary discussion, a chance that must not be allowed to go waste.