India must wake up to double threat of China-Pakistan
A visa for Dolkun Isa, a leader of the World Uyghur Congress, to attend a conference at Dharamsala could have been a salutary response to the repeated political slaps India has received from China in the relevant UN Security Council (UNSC) committee on sanctioning Pakistan-based entities and individuals involved in terrorism against India. The decision to withdraw his visa recalls Alexander Pope's verse about being "willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike".
There might have been good reasons to reverse our decision, but we have embarrassed ourselves in the process, with a show of strength becoming a show of weakness.
Sanctions
By preventing UN sanctions on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar under Resolution 1267 earlier this month, China has once again provoked India on a very sensitive issue. In the UNSC sanctions committee the other 14 members, including the US, France, the UK and Russia, supported India's proposal, as they were satisfied with our case against Azhar, but China claimed that India had "failed to provide enough information", without explaining what the deficiency was.
By stating that "it is the responsibility of all the members of the Council to make sure that each requirement (for inclusion in the sanctions list) is followed", China's PR to the UN was suggesting that the dragon discharges its responsibility in the sanctions committee more punctiliously than others presumably unduly receptive to India's unsubstantiated complaints about Pakistan whereas, China has no political bias in the matter.
China's has shielded Pakistan in the UN on its terrorist affiliations with obduracy. India's efforts to get Jamaat-ud-Dawa added to the UNSC's sanctions list were stultified three times by China before success in December 2008.
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| Masood Azhar. |
China placed "technical holds" at Pakistan's request to block the UNSC sanctions against Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed's charity - the al-Akhtar Trust. It placed a similar "technical hold" on India's request to list Syed Salahuddin of the Hizbul Mujahideen.
In June 2015, China blocked India's bid to expose Pakistan's violation of Resolution 1267 involved in the court bail granted to one of the masterminds of the horrific Mumbai terror attacks, Zaki-ur-Rehman, also on the specious ground that India "failed to provide enough information." (China has never condemned the Mumbai attacks).
India had criticised China for its action, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising it personally with President Xi Jinping during his May 2015 visit to China. Our expectation that this might make China act more prudently in the sanctions committee on well-documented cases of terrorism directed at India has been rudely belied in Azhar's case.
Modi's engagement of China immediately after assuming power was aimed at enhancing political trust between the two countries, apart from expanding economic ties.
If China keeps signalling, as it has been doing, that on the vital issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil against India, it will keep shielding Pakistan from external pressure; India's mistrust of Chinese intentions can only grow.
Pakistan itself now acknowledges the existence of terrorist organisations within the country and seeks international plaudits for the effort it is making to eradicate them. Its leadership claims that it no longer makes a distinction between good and bad terrorists.
China also projects itself as a victim of terrorism and seeks the cooperation to help combat it, especially of Pakistan where Uyghur separatists are sheltered. The international community too increasingly sees terrorism as a challenge to be met by the international community collectively, without double standards and selectivity.
Terrorism
Contrary to what is professed, Pakistan and China want to work together to preserve the former's margin of manoeuvre on terrorism against India. Actually, imposing sanctions on terrorists like Masood Azhar through the international route could give Pakistan, if it wants a political cover to act against such so-called non-state actors within.
That Pakistan should request an obliging China to prevent known terrorists like Masood Azhar and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi from being sanctioned under Resolution 1267 speaks volumes about the chicanery of both countries and their combined animus towards India.
Terrorism is an instrument that Pakistan has used effectively to impose costs on India; China evidently sees this pressure point as helpful in terms of keeping India off-balance in the region and facilitating the expansion of Chinese influence within it.
Contradictions
China's actions in the UN contradict squarely what it agrees with India in our joint statements. During Modi's May 2015 China visit, both sides "reiterated their strong condemnation of and resolute opposition to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and committed themselves to cooperate on counterterrorism. They agreed that there is no justification for terrorism and urged all countries and entities to work sincerely to disrupt terrorist networks and their financing, and stop cross-border movement of terrorists, in accordance with the relevant principles and purposes of the UN Charter and international laws".
In Azhar's case our spokesperson rightly stated that it was "incomprehensible" that while JeM was listed by the sanctions committee as far back as 2001 "for its terror activities and links to the al Qaeda, the designation of the group's main leader, financier and motivator has been put on a technical hold".
The Masood Azhar episode shows how deep is China's strategic commitment to Pakistan. This commitment is being expanded through initiatives such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Gwadar, which will only aggravate the two-front security challenge that we face on our borders.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)