For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the gathering of leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa offers an opportunity to highlight the threat he sees to Indian security from recent frontier clashes with Pakistan. But across the summit table at a resort hotel, Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely to have much interest in casting Beijing’s alliance with Pakistan into doubt.
The final summit declaration is expected to repeat earlier condemnations of “terrorism in all its forms”, say diplomats and analysts, but avoid levelling blame over tensions between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals. Such discussions will make security a dominant issue at the Eighth Annual Summit of the Group, even as leaders also address core themes such as the global economy, financial cooperation and mutual trade.
Pakistan has denied any part in the attack on the Uri army base, near the de facto border that runs through the disputed territory of Kashmir. It also denies any “surgical strikes” taken place inside its territory, saying there was only border firing that is relatively common along the frontier. Islamabad says India has exploited the incident to divert attention from its own security crackdown on protests sparked by the killing of a popular Kashmiri young leader. More than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in India’s part of Kashmir, and a widespread curfew has been imposed.
India’s desire to make Pakistan a regional pariah will not succeed because it would not be in China’s interests. As a ‘big brother’ it would not do well for China’s interests in Pakistan to be the local outcast. While China will certainly voice its concerns about terrorism in Pakistan, not the least because of its growing investments there, it will not openly violate the relationship which it has been maintaining with Pakistan over the last seventy years by condemning it openly.
But more than economic and historical ties, China will continue to balance its relations with Pakistan as a counterbalance to its relations with India. As the regional superpower, its interests also lie with its ability to establish its hegemony over South and East Asia. As a prominent nation, and one with very close ties to China, Pakistan is unlikely to become the pariah state that India wants everyone to believe. India may bully the SAARC nations to boycott Islamabad, but it can’t get China to do what it wants. Rather it should apply a policy of rapprochement with regard to Pakistan. In return Pakistan would do well to check the cross border terrorism which sometimes rears its ugly head and results in attacks in Indian soil.
