At the recently concluded BRICS summit, why did none name Pakistan as the fountain head of terrorism? Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to our problematic neighbour as ‘the mothership of terror’ and while the final declaration named Islamic State, Al Qaeda and Syria’s Jubhat al-Nusra it made no mention of any Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “political solutions” to “regional hotspots” in a reference to the need for dialogue between India and Pakistan while Russia maintained a stony silence. Citizens who were expecting fire and brimstone were left disappointed.
Modi’s attempts to isolate Pakistan after the Uri attack were
successful, but even he knew that pushing this line at the
BRICS summit would have derailed it. As host, it would have
been disadvantageous to ruin a Summit. While China’s ties
with Pakistan are on firmer ground, Russia is warming up
to Islamabad. This shift has much
to do with Delhi’s decision to cozy
up to Washington. However, both
Russia and China understand they
have to deal with India, which is a
regional eco power in its own right.
China’s ties with Pakistan are both
economic and military and it is
willing to invest and even write-off
huge sums of money to achieve its
goals. Its primary interest lies in constructing a transport corridor
comprising a network of highways, power projects, railway
lines an industrial zones between Port Gwadar in Pakistan
and Kashgar in China. Pakistan is in the process of raising
a police force of 15,000 to protect these investments. The corridor
will give China access to Persian Gulf oil which now has to
pass through the Malacca Strait which is 9,000 km longer. To
achieve this, Beijing is willing to ignore terror as long as Pakistan
is not used as a launch pad for attacks in China.
On the other hand China understands that it cannot ignore
India since its major concern is the US which is pursuing a
policy of creating a ring of hostile states around China. Beijing’s
greatest fear is India becoming a South Korea or Japan
and hence there is a limit beyond which it cannot push its ties
with Pakistan. India is a very large market and with growth in
China slowing it is encouraging companies to invest in India.
It is also courting India’s support on reforming global financial
institutions and trade talks.
However, China’s interests in Pakistan are not purely economic.
There is a strategic angle which is to keep India engaged with
the terror problem so as to maintain a balance. Within BRICS,
China is clearly the larger partner by virtue of its economic
might. While New Delhi is forced to deal with a terror problem,
it also has to strengthen eco ties with China. It would be foolish
to hyphenate ties with China and Pak or see its ties with Beijing
through the prism of terror. At the same time it needs to continuously
raise the terror issue without becoming a crybaby.
