WHY CHINA WANTS TO IMPOSE WAR ON INDIA?

WHY CHINA WANTS TO IMPOSE WAR ON INDIA?

There seems to be a method behind China’s renewed bellicosity towards India which has been in the making for the past several years. Behind the charming façade of bonhomie was hidden a sinister design to downsize India. It was never ever at ease whenever the world linked the two Asian giants through a hyphen. Given the size of its economy and its influence well beyond South Asia, China found it increasingly difficult to digest the world’s view of the two Asian countries which put them on equal footing. The rise of the Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi was another sore point as Prime Minister Narendra Modi government sought to deal with Beijing on equal terms, which was certainly not digestible to it as it was keen to play Big Brother in the region.

China was also miffed with New Delhi as it sought to deepen its relations with the Trump regime at a time when the relations between Washington and Beijing started worsening from 2018 onwards when both the countries resorted to tit-for-tat tariff war.  The Corona pandemic further dented the already-strained ties. Originating from Wuhan province in China, the pandemic has derailed the world economy and Trump has squarely blamed Beijing for its spread. On its part, China tried to give a new spin to it by pushing a conspiracy theory that it was the US military personnel who could have brought the corona virus to China. Angered by China’s insinuation, Trump started dubbing Corona virus as Chinese virus rubbing salt into its wounds.

A suspicious China viewed the growing bonhomie between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi as a conspiracy against its interests. As angry exchanges between the US and China escalated, President Trump’s seemingly shift towards India further piqued Beijing.  In fact, many in the Trump administration had been favouring prioritising ties with New Delhi in a bid to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the world. The Ladakh incursions by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) came at a time when several countries, including the US, were fuming at China’s continued muscle-flexing in the disputed islands in the South China Sea. China says it has “irrefutable” sovereignty over the islands, also claimed parts of the sea by Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei.

The Ladakh incursions do not seem to be a sudden move. It all began in June 2017 when the two countries were locked in a military standoff as China attempted to extend a road on the Doklam plateau southwards near the Doka La pass. Satellite images and intelligence reports are proof that the Chinese have been building several permanent military posts, a few helipads and new trenches not very far from Doklam. Doklam was just a prelude. Since then, China has been surreptitiously fortifying its positions along the LAC.

Notwithstanding its attempts to unilaterally change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, it has been blaming India for the current tension. It has put the ball in the court of New Delhi to take steps to ease the situation by withdrawing its forces from the region, while reiterating that its territory (read occupied territory) cannot be lost.

China’s game plan is to impose war on India. Even though Chinese officials have been maintaining that their country will never be the first to escalate the situation, their actions prove otherwise. Notwithstanding its attempts to unilaterally change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, it has been blaming India for the current tension. It has put the ball in the court of New Delhi to take steps to ease the situation by withdrawing its forces from the region, while reiterating that its territory (read occupied territory) cannot be lost. The statement that Chinese military is "fully determined, capable, and confident to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity" sums up its intentions.

China is eyeing one wrong move from India that will give it the sanction to escalate the situation along the border further. More than the military damages, China wants to impose a heavy cost on India so as to wreck its economy, which has been severely hit by the lockdowns imposed in the wake of the Corona virus. With Indian economy shrinking badly and the fastest of all the countries, any escalation of the situation will deal a body blow to New Delhi.

If that happens then once the world’s fastest growing economy, India will certainly slip into a mess and the recovery will take several years.  With economy in tailspin, India’s influence in the region and beyond would also diminish. There would be immense pressure on the Indian leadership to take some harsh steps to recover from the economic costs that would accrue due to escalation of the situation. And this is what China wants. It wants to mute all the voices that speak of China and India as the two giants of Asia. Just like India does not want Pakistan to be counted its equal, China detests granting India any status at par with itself.

(The article first appeared on Wionnews.com)

WHY PAKISTAN’S HEART BLEEDS FOR HAFIZ SAEED?

pix courtesy: nytimes.com

Pakistan continues to play hide and seek game with the international community as far as Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jammat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed is concerned. Within a month of Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) arresting Saeed in connection with a terrorism financing case on July 17 this year, Pakistani authorities moved swiftly to move the United Nations to allow him to use his bank account for his family's basic monthly expenses. It is baffling to figure out the purpose behind Pakistan writing a letter to the United Nations Security 

Council,  which though approved its request as no objections were raised by member countries by the deadline of August 15. Pakistan seems to have scored a self goal by approaching the United Nations, which shows its apathy for a terrorist. Does Saeed really need access to his bank account to meet his daily expenses when he is hosted by the Pakistani authorities? Couldn’t Pakistan bear his expenses covertly as it has been doing for the last several decades? 

pix courtesy: dw.com

The recent development has not only put Pakistani foreign policy mandarins shamefaced, but also exposed their shady character.  This comes at a time when Prime Minister Imran Khan is besieging the international community on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly against possible blacklisting of his almost bankrupt country by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Pakistan, which has been placed on the grey list of countries whose domestic laws are considered weak to tackle challenges of money laundering and terrorism financing, has time till October to get the decision revoked. The Paris-based body is holding its week-long plenary meeting from October 13 when Pakistan’s fate will be sealed. Pakistan, which has been reeling under double-digit inflation, high interest rates and massive discontentment as unemployment rises, will be dealt a major body blow if it is blacklisted by FATF.

It should be recalled that the Asia Pacific Group (APG) under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) during its last month meeting in Bangkok had placed Pakistan in the Enhanced Expedited Follow Up List (Blacklist) for its failure to meet 21 of the 27 action parameters. Out of 118 UN- designated terrorists, Pakistan could show action against only five, including Hafiz Saeed. The agency noted that no demonstrable action could be shown against individuals like Masood Azhar, Rauf Azhar and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi or groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Falah-e-Insaniat, Haqqani network or Daesh (Islamic State).

What makes Saeed such a formidable force that Pakistan wants to protect the UN-designated terrorist, who carries a $10 million American bounty on his head for terror activities. Saeed is an important asset for Pakistani establishment which uses his influence to carry out terror activities in Kashmir and elsewhere. 

Last year also, Pakistan had made a mockery of its so-called avowed commitment to the implementation of the United Nations Security Council 1267 sanctions regime on terrorists when it freed Saeed from the purported “house arrest” with the lame excuse that the Lahore court did not merit his detention. If that was not enough, Pakistan allowed Saeed to open the first office of his political group Milli Muslim League (MML) in Lahore. Ironically, according to Pakistani government records, the MML is the offshoot of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and JuD.

What makes Saeed such a formidable force that Pakistan wants to protect the UN-designated terrorist, who carries a $10 million American bounty on his head for terror activities. Saeed is an important asset for Pakistani establishment which uses his influence to carry out terror activities in Kashmir and elsewhere. Whilst LeT remains banned in Pakistan, the political arm of the group, Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) continues to function unhindered. LeT has been accused of attacking military and civilian targets in India, most notably the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the 2019 Pulwama attack on armed forces. Despite the ban, Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), continues to offer LeT help and protection. Not only the ISI, Saeed also enjoys the support of the powerful army as well. In fact, Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had come in full support of him when he appeared before a parliament forum last year and said that Saeed, like every other Pakistani, had the right to raise the Kashmir issue.

Approaching the UN Security Council is nothing but a false show by Pakistan that it has choked all funds to Saeed who desperately needed money to meet his expenses. In the letter, Pakistan has described Saeed, a designated global terrorist, as an assistant professor of engineering and technology in Lahore. In its overzealousness in garnering support for Saeed, Pakistani foreign ministry officials convincingly forgot that the establishment had only a few months ago arrested him on charges of terror financing. The latest development is another concrete proof of Pakistan’s deepening nexus between the establishment and the terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Pakistan’s steadfast support to terrorists like Saeed, that too when the FATF meet is scheduled next month, is something hard to digest. Either it is not aware of the impending dangers or is it confident that it will manage to extricate out of the mess. In the event of Pakistan downgraded further and blacklisted by FATF, not only will it lose its power to approach major international banks for loans, no country or institution will be permitted to invest in Pakistan. Can Pakistan afford this? In the 36-member FATF, Pakistan needs at least 15 votes to escape the humiliation and getting blacklisted, which looks highly unlikely.

It is high time the global community sees through the shenanigans of Pakistan whose Prime Minister Imran Khan has proudly claimed to be hosting 30,000 to 40,000 terrorists and threatening nuclear war with India. Khan also boasted that "40 different militant groups" were operating from Pakistan. What more evidence does the international community need when an elected prime minister of Pakistan himself claims that his country is the hub of terrorists!  The world’s major powers have time and again failed to practice what they preach the so-called war against terrorism. The problem is every country looks at terrorism through its only prism. For example, Iran is a ‘number one nation of terror’ according to President Donald Trump who carefully avoids a question on Pakistan as a terrorist country. For President Trump, Pakistan can still prove its worthiness whenever he takes a U-turn, as has been his forte, and wants to reopen talks with the Taliban so as to pull out his forces from Afghanistan before he bids for re-election next year.

Until and unless the world comes round the view that terrorism offers the biggest challenge to the mankind and requires concerted action, the war against terrorism is not going to succeed. Or one to understand that some powerful countries don’t really want an end to terrorism so that they can continue selling their military hardware to countries afflicted with terrorism and make a capital out of it!