India must be disappointed with China’s decision to block the United Nations move to act against Pakistan for setting Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi free. While all the other 14 members of the UN Sanctions Committee were in agreement on hauling Pakistan over the coals for its obvious encouragement of a terrorist like Lakhvi, China’s veto power has led to a stalemate that will allow Lakhvi to flaunt state support for his anti-India activities, further worsening the tenuous ties between the two countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken up the issue at the highest level in China, an indication that India would like to continue its “walking on two legs” policy on China — encouraging trade and tourism ties while still trying to bring it around to see reason on its strategic partnership with Pakistan. But that is never going to change so long as China is geopolitically bonded to Pakistan. The China-Pakistan partnership is further strengthened by the strategic long road China is helping build from Kashgar is south China to Gwadar port in Balochistan on the Arabian Sea.
China is playing a dangerous game in encouraging deep ties with Pakistan in the hope it will have some influence over the ethnic Muslim Uighur terror groups whose restive ties with the majority Han Chinese have led to several terror incidents, including the latest this week in which at least 18 people died. What the latest Chinese intervention in the UN suggests is China is not to be taken for granted and its professing of natural ties with India are to be seen as just more lip service to diplomacy.
