India Needs Fresh Efforts To Mend Ties With China
The double standard in what Pakistan, with China’s “iron-clad backing”, was attempting to do was so obvious as to make Rajnath Singh see red at the meeting table.
The Pahalgam attack changed so many things for India that its action at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers’ meeting in scuttling a joint declaration was predictable. The double standard in what Pakistan, with China’s “iron-clad backing”, was attempting to do was so obvious as to make Rajnath Singh see red at the meeting table. His refusal to sign any declaration prepared at Pakistan’s behest was in keeping with the tough line India has sworn to take on cross-border terror.
In quibbling over terror events and trying to equate the attack on Jaffer Express in Balochistan with what happened at Pahalgam where innocent tourists were gunned down, Pakistan had given the game away. And since any declaration from SCO can come only by consensus, India’s resistance was enough to shoot down the double game that Pakistan tried to play. Only the cynic can tolerate Pakistan’s diplomacy on the grounds that the term itself evolved from “an object folded in two”, leaving space for contradiction and dichotomy.
In the proliferating confusion of an emerging multipolar world, but one in which the United States is still calling the shots, adjusting to the idiosyncrasies of Donald Trump, who one day calls the Pakistan Army chief to lunch and the next day invites the Indian Prime Minister to the White House, Pakistan may have learnt a lesson or two because very soon the US was also dropping bombs on Iran.
What India cannot challenge is Pakistan being well ensconced in the Chinese embrace. India cannot compromise on its tough stand on terror to which Pakistan presents a Janus-faced appearance — crying hoarse about being a victim of terror while pursuing it as a state policy against India. At the same time, in the prevailing uncertainty regarding global trade thanks to Trump and tariffs, India can ill afford to alienate China simply because it is Pakistan’s benefactor.
Considering India’s trade with China is almost as huge as that with the US, but with a negative bias in terms of a yawning deficit as opposed to a healthy surplus with the US, India’s multi pronged effort to reset its trade ties in the world post January 20, 2025, the day Trump took office, must include China, too.
It made sense then, despite the tantalising Trump hint at a “great deal with India”, that Rajnath Singh should define the way forward to ease border tension with China and look to better diplomatic ties in his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Admiral Dong Jun. He also spelt out a four-pronged plan, beginning with the border issue and pointing the way to an improved relationship.
China did reveal that India’s defence minister averred his country is not seeking conflict or confrontation. Rajnath Singh may not have mentioned trade ties, which may not have been his remit, but India must not let the abrasive nature of its relationship with Pakistan come in the way of normal ties with China. As things stand in the global order today, trade trumps the military action that has sprouted in Europe and the Middle East.
