Can Modi’s tough talk on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir make Xi budge?

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi held his first bilateral meeting ahead of the G20 Summit with President Xi Jinping of China, he red-flagged the crucial issue of decisively increased Chinese presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as well as Beijing’s growing bonhomie with Islamabad, despite the terror menace in South Asia.

In Hangzhou on Sunday, September 4, PM Modi asked Beijing to "respect" and be "sensitive" to New Delhi’s rising worries regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through PoK, despite major terror threats emanating from that zone of acute instability.

Read in the context of China’s recent anti-India positions – stalling New Delhi’s bid for the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership and also vetoing India’s bid get the United Nations to officially declare Masood Azhar, the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief, as a terrorist – PM Modi’s tough talk is both timely and expected.

New Delhi’s new aggressive posturing and raising of the Balochistan bogey may have riled both Beijing and Islamabad, but in this climate of tit-for-tat sabre-rattling, genuine talks on anti-terror cooperation stand little chance if China isn’t a party to them.

While Modi has tried to court Xi a number of times during his two years in office, including the latter’s much hyped India visit and the "swing diplomacy" on the banks of Sabarmati, India-China relations have not significantly improved, with a number of incursions across the Line of Actual Control.

However, a tougher Modi, backed now by a sterner United States signing crucial defence deals such as LEMOA with India, may influence Xi to do a rethink on China’s accelerating involvement in Pakistan and PoK. After all, the terrorist attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan may only be the beginning of more sustained, low-scale assaults on Chinese assets in the region.

China’s bid to fill in the geopolitical void created in Pakistan/PoK, with Washington’s growing misgivings over Islamabad and openly siding with New Delhi at various global summits, may quickly backfire. With too many rival factions that are out of control, arming and funding them the way the US had done through the last quarter of 20th century will not exactly give China a stable economic corridor for a peaceful and prosperous Asia.

Because the CPEC will link the Kashgar city of China with Gwadar port in Balochistan, creating an oil, gas and freight superhighway on either directions, its passing through PoK is an enormous burden on India as long as the terror threats loom large on Jammu and Kashmir, in particular, and South Asia in general.

PM Modi has recently stated that PoK is firmly a part of Jammu and Kashmir, which is an Indian state, despite having a special status under Article 370. In this light, the CPEC is violative of India’s territorial and geostrategic integrity because it bypasses New Delhi altogether.

With Chinese military’s covert presence in Gilgit-Baltistan since the 1963 Sino-Pakistan agreement, as well as the new, overt economic understandings between Beijing and Islamabad, things are not looking up for India at this point.

Modi has urged that economic considerations mustn’t be over and above principles of standing together against global terror. However, a fuel and logistics superhighway running parallel to the Line of Control and cutting through PoK impacts India negatively as it further bolsters a completely unstable and unpredictable Pakistan.

Given the current mess in Kashmir valley, and an all-party talk having had a rough start with the Hurriyat Conference backing out, mutual hostilities are likely to only go up and not come down. But can PM Modi increase pressure on China through forums like BRICS, G20 and the UN General Assembly?

New Delhi cannot be solely reliant on a relatively India-friendly regime in Washington in a US election year. So, what’s the next step?

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