INDIA'S ATTEMPTS AND CHINA'S BLOCKAGE

India had, in vain, attempted to bring the focus of the world on to terrorism for decades. Most of the times the western countries looked at the cross border terrorism in India as only a border skirmishes between the neighbors and nothing more.  No credence was given to the Indian voice against terrorism.  But the September 11, 2001 attack on the world trade center in New York and later the November 26, 2008 attack on Mumbai shook the world out of its comfortable denial of terrorism.  Despite the USA's actions against terrorism in Afghanistan and supporting Pakistan to combat terrorism, nothing concrete came out of it. Pakistan played its double role very well in the global theater and promised the western world that it was fighting the terrorists as they themselves are a victim of terrorism.  

As the new government took over in New Delhi in May 2014, the prime minister Narendra Modi made it a point to visit as many countries as possible in as little time as available to him, to drum up support to fight the terrorism globally and change the image of India in the world stage.  This seems to bear fruit in that most of the permanent members except China in the UN Security Council have moved a resolution to name the terror mastermind Maulana Masood Azhar as a global terrorist and impose sanction on him and his outfit. The earlier attempts by India to the same end were defeated even by those members who are now moving the motion.  But China had been resiliently opposing this move and blocking it time and again. Let us look at the issues involved in the light of Pulwama attack and post Pulwama air-strike on the training camp of JeM.

China had been eyeing India with lots of suspicion for many reasons.  Since its armed take over of Tibet and the Dalai Lama seeking asylum in India in the late 1950s, China had been having a sore feeling about India politically.  Though the permanent seat UNSC was offered to China on India declining the same during the early part of its independence, it feels that India had done a great injustice by offering asylum to Dalai Lama and his entourage.  It never approved of the Mcmohan line that is between the two countries.  It had questioned the same and also laid claims to many parts of north east part of India especially Arunachal Pradesh.  It raises its bogey of objection whenever a senior political leader visits the area which normally gets a reply that the area is within sovereign state of India and the political heads have every right to visit any part of the country.  

Militarily the China's People Liberation Army is numerically strong with more men, arms, ammunition, air crafts, ships and submarines.  But the recent reports indicate that many in the PLA are not conversant with more modern arms and ammunition as they lack training.  Socially both countries have more or less similar situation with more populous cities which are richer compared to their rural counterparts. Migration from the rural areas to urban cities for employment thereby the mainstay of rural areas viz. agriculture suffering in the bargain.  

Globally the China in the last 3 decades had grown into a manufacturing center with more and more western enterprises setting up their manufacturing plants in the cities in China obviously for the low labour cost.  The expertise that they have developed in making anything that is made in western countries to the same precision and looks is something that cannot be overlooked when it comes to its own original industrial products.  They had gone about lending to many countries in Asia and Africa for the infrastructure of the nations. The countries in the Indian Ocean rim area were the first target of China as it was easy for them to monitor the activities of India from close quarters.

Though India unshackled itself from its earlier Licence Permit Quota Raj of Nehruvian' socialism during the decade starting 1991, still it is far behind the advances made by China in the last thirty years.  However, since the advent of Modi in May 2014, there had been a fillip to the development of industry and commerce with specific thrust on make in India for India and the world.  This is proving to be a bigger thorn in the neck of China's plans for its own commercial goals.  When its own economy is slowing down, it is witnessing with horror a growth of Indian economy in the last five years.  The actions of the government of India since May 2014 had been to the detriment of China's commercial and military interests.  The agreement between Vietnam and India for development of the former's port in South China Sea and using it as a naval port even during peacetime is to the chagrin of China.  The Chabahar port agreement with Iran is another thorn in the neck of China as the port is very close to its own commercial interest port in Pakistan's Gwadar. The scrapping of the Trincomalee port agreement by Srilanka  and the change in stance in Maldives proves the influence wielded by India in its neighborhood.  The military stand-off at Doklam is something that China never expected to happen and had to retreat for saving its face. These are just nor irritants to China but damaging its commercial outlay in these countries and it suffers militarily also.  

When it comes to Pakistan and China's adamant posture in the UNSC to veto the proposal to name Maulana Masood Azhar as a global terrorist have to be seen in the light of the above. China has invested heavily in Pakistan especially in the POK area and in developing the Gwadar port in Baluchistan province. The CPEC agreement with Pakistan has enabled China to have a foothold in the Arabian sea port of Gwadar which it will use militarily even in peace times. Added to that the heavy investment in POK to develop the infrastructure and other commercial interests will be badly affected if China agrees to go along with India on the terror issue across the border in Pakistan or in POK.  The only time it sided with India was when it advised Pakistan to tone down its hawkish stance and hand over the captured IAF pilot back to India.  In the event Pakistan had defied the global advise to release the captured IAF pilot and went ahead with more misadventures in India, there would have been a war among neighbors, though a limited one and that too a conventional one.  Even then the Chinese commercial interests in POK would have suffered greater damages.

China, traditionally had seen India not as a good neighbor but a competitor in every area.  But in the last thirty years since the advent of Deng Xiao Ping as the supreme leader of the country in the late 1970s,  China had overtaken India in many spheres of economic activity.  Its influence in many areas in the world and in the global forums like UN, UNSC and the WEF had increased tremendously.  Though India came out of its slumber and started unshackling its industry and commerce from government control in 1991, it could not match the growth of China both industrially and militarily.  Moreover, India had not taken China as a threat even though it had a limited war with that country in 1962. But the scenario changed with the change in government in New Delhi in May 2014 and most of the military plans are being drawn with the threat China posed directly and indirectly as its center.  Not only that the government of India has gone ahead and built infrastructure in areas which were traditionally objected to by China. An airfield in Leh in Ladakh, in Arunachal Pradesh, in Sikkim, connecting the north east to rest of the country through railway lines, providing good roads in these areas, building bridges across mighty Brahmaputra etc. are seen mostly as military assets by China.  While it is a fact that these will be used by the military in the event of skirmishes with China in the east or Pakistan in the west, it cannot be denied that these developments were not there despite a seven decade period since independence and these areas were neglected in comparison to the other areas of the country. 

Given these scenarios, China is weary of India and feels it is the only way to checkmate the country is to block its efforts in neutralizing Pakistan and its terror outfits by naming the persons and their organizations as global terror heads.