China on Saturday invited India to consider the “larger picture” of ties, focussing on opportunities that New Delhi can avail by participating in the Belt and Road connectivity initiative, and not allowing specific differences on counterterrorism to cloud the growing relationship.
Economic, not political
In response to questions, spokesperson Fu Ying said that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was not a political but an economic project from which India could benefit. “The Belt and Road is a connectivity programme for economic development and will also benefit India,” Ms. Fu said. “So we need to bear in mind the larger picture.”
In India, there are apprehensions that BRI has geopolitical overtones, highlighted by the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — a part of the BRI — which passes through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
China is seeking a high-level Indian participation in the BRI summit that it is hosting in May.
But last month foreign secretary S. Jaishankar, who was in Beijing leading the Indian delegation for a strategic dialogue with China, raised India’s concerns regarding the CPEC within the ambit of the BRI.
“The issue is not about connectivity per se,” observed Mr. Jaishankar. “The fact is CPEC is part of this particular initiative and CPEC violates Indian sovereignty because it runs through PoK.”
Ms. Fu did not respond directly to a query regarding the China’s widely perceived role in the United Nations of hindering sanctions on Masood Azhar, the head of the Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammad group. But she stressed that the momentum of a further improvement of Beijing-New Delhi ties should not be stalled. “We cannot allow issues that cannot be worked out for the moment to stop us from moving forward,” she observed.
Nevertheless, Ms. Fu, a former Vice-Foreign Minister, pointed out that it was natural to have differences, but India and China “need to be more sensitive to each other's concerns, so we can better address them”. She highlighted that economic ties between the two countries had improved rapidly, and trade, which stood at a paltry $2 billion in the later 1990s, now exceeded $70 billion.
