Steering clear of any reference to Islamabad, China on Monday highlighted that combating international terrorism was a shared global responsibility, days ahead of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in which India and Pakistan will become full members.
In response to a question regarding accusations that the Haqqani network, allegedly backed by the Pakistani intelligence, was behind the recent Kabul blasts that killed scores, China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Li Huilai said that Beijing opposed “all forms of terrorism”.
Citing the string of terror attacks that targeted Afghanistan, Britain, and the Philippines, Mr. Li stressed that a global consensus had been achieved that “the international community had to jointly tackle terrorism”. No “single country or party” had the capacity to tackle the menace alone, he observed. China, he added was willing to work with all parties “bilaterally or regionally” to achieve regional stability.
Mr. Li confirmed that India and Pakistan will become full members of the SCO during the course to grouping’s summit in the Kazakhstan’s capital Astana later this week.
He said that during the summit that begins on June 7, a resolution would be passed “according status of membership to India and Pakistan”. With the inclusion of the two countries, the “geographic coverage (of the SCO) will be extended to South Asia, covering three-fifth of the Eurasian continent covering half the population of the world”. Consequently, the SCO would become more representative, with an enhanced potential for cooperation, he observed.
In response to a question, the Chinese official said that India’s bid for membership of the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) “is more complicated what was imagined previously”. He added, “China supports the NSG to have several consultations to reach a non-discriminatory and universally applicable solution to all the members of the NSG.”
Mr. Li stressed that China and India as “important neighbours” and “emerging market economies” are positioned to play global responsibilities. He said that Beijing-New Delhi cooperation was important to “world peace and stability”. Pointing to the “multiple
meetings” between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said that “healthy relations” between China and India would contribute “to Asia (as well as) world peace stability”.
Mr. Li’s observations echoed Mr. Modi’s remarks during a panel discussion in St. Petersburg, where he said that China and India had come together in the BRICS framework. "It is true that we have a border dispute with China. But in the last 40 years, not a single bullet has been fired because of it," Mr. Modi had observed.
