The Home Ministries of India and China have agreed to be only a phone call away from each other, by deciding to establish missing telecom links, as part of a broader security engagement between the two neighbours.
The bridging of the communication divide is part of a major effort, undertaken during the visit of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, to forge institutional linkages between the Ministry of Home Affairs and China’s Ministry of Public Security.
A flurry of proposed high-level visits also signals that the process of top level interaction between the two powerful security establishments has finally commenced.
Two high ranking Chinese security officials including Meng Jianzhu — widely known as China’s security “Czar”— will visit India in the second half of next year. Guo Shengkun, State Councillor in the Ministry of Public Security will precede his visit, in the first half of 2016. Asked whether a decision had been taken to establish a hotline between the two ministries, India’s Ambassador to China, Ashok Kantha said during the course of a media interaction, that “designated nodal points for speedier communication” will now be established. Mr. Singh clarified that Joint Secretary level talks that are now slated, following his visit, will work out details about the new communication regime between the two Ministries.
The Home Minister was referring to a decision that had been taken during his stay to establish a “working level” group led by a Joint Secretary and a Director General from the Chinese side.
This group will report to an apex ministerial level mechanism, which has been flagged during Mr. Singh’s visit. A joint statement released on Saturday pointed out that an “India-China High Level Meeting Mechanism” led by the Home Minister of India and the Minister of Public Security of China would be held in Beijing and Delhi once every two years.
“In the first half of 2016, Ministry of Public Security of China will send a Ministerial Delegation to visit India for the first meeting of this Mechanism,” the statement noted. It added that a meeting of official level group would be held once a year, alternately in Beijing and New Delhi. The first meeting of this forum would be held next year.
The Paris terror attacks preceded Mr. Singh’s talks, which made counter-terrorism collaboration, to address global threats, as their focal point.
Counter-terrorism experts of the two countries will now meet to discuss details of cooperation for combating terrorism. Mr. Kantha acknowledged that in view of the global reach of terrorism, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which annually holds large-scale counter-terrorism exercises, could well become part of India’s anti-terror template. The dialogue with the Chinese authorities also covered discussions on Afghanistan and Pakistan—two countries with strong connections with global terrorism. The joint statement also stressed on exchanges, including training courses and seminars for “law enforcement capacity building” between the two ministries. Mr. Singh said he was “very impressed” with his visit to the First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing, which employs 1200 research fellows on its rolls. “We will send a team from India to study this,” Mr. Singh observed.
