Ahead of the Modi-Xi informal summit, China is concerned about a possible media orchestration of a border incident next month during the Chinese President’s visit to India, says BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy.
“I would say that there is in the minds [of the Chinese] some doubts that we need to remove. One is they are concerned that what you have done with Article 370, are we going to do something about Ladakh,” Dr. Swamy said in an interaction with resident Indian media in Beijing on Monday.
Dr. Swamy met Vice Foreign Minister Luo Zhaohui. He also addressed the elite Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and participated in a symposium organised by the Tsinghua University.
“We [in India] can’t control every military commander just as they [in China] can’t. But they have said there has been new military activity in Aksai Chin and Arunachal. And they are very naturally complaining about the press blowing up these things. And they [could] time it when Xi Jinping comes,” he said.
Dr. Swamy stressed that China was concerned about India’s ties with the U.S., which were highlighted on Sunday in Houston where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump addressed a packed football stadium.
“We need a political understanding [with China] that in any intervention of the U.S. in Asia, we will not be a party [whether it is] South China Sea islands, Taiwan or Hong Kong. On Tibet, we will not allow anyone to get into Tibet,” Dr. Swamy observed.
He pointed out that the Chinese were apprehensive about India’s pursuit of the Indo-Pacific strategy, which could be used for the containment of China. “They are concerned about the Indo-Pacific because Secretaries of Australia, Japan, India and the U.S. are meeting on September 26 at the UN. They are concerned about our presence in an anti-China [mechanism]. I think we should take such concerns seriously,” Dr. Swamy said.
“I personally feel that India-China relations are of primary importance. America is far away and America has its own cost-benefit analysis. Latest example is Afghanistan. Had America left as it was planning…handing it over to Taliban, it would have been a security disaster for India.”
The visiting parliamentarian, in the backdrop of growing friction between India and Pakistan after India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, also proposed to his Chinese hosts, a trilateral track-2 dialogue, only on terrorism, among New Delhi, Beijing and Islamabad.
“I had suggested that there can then be an off-the-record meetings of Indian, Chinese and Pakistanis because there was an admission that China also is suffering from terrorism. So I said we then have common interests and there could be a track-2 meeting. They were very enthusiastic about it.”
“Let the three of us meet and confront each other. I explained to them [the Chinese] that this was my personal proposal.”
Asked whether he had raised China’s backing of Pakistan’s bid to internationalise Kashmir through the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) during his parleys in Beijing, Dr. Swamy said he had told his hosts that the U.N. resolutions on Kashmir were “a dead letter”. “As far as the resolution by the Security Council is concerned, that resolution has not been passed by Pakistan. Pakistan was supposed to implement it first and then only the question of plebiscite would have been taken up. Now it is a dead letter.”
On his expectations of the upcoming Modi-Xi summit, Dr. Swamy said: “I certainly think they will be discussing the scope of our relations with the U.S. and its impact on China. I am sure that trade rebalancing will be another issue. We are bound to raise the issue of Pakistan.”
