India did not attend the recently held Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in China.
Why India did not attend?
India referred to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and affirmed that “no country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
International isolation is not India’s biggest problem as China’s connectivity projects under Xi’s BRI gathers momentum.
India is too large an economic and political entity to be isolated by another power.
India’s real challenge is to match its claims on territorial sovereignty with effective action on the ground.
Although the popular discourse in India sees Kashmir as a bilateral issue with Pakistan, China has always made it a three-body problem.
China-Pak angle:
China is in occupation of a large part of Ladakh in the north-eastern part of J&K.
To the west, Pakistan had ceded part of the territory controlled by it to Beijing after the Sino-Indian border conflict of 1962.
China’s first trans-border infrastructure project in Kashmir — the Karakoram Highway — dates back to the late 1960s. Since then, China’s presence in Pak-occupied Kashmir has steadily grown.
As the CPEC deepens the integration between Pakistan occupied Kashmir and China, Beijing looms larger than ever before over J&K.
Does China alley India’s concerns?
In the last few days, Beijing seemed eager to address India’s sovereignty concerns about CPEC.
Delhi was not impressed though, for the pickings seemed meagre.
Nevertheless, the effort by the two countries to address the tricky issue of territorial sovereignty in Kashmir is welcome and must continue.
While it may be prepared to talk, Beijing is unlikely to suspend work on its economic and strategic projects in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
What India needs to do?
India must now articulate a political framework for economic and commercial cooperation across the contested frontiers of Kashmir in all directions.
The Sino-Indian argument on CPEC in Kashmir is deeply connected to the question of Arunachal Pradesh.
While China asks India to downplay the sovereignty argument in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, Beijing objects to all Indian activity, political or economic, in Arunachal Pradesh.
The state is part of the Indian Union, but is claimed in entirety by China.
In Arunachal, India needs to raise its game on accelerating the state’s economic development and its connectivity to the rest of India.
Delhi must devote high-level political attention to the long-neglected Andaman and Nicobar islands that sit across China’s planned maritime silk routes in the eastern Indian Ocean.
