Does China Want Indo-Pak war?

[Guest guest]

Is China wanting to have an Indo-Pak war?

 

By N. K. Pant

Source: Free Press Journal

August 28, 2002

 

It is a normal practice for the heads of states or the governments

to visit friendly nations once in a while to further their foreign

policy objectives whenever they can spare their precious little

time from pressing domestic burdens. Seen from this angle

from New Delhi, there could, perhaps, have been nothing

unusual when General Pervez Musharraf, President as well as

the Army Chief of Pakistan went on a recent scheduled official

goodwill tour of two SAARC nations- Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

But mysteriously the wily General, instead of making a short hop

back home across the Arabian Sea, decided to make an

extraordinarily long and tedious detour to Beijing for a mere ten

hours halt to offer salaams to theocratic Pakistan's communist

patrons in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Moreover, what

added to the Chinese puzzle was that the General had already

made two official trips to that country within a short span of the

preceding one year. Even three years back, during the limited

war in mountainous terrain of Kargil which was covertly

engineered by him as the Pakistani Army Chief, Musharraf was

in Beijing on a military related important official business. This

was the time when Indian intelligence sleuths used their skill by

intercepting the long notorious telephone conversation between

him and Islamabad's vice army chief proving his duplicity in the

sordid military adventure against India.

 

What could have been the aim of such hush-hush exercise of

calling on the communist leadership at Beijing this particular

time of the year? Surely, it could neither be a mere discussion

with President Jiang Zemin on his country's troubled ties with

India nor an attempt to convince the Chinese leadership that

Pakistan's current warming up to the United States on the terror

front was not at the cost of Chinese national interests. On the

other hand, the real purpose of the visit was to send frightening

signals to New Delhi that in its present military stand off with

India, Islamabad had full backing from its staunchest ally-China

with whom it blindly shares common views on all possible

issues under the sun.

 

China has left no stone unturned to contain India strategically in

its efforts to be the dominant power in Asia and Islamabad's

persistent all pervasive hostile posture to New Delhi became a

convenient tool to achieve such perverse objective. In this

context, Beijing's continuing assistance to Pakistan's nuclear

and missile programmes is quite evidently a part of this

diabolical policy. Otherwise why should China consistently

provide Pakistan with wide-ranging wholehearted assistance to

enable the Islamic country to develop nuclear weapons and a

wide variety of short and medium range missiles meant for use

against India? Strangely, the artful mandarins in Beijing are

quick to feign diplomatic innocence and deny their involvement in

developing Pakistan's nuclear weaponry and its delivery system.

China which pretends to exude warmth and friendliness to New

Delhi, also has become a source for Pakistan for acquiring

conventional weapons such as aircraft, guns, tanks and naval

vessels at friendship rates in order to enable it to maintain

military parity with India.

 

It is a well established fact that China is deliberately playing

delaying tactics with India in solving the long standing border

dispute with the aim of reviving the bitter discord at an

appropriate time of choosing of its own. Presently, the

communist country is frantically engaged in modernization

programme of its military machine that includes nuclear-tipped

land, air and sea launched missiles along with long-range

aircraft. It has purchased long-range SU-27 and SU-30 combat

aircraft, submarines, destroyers, sophisticated air defence

missiles, air to air refuellers and IL-76 air freighters for

conversion into AWACS. China's rapid economic growth and

increasing wealth has come handy to move on a fast track in its

military modernization programme by obtaining sophisticated

Russian as well as western weaponry and advanced defence

technology.

 

Strangely, the continuing tension in South Asia suits the

commercially uncanny China quite well. Not only it keeps India

tied up militarily to its belligerent western neighbour in the

sub-continent but also creates a lucrative market in Pakistan for

their military-industrial complex. In an obviously unfriendly act, in

January, 2002 China stepped up military supplies to Pakistan in

the midst of heightening Indo-Pak tension. The hardware

included unassembled brand new S-7 and S-7 fighter aircraft,

spares, nuclear and missile parts. In the preceding year too,

according to reports appearing in the US media, Islamabad

received as many as 12 shipments of missile components

which were meant for the production of Shaheen series of

medium range nuclear tipped missiles capable of targeting a

major part of India. Pakistan also has plans to produce four

warships at Karachi with Chinese assistance.

 

It has almost become a routine practice in Beijing to issue

officially tailored denials after news reports on supplies of arms,

nuclear and missile material appear in the western press.

These are often dismissed as groundless rumours meant to

slander China. Islamabad too follows its master's voice in

contradicting the veracity of such news reports despite the fact

that even some Pakistani dailies carried items on arrival of

several Chinese ships at Karachi port laden with defence

supplies in January this year. Strangely, Islamabad calls its

nuclear weaponry and delivery system as totally indigenous and

refutes that China has provided any assistance in their

fabrication.

 

Recently, the renowned Japanese expert on international

relations Hideaki Kase who served as special advisor to former

Japanese Prime Ministers Takeo Fukuda and Yasuto Nakasone

almost threw a bombshell when he made an incredibly gloomy

prognosis saying that China wants a Indo-Pak war - possibly a

nuclear conflict to weaken India. His advice to India was to put in

place anti- ballistic missile shield as Beijing is engaging in a

large-scale military build up. Mr Kase who presently is the

professor of international relations at Takushoku University feels

that the longer one party rule continues in China, the greater is

the danger to surrounding region. According to his assessment,

the communist rulers know that 'unless China seizes hegemony

in the neighbouring region, it can not assure rule over several

billion of people in the years to come.'

 

This probably explains Beijing's strange behavior in its dealings

with New Delhi. During the preceding decade, diplomatically

shrewd Chinese have pretended to come closer to India by

overtly extending hand of cordiality. There have been several

friendly visits at the highest political level from both sides. Even

Indian naval and air chiefs have paid visits to China though the

army chief's scheduled tour has abruptly been called off.

Besides there have been several exchanges in commercial,

cultural and other fields. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is

also scheduled to make an official sojourn in China by this year

end. But all these friendly gestures would remain a mere

cosmetic exercise and pure hogwash unless Beijing stops

endangering India's very existence as an political entity by

continuously building up Pakistan's India specific conventional

and nuclear arsenal besides showing sincerity in amicably

settling the long standing border dispute with India.