China’s veto wars

Historically, China has been the least obstructive member of the United Nations’ Permanent Security Council (comprising the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China). The exclusive membership of the P5, which is rightfully sought by India, grants the power to veto and therefore enables any member to prevent the adoption of any “substantive” draft resolutions — the criticality of which is in the formal declaration (on behalf of the UN) of an individual, group or country to an act of commission or omission, directly or indirectly, within the context of the proposed draft and its implicit perceptions. Since 1945, the Chinese have exercised the veto power just 11 times — though, for such a reluctant participant it has habitually snubbed India on Pakistan-related terror issues. In June 2015, China blocked an Indian resolution to question Pakistan on releasing Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, key commander of the terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba who was accused of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that had led to the loss of over 160 lives. This, in the face of overwhelming evidence, as corroborated by various international intelligence agencies.

So to that extent China blocking India’s bid to ban the terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad’s chief and mastermind of the Pathankot terror attack, Masood Azhar, follows an established Chinese diplomacy and policy pattern. If in the earlier case of Lakhvi the Chinese line was that India had “failed to provide enough information”, this time the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Hong Lei, stated that China acted on such issues on facts and rules in an “objective and just manner”. He probably gave away the real reason when he said, “The Chinese side has always been in communication with relevant parties on the listing issue,” alluding to the real arrangement of the famed “irreplaceable, all-weather friendship” of Pakistan and China that invariably converges on such platforms and issues, masked in vague diplomatic semantics.

This consistency of selective interventions at the cost of standing out as the lone opposing voice and vetoing Indian proposals amongst the P5 members played out three times when India sought to get Jamaat-ud-Dawa (political arm of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba in Pakistan) added to the UNSC’s terror list (finally added to the sanctions list in December 2008). Even the leaked 2010 US state department cables revealed how the Chinese placed “technical holds” at Pakistan’s request to block UNSC sanctions against Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Al-Akhtar Trust (charity front for Jaish-e-Mohammad, designated as a terrorist support organisation by the US), or even list the dreaded terrorist Syed Salahuddin of the Hizbul Mujahideen. Unsurprisingly, such unstinted support to Pakistani positions on untenable logic led the Pew Research Center to report in 2014 that the Pakistanis have the most favourable opinion of the Chinese, outside of China. Therefore, the strategic development of the “Pearl Port” in Gwadar, the $46 billion mega-infrastructural China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the joint development of the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft and Chinese help in building the Khushab nuclear reactor are all symptomatic of the Pakistani-Chinese equation of, geopolitical quid-pro-quo.

The single-party regime in China has allowed for a consistent and overtly strategic roadmap of China’s vision, diplomacy and an unflinching quest to challenge the hegemonic run of the US. The world at large, and the West in particular, has been successfully lulled into believing that the opening of the Chinese economy would automatically lead to the emergence of a liberal, democratic and pacifist instinct — towards that end unprecedented acts of technology transfer, business opportunities and most-favoured nation (MFN) status have been extended by the Western powers, whilst the odd behavioural streaks, like China’s recent veto, have been tolerated as it was India-centric. If anything, the Chinese have dug in their heels with aggressive military build-ups, asserting their military footprint in the restive South China Sea with surreal brazenness and maintained duplicitous stand on global terror, as exposed by its support to Pakistan and North Korea, even at the cost of international outrage. Reality is, unlike its ready condemnation and support for proposals against the Taliban and ISIS which have a global impact (especially for the Western nations), it realises that it can get away by selectively cocking a snook at India.

The essential reality, post Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India in 2014 and the reciprocal visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2015, has exposed the hollowness of the initial claims of “personal chemistry” and the “highest level receptions” — fact remains, that even prior to the UN veto snub, the promised investments between India and China only stuttered in. Flare-ups on the India-China border continue with a certain regularity. There’s dangerous meddling in the fragile Indo-Nepal sentiments are stoked with condescending concern for Nepal’s plight by China. Even economically, India still has a massive trade deficit with China, which increased by about 34 per cent in 2014-15. Suggested semblance of thaw between the two suspicious nations has changed little on ground — there is still no respite to the Chinese restrictions on import of value-added Indian goods and services such as pharmaceuticals and IT expertise.

Embarrassing reneging on the principal of reciprocity by Pakistan’s joint investigation team (JIT) on Pathankot and the flanking Chinese intransigence vis-à-vis India has a vital lesson on India’s focus on managing optics versus the Pakistani-Chinese realpolitik. India has to go beyond the theatrics of frenzied NRIs, ultra-nationalistic chest-thumping and charm offensives — it has to grind itself for the long haul of professional diplomatic engagements and hardnosed realpolitik. Initial enthusiasm for managing international headlines and appropriating the most “internationally-savvy” credentials, needs to be sobered down and handled with less fanfare and more dexterity. The Pakistanis have reiterated their stand of duplicitous absurdities, the Nepalis are increasingly cosying up to the Chinese and China continues with its strategic chicanery. The US, amidst all this, ends up giving F-16s and attack helicopters to Pakistan (ostensibly to take on terrorists!). In the end, India ends up looking silly, sulky (pointing to the imminent Islamist threat within China and its dangerous import to them in the days to come), and amateurishly over-enthusiastic about country-hopping, but really ending up with a disgruntled neighbourhood like never before.

The writer is former lieutenant-governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry