WIDER AND DEEPER

When India became free, the new Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang  was of one year old.  When Mao brought China under Communism,  Li was of slightly more than three years. When he was of 19 years, as a young communist, he visited India in  delegation some 27 years ago. Now, at the age of 67, he came to India as his country’s premier and took such long time to learn a single Hindi word NAMASTE. If this is the rate of his learning, God knows after  how long he  will be able to rightly understand the depth of Indo-Chinese bilateral relations. This explains why he skipped  to answer any question from the press while in India, on the logic behind the Depsang Valley intrusion. He simply said that the problem of demarcating the borders between both the countries would be sorted out amicably. We know this old and much repeated cliché. Like any Chinese celebrity, Li also bears an enigmatic smile which does not match with the real thinking inside. In this respect, Li appears similar to his old predecessor, Zhou Enlai.

The political analysts in the world are aware that whether it is an American politician or a Chinese, after the India visit, his next stop is bound to be Islamabad. The compulsion is that both are the friends of Pakistan and of late they have started befriending India. For the USA, Pakistan is a very strategically important country particularly in its dealings with Afghanistan and Iran. Since the US is destined to withdraw forces from Afghanistan in 2014, it cannot be kept immuned from the Taliban influences without a friendly Pakistan. Pakistan itself, on the other hand, is in the throes fo terrorist menace and requires American help in cash and kind to handle the situation. So the US diplomats, immediately after leaving New Delhi, go to Islamabad and tell  their local counterpart that the US-Pak relationship would not be allowed to dilute.

The same exercise is repeated by the Chinese as well and by doing so, Li just fulfilled a customary duty. We understand that no country has done a better service to China than Pakistan by handing over Skirdu and adjoining areas of POK. Previously, China had to go for a long detour, if it wanted to visit Pakistan and other Arabian countries. Now, once the Karakoram Highway is complete, Chinese trucks, buses and other light vehicles can easily come to Pakistan and ferry materials from the Gwadar Port in southern Pakistan, developed by the Chinese investment and expertise. Will China ever want to antagonize that Pakistan?   It is inthis background that to the press at Islamabad, Li  made it publicly clear that while the Indo-Chinese relations were widening, the Sino-Pak mutual relation was taking still deeper routes. He said that at the cost of improving its relations with India, China would not sacrifice its Pak friendship. In this backdrop, we in India are still deciphering the enigmatic smile on Li’s face as well as the meaning of ‘wider’ and ‘deeper’.