(TibetanReview.net, Dec06’21) – China not only got India to support Beijing’s hosting of the Winter Olympics 2022 and thereby claim victory for its stand on the border dispute with the latter but it also prevented any critical mention of two India-specific terrorist groups based in Pakistan during the 18th Meeting of their Foreign Ministers with that of Russia via video-link on Nov 26, according to the timesofindia.com Dec 4. Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy, and China are all-weather friends and strong partners in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative projects.
China is learnt to have prevented a specific mention of Pakistan-based terror groups like LeT and JeM in the RUSSIA-India-China (RIC) joint communique last week but India is hoping to make up for it with an unequivocal condemnation of these UNSC-proscribed groups in the summit and the first ever 2+2 dialogue with Russia on Dec 6, the report said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit New Delhi to hold his annual summit meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Dec 6 evening after the 2+2 that will see India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar and defence minister Rajnath Singh holding wide-ranging talks with their counterparts, Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Shoigu respectively.
The report said India was working with Russia to ensure a categorical assertion of the need to eliminate India-focused terror groups for enduring peace in Afghanistan.
The joint communique issued after the 18th RIC virtual meeting had left out LeT and JeM even as it stressed the necessity of urgent elimination of UNSC-proscribed terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIL and others for lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.
India, in turn, ensured there was no mention of East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a non-existent, allegedly Uyghur extremist group accused of fanning separatism in occupied Xinjiang.
India also insisted on mentioning that those financing terrorism are held accountable in keeping with, among other things, FATF standards. Pakistan has continued to appear in FATF standards’ grey list in recent years.
Also, while human rights campaigners as well as lawmakers from a number of democratic countries in the West continue their call for sporting or otherwise diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, India has expressed its support for the host in the Nov 26 joint communiqué.
China’s trenchantly nationalist, state-run globaltimes.cn Nov 28 said the joint communiqué “fully demonstrates that although border disputes between China and India continue to exist, they are not the whole of the bilateral relations.”
India has in recent times been insisting that good neighbourliness was essential for normalizing relations between the two countries, while China’s position has been that the border situation need not affect overall bilateral ties.
