Mother’s milk

As the SAARC Foreign Ministers met in Pakistan on Tuesday, China’s People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the nation that sells a few m...

As the SAARC Foreign Ministers met in Pakistan on Tuesday, China’s People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the nation that sells a few million copies everyday in English and Chinese, began a report out of Islamabad that said, ‘‘Pakistan and China are all-weather, intimate friends, with a relationship that has endured the test of time.’’

The paper’s Islamabad correspondent pointed out that the Pakistani interim PM Chaudhury Shujaat gave his first interview to a visiting Chinese news delegation on Monday, where he told them that China would be the only other nation outside SAARC that would find mention in his speech. Pak Information Minister Sheikh Rashid pointed out that Pakistan-China friendship was like mother’s milk, it was passed on from generation to generation, there was no need to ‘‘educate’’ anyone about it. Analysts remembered that even in January, when then Pakistan PM Jamali made his speech during the SAARC summit, he brought in a mention of China.

On Monday, the new Pakistan went one better. He promptly invited all members of the Chinese delegation to the banquet that he’s throwing for External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh.

Sino-SAARC talks

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Clearly, SAARC seems to have so intimately grabbed China’s attention that one wonders whether Beijing believes it’s time to junk the Himalayan buffer zone that has kept it separated from New Delhi’s South Asian sphere of influence for the last 50 years. A question on SAARC by visiting Indian journalists to the Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Guofang provoked a barrage of rhetoric. First of all, Comrade Shen pointed out that China was definitely interested in deepening its cooperation with SAARC. Secondly, he wanted New Delhi’s help so that both countries could play a ‘‘leading role at an appropriate time.’’

Perhaps the India-China Business Forum could be used to test the waters. Indian and Chinese academics could junket to each other’s nations. And bilateral economic relations could be strengthened through financial dialogue mechanisms and joint study groups which could also be used to launch China’s own partnership with SAARC.

Then Shen threw in a teaser. As cooperation grows, both sides could begin to discuss the opening of additional consulates in each other’s countries. He didn’t say where, whether Lhasa, Kolkata or Gangtok. Meanwhile, the Indian mission in Shanghai, which was thrown out of its original property during the Cultural Revolution years, is likely to soon be relocated. For the last many years, the mission has been functioning out of rented property in an office block.

Five principles

Back in Pakistan, certainly Chaudhury Shujaat cannot be faulted for his generosity. Even if Beijing and Islamabad did not have a friendship that is publicly described as being ‘‘deeper than the oceans and higher than the mountains,’’ he probably thought India and China had well and truly gotten over their recent tensions — last noticed when the same Shen Guofang reminded Natwar Singh that his proposal of a ‘‘common nuclear doctrine’’ with Pakistan was not such a good idea — after the very warm exchanges between Natwar Singh and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing in Qingdao and Jakarta in the last few weeks. Then there were the receptions to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Panchsheel — although Beijing prefers to use the term, Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence — in both capitals and statements by the respective heads of state.

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In Jakarta especially, as Messrs Li and Singh, a declared Sinophile, got along like the proverbial house on fire, they are also said to have exchanged notes on the concept propagated by President Hu recently, called the ‘‘peaceful rise of China.’’ Soon after, Mr Li picked up the phone and called his ambassador in India, after which Singh also spoke to the Chinese ambassador.