As Chinese premier Wen Jiabao kicks off his four-nation South Asia tour in Pakistan tomorrow, the Indian establishment will put every word of his statements in Islamabad under the scanner. After all, Sino-Pakistan strategic cooperation over the decades has been among the top national security considerations for India. Yet, going by recent tradition in Sino-Indian relations, not a word about Pakistan is likely to figure in the conversation between Wen and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. Singh has an opportunity to break this past and engage Wen in a frank and constructive conversation about Pakistan and its future. Even more important, Singh can underline the potential for Sino-Indian cooperation in the much needed transformation of Pakistan. If he makes bold, Singh can even broach the prospect of triangular economic cooperation between India, China and Pakistan. While the subject of Pakistan pops up in the very first five minutes of any official conversation between India and the US, it hangs like Banquo’s ghost over the meetings between Indian and Chinese leaders. The curious Indian silence on Sino-Pak strategic collaboration does not mean India is not concerned. Pakistan is always at the back of India’s mind. New Delhi avoids talking about it because it wants to befriend China; but lack of communication on Pakistan sustains the mistrust in Sino-Indian relationship and undercuts the very effort to build friendship. A frank conversation between Indian and Chinese political leaders on Pakistan is long overdue. Since 1988, when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi traveled to China and produced a political breakthrough, the Indian strategy has been to keep quiet about Sino-Pak relations and raise the level of cooperation with Beijing. India has not called for a rupture in Sino-Pak relations. New Delhi is fully aware that it cannot force Beijing to abandon its all-weather friendship with Pakistan. But New Delhi has certainly hoped that the growing Sino-Indian relationship will induce greater balance into China’s South Asia policy. On its part, Beijing has certainly made some important adjustments to its policy towards India and Pakistan since 1998. Chinese academics suggest more changes will follow as Sino-Indian relations continue to advance. Optimists in New Delhi point to the evolution of China’s policy over Kashmir in recent years. Pessimists, however, point to Chinese nuclear and missile support to Pakistan in the 1990s. They also assert that the current Chinese reluctance to exchange maps in the Western sector might have something to do with the unwillingness to face up to the Indian claims over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. If he departs from the old paradigm on the triangular relationship with Pakistan and China, Manmohan Singh could indeed have an interesting conversation with Wen. As he lays out his vision for the peace process with Pakistan, Wen can not but extend support. And Manmohan’s ideas on creating regional prosperity through trade and economic cooperation among neighbours are no different from those of Wen. In recent months, officials and academics in Beijing have repeatedly underlined the value of trilateral and multilateral cooperation among China and its South Asian neighbours on economic development. That is a sound basis on which India can propose triangular economic projects with Pakistan and China. And there is no better place to start them than the state of Jammu and Kashmir which links the three countries. As India tries to settle its disputes with Pakistan and China in Jammu and Kashmir, cooperation in tourism and the development of transport infrastructure should not be beyond the imagination of the three establishments. Not raising issues relating to Pakistan has done no good to Sino-Indian relations. Underlining the prospect of triangular cooperation, in a forward looking manner, will do no harm either.
