China-Pakistan relations and its impact on India

China and Pakistan’s relations dates back to 1950 when Pakistan alongside Cuba were the only two nations who extended their support to People’s Republic of China(present day China) while ending their diplomatic relations with Republic of China(present day Taiwan) after the world witnessed a long period of civil war between the two founding parties of these regions. This was the beginning of strong and successful relationship between these two nations which can be very well witnessed even today, where both nations have been beneficiaries of each other by forming the Pakistan-china axis and changing the shape of Asia’s geopolitics.

Pakistan and China’s love for each other started with their mutual interests in countering the threat from their neighbor, India, as India has had border disputes with both these nations and has seen wars with both of them. As a result we have seen China supporting Pakistan on Kashmir issue while Pakistan has always supported China on issues of Tibet, Arunachal Pradesh, Taiwan and Xinjiang.

China, who has always considered Pakistan as its younger brother, has always helped it by providing it with military, economic and technical assistance. China has assisted Pakistan in setting up of nuclear power plants and in various infrastructure projects. China also has free trade agreement with Pakistan which makes China 3^rd largest trade partner of Pakistan .China has also in the past has provided Pakistan with scientific expertise in its nuclear programs which has helped Pakistan to counter the nuclear threat from India which itself has successfully conducted several nuclear programs and has considerable amount of nuclear firepower. In return Pakistan has been critical in improving the relations of China with muslim nations and America while providing China access to its coastal line to augment trade with middle east nations and have more strategic role in Indian Ocean waters against India. Hence, both these nations have helped each other to curtail India’s emergence as an economic and military superpower.

India on the other hand has always tried to maintain friendly and peaceful relations with both China and Pakistan even though both Pakistan and China have been continuously raising the border issues with India while having no justifiable and rightful claims on the regions of India which they consider as their own territory. Pakistan and China both have made numerous insurgent efforts into the Indian border while Pakistan being the more proactive of the two, has relentlessly violated ceasefire pact and has sponsored the proxy war against India by providing the financial and military aid to the terrorism against India. China on the other hand has always shown tendency to maintain friendly relations with India but has not curtailed its activities in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir which is a disputed area and has been building roads and hydro-power there to enhance its presence in that region disrespecting the friendly relation it always claim to have with India.

India being mindful of close relations between Pakistan and China has been over the years strengthening its relations with USA and Russia and while it has always made efforts to improve its relations with both Pakistan and China .One of the significant move in this direction was providing Pakistan the Most Favored Nation status to improve trade with Pakistan, which India has granted only to few other nations even though Pakistan not doing the same for India while signing several peace pacts with them but both Pakistan still sees each other as their no. one enemy and regular terrorist attacks and ceasefire violations are not helping it .On the other hand with China India’s relations have improved over the past decade, where insurgent activities and raising up border issues by China has seen a decline mainly because China has realized that India is upcoming economic superpower and China by having friendly relations with India is bound to gain from it . This can be seen from the recent promise made by China to invest around $20bn dollars over the next five years in India.

But China’s recent decision to invest $46 billion dollars in economic corridor between China’s western region and Pakistan’s Gwadar sea port which will shorten China’s route to middle east countries for their oil imports by about 12000 km, has raised new concerns of China forming a pearl of strings around India i.e. working on a strategy to encircle India by forming their naval bases in Indian ocean and hence posing a serious security threat to India. However, China has declined forming a naval base in Gwadar port and has ensured India of using it only for trade purposes. India’s importance to India ocean region can also be laid to the fact that most of the trade to India happens through this it and nearly 89% of India’s oil imports are done though its waters. Hence, even though might not be working on pearl of strings theory still poses a serious threat to India’s trade by increasing their influence in Indian Ocean waters ,as they might use their increased presence in it to choke or block crucial trade channels of India, bringing India’s economy to a standstill .Considering China-India’s past relations such fears not unwarranted .However India has realized this threat from China and has made diplomatic progress in increasing its co-operation with Seychelles, Mauritius ,South Africa, Madagascar and Mozambique, but still China poses serious threat and hence the matter needs to be taken up with Chinese president when Indian Prime Minister will visit China on 14^th may.

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