China's move to again block India's objective of proscribing Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar at the United Nations, has led former diplomat and now Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar to say that New Delhi needs to work bilaterally with Beijing to persuade the latter to change its view, rather than aggravating the relationship beyond the point of no return.
"Each country has the sovereign rights to its view; we, therefore, have to work bilaterally with China in order to persuade them to come around to our point of view. In the real world, we need to use diplomacy to solve problems and not to aggravate them, but unfortunately my colleagues in the Indian Foreign Service are more comfortable generally with aggravating problems instead of trying to resolve them," Aiyar, told ANI.
Noting that there is a 'new Cold War' developing between the United States (U.S.) and China, Aiyar said, "But, these are not intellectual questions, it's part of power play and, in this power play, there is a 'new Cold War' developing between the United States (U.S.) and China, in which China has decided that (not banning Jaish chief), because they have disputes with India which has not been resolved over the last 70 years, whereas with Pakistan they were able to find a solution and they have also found an extremely important route, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which goes through Balochistan to Gwadar port."
"I don't really see why we should be opposed to the CPEC when it will be very useful for us to take advantage of it," the former Indian diplomat said.
"Of course, there is the argument that it passes through the territory which we claim, but then the road that China has built through Aksai Chin also passes through our territory and yet there is nothing specific that we can do or are doing about the taking back the territory through which that road runs."
"They are, therefore, on their side. And, I think, we should be somehow trying to work with China to make them feel that we are friends. After all, I was brought in an era of 'Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai', and I still believe in Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai," he added.
China for the second time after on March 31 this year, prevented India's effort to put a ban on the JeM chief and the Pathankot attack mastermind under the sanctions committee of the United Nations Security Council.
More From This Section
The Chinese technical hold was set to lapse on October 3, and had China not raised further objection, the resolution designating Azhar as a terrorist could have been passed automatically.
The hold has been extended for another six months.
With this, Beijing now has three options, which include extending the technical hold, converting the hold to a block or allow the designation to go through.