The China factor in Kashmir

The Chinese strategic involvement in Kashmir goes back even before the Indo-China War of 1962. The fact that border negotiations had begun in 1961, and the broad principles were agreed upon within months after the Indo-China war, does raise suspicions about some sort of understanding between the leadership of Pakistan and China about the Indo-China war. On the day (26 December 1961) the announcement about the agreement on principles (accord signed on 2 March 1963) was made, an Indian delegation was in Rawalpindi for negotiations with Pakistan on Kashmir. That China announced its unilateral decision to withdraw after the war, but did so only in the Eastern sector and not the Aksai Chin area, further strengthens suspicion.

Besides, the Kashmiri leadership, both mainstream and separatists, seem to have maintained a studied silence when Pakistan ceded 5,000 sq km territory of POK to China.

The Kashmiri separatists may do well to note that illegal occupation of their territory (POK) by Pakistan has been most beneficial to the Chinese. In hindsight, the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war in Kashmir was to have a great strategic significance for Sino-Pak partnership and the ‘all weather friendship’, at the cost of the territory and interests of Kashmiris. Without the POK, Pakistan would not have become a direct geographic interlocutor with China. Pakistan without the POK would have had little strategic value for China. The 1,300 km long Karakorum Highway (opened to traffic in 1978) that connects Islamabad with Kashgar in Xinjiang Uygur, an autonomous region of China, would not have been possible. Also, the Gwadar port in Pakistan would have been of no significance for China.

The Kashmiris were made to forego 75 per cent of the 78,000 sq km that is POK, now the  Northern Areas, in the interest of Pakistan-China strategic partnership. The Northern Areas became a single administrative unit in 1970. It was formed from the amalgamation of the Gilgit Agency, the Baltistan District of the Ladakh Wazarat, and the State of Hunza and Nagar. It comprises districts of Gilgit, Ghizer, Diamer, Skardu and Granchey. Quoting Wikipedia: “The name ‘Northern Areas’ was first used by the United Nations, to refer to the northern areas of Kashmir. The United Nations never intended the name to refer to the northern areas of Pakistan”.

There are now reports of the Northern Areas being converted into a virtual Chinese colony with a host of infrastructure projects being undertaken by China. Some reports suggest that there are more than 10,000 PLA personnel stationed in the Gilgit-Baltistan region for the purpose. These PLA soldiers, apart from dams and bridges are engaged in construction of road and railway communication, which will ultimately link-up to the Pakistani ports, thus reducing the dependence and vulnerability of supply of oil by way of tankers from Persian Gulf through the Malacca Strait. The road and rail communications may well reduce the transportation period from three weeks to three days.

The Northern Areas has assumed added importance in the wake of the Pakistan-Iran agreement on gas-pipeline in May this year. The US $ 7.5 billion, 900 km (Asalooyeh, in southern Iran, and Iranshahr, near the border with Pakistan) pipeline project is envisaged to be completed by 2014. China has already made moves to extend this pipeline further into their territory. As per reports, the work for the purpose has already started and tunnels are being constructed as part of it. These tunnels will also serve the purpose of missile storage sites. It is however learnt that Iran is circumspect about any extension of the pipeline to China for the sole reason that various Pakistan dispensations has been making state-sponsored Sunni demographic assaults in the Northern Areas where now the Shia predominance is under threat.

The incorporation and treatment of Northern Areas in Pakistan, should therefore be an eye-opener to the separatists in Kashmir. It should also put an end to the growing clamour of some vested interests in India regarding greater autonomy to Kashmir. Their argument that grant of autonomy to J&K will put the Pakistani dispensation on the defensive with regard to POK because they will be forced to concede similar concessions, is most uninformed and untenable. Which POK are they talking about? They must realise that 75 per cent of the POK has already been incorporated in Pakistan.

The increasing stridency of China with regard to J&K should be viewed in the backdrop of the growing Chinese footprints in the Northern Areas. A new China-Pakistan strategy is unfolding in the Afghanistan-Pakistan, Central Asia and South Asia Region. Till recently, China had consciously adopted a neutral position on J&K issue, because of the deep problems that its client state Pakistan was facing in the wake of 9/11. But now, both Pakistan and China feel that the US and its allies cannot sustain their military presence in the region for long, and therefore the time has come to alter the geopolitical discourse in the region in their favour. It should be remembered that at the subterranean levels, the Chinese and the Pakistanis share pathological hatred for the US. For Pakistan, the American dollars are important for the living, but the Chinese weapons, which include nuclear weapons and missiles, are important for their self-destructive India-centric ego and strategic vanity.

In fact, in a high level meet in 2009, eminent Pakistanis suggested to this author that China be included as a neutral party in the India-Pakistan dialogues on Kashmir, as also on other contentious bilateral issues. Given Pakistan’s status, as a proxy of China, this demand was hardly surprising.

The full potential of this China-Pakistan script is still unfolding, but the beginnings are discernable. The two-front threat to India, therefore, should be seen in a larger context rather than just physical terms.

India should be prepared for China’s increasing belligerence in the international forums. China would spare no methods to portray India as the villain in Kashmir. The stone pelting, agitational terrorism is likely to take even more virulent forms in the coming months, in consonance with the new Pakistan-China script on Kashmir.

RSN Singh is Associate Editor, Indian Defence Review

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).