Height of hypocrisy

The Sino-US vow to fight terror in South Asia is a joke

Presidents Donald J Trump and Xi Jinping may have more in common than we previously thought; on the evidence of the statement issued by Beijing on Thursday after one-on-one talks between the two leaders, it appears on the surface that both the US and Chinese Presidents are delusional. For, they apparently discussed how to fight terror and uphold peace and stability in South Asia without any reference to taking on or even putting any real pressure on Pakistan and its homegrown terror factory which has become a prime recruiting ground for global jihad and, of course, the font of its low-intensity war against India in Jammu & Kashmir. That the Sino-US pledge to fight terror comes at a time when Beijing has, for the fourth time in a row, thrown a technical spanner in the efforts of the United Nations Security Council to designate Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed radical cleric Maulana Masood Azhar as a global terrorist and follows on the heels of its refusal to censure Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin makes the so-called anti-terror vow laughable.  But New Delhi has nothing to laugh about. Given Trump’s propensity to cut deals in what he perceives to be the US interest and Xi’s clear focus after the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party on augmenting Chinese hegemonic ambitions in Asia, India would be well advised not to dismiss the meeting between the two leaders in Beijing as a photo-op followed by the usual grand-sounding declarations which amount to nothing. Especially not when the most vital issue in the fight against terrorism in South Asia, that of Pakistan, was very likely deliberately not addressed by arguably the two most powerful nations in the world.

Washington is playing both sides, of course. It is clearly engaging with China while keeping the latter’s security concerns on board as evinced not only in the effusive Trump description of Xi as a "very special man… a personal friend with whom I can work" but in the US President’s clear appeal for China to take the lead in resolving the North Korean crisis and ensuring a terror-free South Asia (including dealing with its all-weather ally Pakistan as it deems fit, obviously). Simultaneously, the US is talking up its bilateral relationship with India and is pushing the Asia-Pacific quadrilateral strategic alliance between India, Japan, Australia and the US as a counter-balance to China. Xi, for his part, understands perfectly well that protecting Pakistan from the wrath of the international community for its support to terrorism will be worth it as long as India is forced to constantly pay attention to its Western flank thereby undermining its Look and Act East Policy. In dealing with Pyongyang, Beijing has calculated that despite all the bluster from Team Trump in response to the recent nuclear and long-range missile tests by Kim Jung-un, China will have to be final arbiter in any resolution - whether military or diplomatic - with North Korea, its assiduously cultivated client-state for decades where it still carries weight though not as much as before. And Sino-US trade, with its massive imbalance in favour of China, is the other weapon Xi is leveraging rather dextrously as Trump pushes hard to get the US economy out of its sluggish mode and create jobs to shore up support on the domestic front. Last but not least, and without making any allegations, there is enough evidence in the public domain to suggest that both Trump and Xi are susceptible to a propensity for megalomania. India should be worried because a prime marker of that condition is an inability to recognise hypocrisy.