Beijing using Pak to slow Indian growth: Blackwill

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Nov 4 (PTI) Relations between India and
China has deteriorated in last 18 months and is unlikely to
get better, a former US Ambassador to India has said and he
shared the perception of many Indian strategic thinkers that
Bejing is using Pakistan to slow India's rise.
"I think it's fair to say now that China-India
relations are not very good and in fact have been
deteriorating for about last 18 months," Robert Blackwill,
former US Ambassador to India said in a conference call with
reporters in a briefing on Obama's India visit.
"The Indians have a long list of Chinese
transgressions, which in my judgment are accurate, having to
do with Chinese policy on Kashmir and on the border dispute
between the two countries and the so-called 'ring of pearls'
of Chinese quasi-military installations in Bangladesh and in
Sri Lanka and in Pakistan and so forth," he said.
Blackwill is currently the Henry Kissinger Senior
Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign
Relations – a prestigious US-based think tank.
"So the relations aren't very good between the two.The
Prime Minister keeps saying, and I think deeply believes, that
there's no reason why India and China could not have a good
long-term relationship. But it isn't clear that same degree of
enthusiasm for that end state is felt in Beijing," he said.
Many Indian strategists think that think there's some
evidence that China's preoccupation with Pakistan and its
long-time close links is closely connected to the Chinese
realisation that if India is preoccupied, if not pinned down
by cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and problems in the
India-Pakistan relation, that it will slow the rise of India
as a great power.
"In other words, China using Pakistan to slow India's
rise," Blackwill said.
"So China-India relations are not good, and I myself
don't think they're going to get very much better on the
geopolitical and security side. Now on the economic side,
they're thriving, and of course, that's good for both
countries," he said.
"The Indians have no interest in thoughts of
containing China, a concept that one sees in the American
media from time to time. No way faster to clear a Delhi
drawing room than to begin to talk about containing China.
"But what India would like is an agreement with the US
that over the long term, the US and India will keep in close
touch, both to the issue of Chinese behaviour and trying to
decipher it, and second, close touch on trying to shape
Chinese external behaviour in a positive way," Blackwill said.
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