In the past 10 years, India has on many occasions tried listing Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar into the United Nations list of global terrorists. The only hurdle India faced was the continuous objection from the People’s Republic of China. It was a reflection of China’s “iron-brother” stance towards Pakistan. More recently, for this stance that China has so long kept, they have received serious criticism from the world community for their stance to safeguard terrorists, which have made them look like a pro-militia Government. China has realised that today Islamabad uses terror as a strategic asset in their global political engagements. What rose from such a diplomatic conflict between India backed by nations like the US, UK and France, and Pakistan backed by China is the symbolic gestures that existed in each parties policies against terrorism. International pressure is what brought China to lift its ban on the listing on May 1 at a UNSC Committee meeting. This lift is seen as a major win, diplomatically, for India in their bid to prove Pakistan’s latent behaviour towards persecuting terrorists in their land. The listing comes with an asset freeze and travel ban for the terrorist. The Chinese have succumbed to a lot of pressure, France announced that it would take the matter up through “other means” when they took the matter to the European Parliament and the US threatened to bypass the committee and take it up in the whole of UNSC exposing China’s terror-hugger stance.
Amid this pressure, India engaged in a lot of jostling and international lobbying to show China the pressure. The lift marks way for India’s next step to taking up terrorism in a more serious matter on international platforms. India has called out in the UN to clear a long due convention on combating international terrorism. It is known as the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that was introduced in 1986 by India but failed to move forward since the CTC and UNSC failed to come up with a universally agreeable definition of “terrorist”. Syed Akbaruddin, India’s representative to the UNSC while condemning the easter attacks on the island nation of Sri Lanka elucidated in the need for the global targeting of any outfit that propagates violence against innocent citizens. He expressed that the convention will be tribute to those innocent people killed.
All in all, one can say that in a game of chess, India had Pakistan and China at a shortage of moves and clearly knocking a bishop or two in the the diplomatic frontier. The next step is the bold step of finishing the pawns, the terrorists Islamabad harbours.
Always a pleasure to see seniors doing well. Extremely well-written and informative, and I’m really expecting to see such great articles in the future from you!
Extremely well written and pertinent to the current global conditions!
Really good analysis and well researched.
Concise yet comprehensive. Definitely clarified India’s strategic stance towards Masood Azhar’s terrorist listing although due to the same reason the article seems to give just one perspective. We know the key role India plays in South Asian politics and how other countries like China and the US are/were partaking in this region to check a potential threat. It would be interesting to know the impacts of the listing on other countries, especially in the south Asian region.
The article focuses on the diplomatic strings that were pulled and to some extent shows he US’ involvement in Asian politics, diplomatically. Masood Azhar, as seen by India, is only a tool to show the world what terrorism is doing to India and to some extent strong-arm Pakistan into face loss in front of the International Community. Further, surely, in future, we may discuss the listing and its affect on other countries, however, with little scope of discussion.
Apologies for leaving out my name on the previous comment.
Very precise and informative piece. Very factual as well. Looking forward to more of his work.
Awesome analysis. What we need to see further is how Pakistan now reacts to China’s perceived betrayal. China has huge investments in Pak
I don’t think Pakistan has much of a choice but to stay put and shush since China is the only force that has kept Pakistan floating diplomatically as well as militarily. I have shared a link that shows why China was “frustrated” and had to come to this decision.
Link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/here-is-why-frustrated-china-changed-its-stand-on-masood-azhar/articleshow/69157117.cms
The sides from each major parties to the issues are well explained. The diplomatic aspects are very well spread. Could we have more analysis on the overall relations between India and Pakistan in future articles? Thank you.
Yes, most certainly!More on this subject by me and my colleagues very soon!
Well researched and factual article … informative too ..