Forget india

Forget india

Beijing should get Islamabad to curb jihadis in order to save CPEC and OBOR.
Beijing is miffed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not attending its showpiece “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) summit later this week, while New Delhi is worried that OBOR's flagship project, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), runs through PoK even as China dismisses concerns about Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and aggressively asserts itself on India-China territorial disputes ¬ as it did recently by conferring Chinese names on cities in Arunachal Pradesh. India is not, however, Pakistan's only neighbour who blames it for harboring jihadi terrorist groups. Afghanistan doesn't see matters any differently, and recently Iran joined the chorus.
After 10 Iranian border guards were killed by jihadi groups operating out of Pakistan, Iran's top military official has warned Pakistan of reprisals.
Beijing may be inclined to discount what India thinks, but it should worry about the threat posed by jihadi terrorists to CPEC itself. Moreover, if the whole region is embroiled in conflict thanks to the shenanigans of Pakistan-based terrorists, then OBOR too is a goner. Concerns have been expressed within Pakistan at the iniquitous terms of CPEC, which some Pakistani lawmakers have likened to the East India Company. It would be relatively easy for jihadi groups to exploit local discontent and target CPEC, into which the Chinese intend to pour $46 billion.
Moreover, the Chinese have plans to extend OBOR through Afghanistan and Iran. For that reason recent Pakistan-Afghanistan clashes have caused unease in Beijing, while a row between Iran and Pakistan is not conducive to OBOR's good health either. For all those reasons it is entirely in Beijing's interest to lean on Pakistan to subdue terror groups operating from its territory and drop its irredentist objectives in Kashmir. At which point it would be in India's interest, as well, to drop its opposition to and connect with OBOR. At this point, New Delhi should exhibit no hurry to join OBOR. Instead, it must build its own connectivity as well as that to its east.