Today's Edit: Decoding China's move

Beijing’s troop increase along border worrisome

The Pentagon's observation about Beijing enhancing its troop presence along the disputed India-China border need not result in knee-jerk reactions here, but must be considered in all seriousness. The comments are part of the Pentagon's annual report for the US Congress on security and military developments in China, and even the authors have noted that they cannot confirm if the increased troop presence is in response to external or internal factors. In other words, it is possible that Beijing is deploying more soldiers in the region to tighten its control over Tibet or fight back Uyghur militants. Notably, Beijing has also reacted quite strongly to the Pentagon report and almost admonished the Pentagon for disrespecting its border dialogue process between India. But, all said and done, India cannot  indeed, must not  take a chance. The report must be carefully studied and the military must consider strengthening its postures and positions along the border with China. After all, irrespective of how one interprets the Pentagon report, there are no two ways around the fact that China has always had an aggressive approach with regard to India, and this has become more pronounced in recent years. Apart from new territorial claims, there have been several instances of Chinese troops entering Indian territory and squatting for days. Some of these transgressions have been serious enough to spark a diplomatic crisis.

And these are just some of the problems on the border issue; expand the scope of this discussion, and there are many such instances of Chinese belligerence and bullying on the global stage. Recently, China has been working with its ‘all-weather friend' Pakistan, to block India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The strategy is simple: Create an artificial parity between India and Pakistan as nuclear powers, and then argue that membership must be either granted to both countries or to neither. Now, Pakistan has no chance at the NSG, given its appalling nuclear non-proliferation record and the disgraceful role of AQ Khan, the father of its nuclear programme, in selling nuclear secrets, not to mention the Pakistani state's involvement with international terror networks. India, on the other hand, has a stellar record in nuclear non-proliferation and is worthy of an NSG membership, as the US and several other nations have repeatedly said. There is only one common factor between India and Pakistan: Neither has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which both consider to be discriminatory. Consequently, the NSG will have to make an exception to let India into the club  and China seems determined to prevent it, if only to keep Pakistan in good humour.

A similar template was also activated at the UN, where China blocked India’s efforts to designate Pakistan's Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed as global terrorists. This list can be expected to grow longer, as China's pushes its ambitious economic and strategic agenda around the world  be it in the South China Sea, where it is cementing its territorial claims by militarising disputed islands, or in the Indian Ocean region, where Beijing is making strategic inroads through India's smaller neighbours like Sri lanka and the Maldives.