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China using border tensions to warn India not to side with US: ex-foreign secretary Shyam Saran
- The former diplomat said Beijing’s recent moves, including its Hong Kong security law, suggest it will be ‘more assertive post-pandemic’
- India will head the WHO Executive Council and may influence two critical issues for Beijing: a coronavirus investigation and Taiwan’s observer status
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The latest episode in the China-India border dispute, which has seen troops face off in the Ladakh region, could be interpreted as a bid by Beijing to warn New Delhi against aligning with the United States on geopolitical matters, according to Shyam Saran, India’s former foreign secretary and a former head of the National Security Advisory Board.
Saran, who served in the government of former prime minister Manmohan Singh and was his special envoy on matters ranging from US nuclear cooperation, climate change and India-Nepal ties, singled out two issues that had prompted the warning amid a deepening clash between Beijing and Washington.
One was the Trump administration’s move to convince other countries, including India, that Beijing should be blamed for its initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak and that its influence at the World Health Organisation be investigated; and second, that Taiwan, which Beijing views as a part of China, should have “observer” status at the WHO.
“India will be chairman of the WHO Executive Council for the next two years and may have some influence in handling two issues of critical concern to China: one relating to the independent investigation into the pandemic and the other involving the resumption of observer status by Taiwan in the WHO,” said Saran, who served as first secretary in the Indian embassy in Beijing and has done stints as India’s ambassador to Myanmar, Indonesia and Nepal.
Indeed, an editorial on Sunday in the Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, warned India against getting “involved in the US-China rivalry”, or else trade and economic ties would suffer a “devastating blow”.
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