The stubborn Chinese are not going to allow any tangible result from these counter-terrorism talks because they and their front-end, Pakistan, are both neck deep in these issues.India and China on Thursday opened a two-day dialogue on counterterrorism, an annual affair which, this year, is expected to touch upon the situation in Afghanistan, following the 2014 pullout of NATO forces, among other issues.
The Indian delegation in talks this week in Beijing is led by Additional Secretary in charge of counterterrorism in the Ministry of External Affairs, Navtej Sarna.
The talks, which have been held for over a decade now, are a routine affair. Considering China’s close “all-weather” relationship with Pakistan, Beijing has generally been reluctant to seriously engage with India on the elephant in the room, as it were, with regard to the question of counterterrorism cooperation.
While Chinese officials did not comment on this week’s dialogue, their delegation is expected to be led by Qiu Guohong, Director General of the Department of External Security Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Mr. Qiu served as the Chinese Ambassador in Nepal before taking up his post. In Nepal, his term coincided with a renewed push by China to clamp down on Tibetan groups.
The Department of External Security Affairs is tasked with reporting on external security issues, overseeing China’s foreign missions as well as administering foreign non-governmental organisations in China. The dialogue is also expected to deal with cyber security issues.
A little bit of background helps.
China has at least on two earlier (2006 & 2008) occasions blocked the UNSC’s Taliban-Al Qaeda group from declaring Jama’at-ud-Dawah and its Emir, Prof. Hafeez Saeed from being included in the list of entities and persons proscribed under Resolution 1267. It put a technical hold on all these occasions demanding to see ‘more evidence’. In May 2009, after JuD and Hafeez Saeed were eventually placed on the list in Dec. 2008, China blocked Indian move to place Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammed on the same UN 1267 Committee list. Later, when India engaged China in counter-terrorism talks in July, 2011 and presented evidence about JeM and Maulana Masood Azhar, it summarily refused to re-visit that issue. It also rejected Indian requests to place Azzam Cheema and Abdul Rehman Makki of the LeT under the Al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctions list. In the UNSC, China remained the only country not to accede to this Indian request. The usual Chinese excuse has been “there is no single definition of terrorism” and hence China has avoided taking a clarified stand on it. Because of its close proximity to Pakistan, China has been non-cooperating in counter terrorism issues even though the dialogue has been going on annually since c. 2002. Similarly, China also firmly rejected looking into details of Chinese arms suppliers provided by Anthony Shimray of the NSCN (IM). The Chinese officials insisted the information was still insufficient. The Indian side passed on information provided by Shimray in his statements before the court that the NSCN (IM) had arranged arms and ammunition worth nearly $2 million from TCL, a subsidiary of Chinese arms company China Xinshidai. However, even names of individuals, the agents in Bangkok and other such details did not seem to impress the Chinese side. The Chinese interlocutors are believed to have told their Indian counterparts that they could not act on a mere “confessional statement” — regardless of whether it had been admitted in a court of law. However, while addressing the UNSC’s Counter Terrorism Committee on September 28, 2011, China appealed to the international committee to discard double standards in the fight against terrorism. So that the UNSC Resolution 1373 could be implemented in full.
As for cyber terrorism, it is clear from where the biggest source of cyber attacks, supported directly by the government and the armed forces, emanates.