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As tensions escalate between India and Pakistan, Professor Srikanth Kondapalli, a leading expert in Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, warned that recent developments signal a coordinated military and diplomatic effort by China and Pakistan to box India into the South Asia region strategically.
He further said that this is now taking shape through military posturing, regional alliances, and weapons transfers. The Pahalgam incident, Kondapalli suggests, is a grand plan that China and Pakistan are hatching. While speaking with ANI, Kondapalli, Professor in Chinese Studies and Chairperson of the Centre for East Asian Studies at JNU, said, "In 2009, the Indian Armed Forces began to shift towards the two front war under the nuclear threshold and since then, we started deploying S-400 ballistic missile, in between Pakistan and China, somewhere in Jammu and Kashmir or Himachal... Instead of being defensive, we are now planning for an offensive campaign with these measures. So, in light of the 2009 shift from Pakistan to China and also to a front war under the nuclear threshold, Indian armed forces have been preparing for that kind of contingency since 2009. The current Pahalgam incident suggests that China doesn't like the Indian preparations. So, China wants to confine India to the South Asia box, and the Pahalgam incident suggests there is a grand plan that China and Pakistan are hatching." On being asked about elaborating the grand plan, Kondapalli stated, "During the Cold War, all the Chinese texts, speeches, and important documents, they all mentioned India is an important country in South Asia, as the Americans used to say. But, then the 123 agreement (Agreement for Cooperation between the Government of India and the Government of the United States of America concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy) and other nuclear agreements with the United States and the foundational agreements we signed with the United States remove that aspect of confining India to the South Asia box. However, the Chinese continue with this discourse that India is an important country in South Asia, meaning it is not an important country in the rest of the world, but only confined to South Asia." He added, "China also began a trans-Himalayan Quadrilateral dialogue with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal, and they conduct the Xicha Trans-Himalayan conferences. Four of these were held with the countries of the Trans-Himalayan region, excluding India. So this is the diplomatic effort. At the military level, there is nearly 60 per cent of all Chinese arms transferred abroad have landed in Pakistan, including last week's PL-15 air-to-air missiles. This PL missile was developed with Israeli support. The Chinese have got these missiles from Israeli collaboration. Today they are giving it to Pakistan to counter the Rafale aircraft that India has deployed and acquiring, which means that both militarily as well as diplomatically, China intends to confine India to the South Asia bloc, and of course at a USD 4 trillion economy you cannot be confined to a small region. You have to trade with every other country. But there is this effort to confine to South Asia." (ANI)
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