China’s efforts to defuse tension between India and Pakistan earlier this year was highlighted on Tuesday by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi as one of Beijing’s key mediation efforts of the year to maintain regional peace and stability in its neighbourhood.
Wang also said the second informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Chennai in October mapped the course for better bilateral ties between the two countries.
Summing up the year 2019 in diplomacy for China, Wang, who is also one of China’s State Councillors, said: “During the India-Pakistan conflict, China supported the efforts of the two sides to defuse tensions and manage differences through dialogue.”
Wang, who didn’t elaborate, was referring to escalating tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad in February following the worst terror attack on India’s paramilitary by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pulwama in Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops.
India retaliated within two weeks by conducting an airstrike on a JeM camp within Pakistan, which was followed by a dogfight between air forces of the two countries.
China had then dispatched its vice foreign minister Kong Xuanyou to Pakistan in the first week of March to bring down the tensions.
Wang himself had said that both parties should “…quickly turn the page and seek a fundamental long-term improvement in their relations”.
He had added, “When confrontation gives way to dialogue and disagreements are settled by goodwill, they can create a better future through cooperation.”
China had then stressed on the need for India and Pakistan to “exercise calm and restraint, prevent an escalation, find out what has happened and resolve the matter through dialogue”.
However, it was not only Beijing that had appealed for calm during the tense February-March weeks. Several world leaders had pitched in too.
On the Chennai informal summit in October, Wang said: “President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a successful second summit in Chennai and charted the course for the steady growth of China-India relations.”
Wang elaborated on China’s diplomacy in an interview to People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party of China’s mouthpiece; it was released to the media by Chinese foreign ministry.
“On Afghanistan, as part of its shuttle diplomacy, China has facilitated the intra-Afghan dialogue and the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan and the China-Russia-US consultation, and hosted the first China-Russia-US-Pakistan four-party meeting,” Wang said.
China has served as a mediator between Myanmar and Bangladesh to encourage a negotiated solution to their outstanding issues.”
The Chinese minister hailed the country’s role in world diplomacy in 2019, even saying Beijing was leading the world on the international diplomacy stage.
“We have spearheaded global governance and actively mediated various regional issues,” he said.
Wang added: “On the complex international stage, China has become a true pillar of world peace and stability and a key engine for global development and prosperity.”
Wang touched upon diplomatic ties with major powers like the US, Russia, EU and Japan but reserved sharp criticism only for Washington.
Wang blamed Washington for taking a “string of actions” to “obstruct and repress China in trade, science and technology, and has been meddling in a series of issues concerning China’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and smearing China”.
“The US actions not only undermined the mutual trust that the two sides built over four decades, but also swayed stability and development of the whole world,” the minister said.