Beijing — China had failed to get India’s support for its ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure project at the end of a foreign ministers’ meeting of a major security bloc on Tuesday before an ice-breaking trip to China this week by India’s prime minister.
The Belt and Road is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s landmark scheme to build infrastructure to connect China to the rest of Asia and beyond, a giant reworking of its old Silk Road.
India has not signed up to the initiative because parts of one critical project, the $57bn China-Pakistan economic corridor, run through Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which India considers to be its territory.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend an informal meeting with Xi on Friday and Saturday.
India’s foreign minister did not express support for Belt and Road in the communique released after foreign ministers of the China and Russia-led Shanghai Co-operation Organisation met in Beijing.
India, along with Pakistan, joined the group in 2017.
All the other foreign ministers — from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — "reaffirmed support for China’s Belt and Road proposal", the statement read. It gave no further explanation.
Expression of unity
The communique was also a broad expression of unity by the ministers on issues ranging from their support for the Iran nuclear deal to the need to combat the spread of extremism. Modi is going to China as efforts at rapprochement gather pace after a difficult year between the two neighbours. The Asian countries were locked in a 73-day military stand-off in a remote stretch of their Himalayan border in 2017.
At one point, soldiers from the two sides started throwing stones and punches.
The confrontation between the nuclear-armed powers underscored Indian alarm at China’s expanding security and economic links in South Asia.
In comments carried on the foreign ministry’s website, Chinese vice-foreign minister Kong Xuanyou said holding the meeting in an informal way meant the two leaders could have a deep exchange of views in a relaxed atmosphere to promote co-operation.
"This not only will benefit the two countries and two peoples, but will also have an important effect on peaceful development in the region and around the world," the ministry paraphrased Kong as telling Indian media in Beijing.
Reuters
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