China using Pak to hinder India's rise: US envoy

Washington, Nov 4: Bolstering similar observations of several Indian strategic thinkers, a former US envoy to India has said that Beijing is using Pakistan to hinder India's rise.

Noting that the Indo-Sino ties deteriorated in last 18 months, Robert Blackwill, former US Ambassador to India, said, "The Indians have a long list of Chinese transgressions, which in my judgment are accurate, having to do with Chinese policy on Kashmir and on the border dispute between the two countries and the so-called 'ring of pearls' of Chinese quasi-military installations in Bangladesh and in Sri Lanka and in Pakistan and so forth."

"So the relations aren't very good between the two. The Prime Minister keeps saying, and I think deeply believes, that there's no reason why India and China could not have a good long-term relationship. But it isn't clear that same degree of enthusiasm for that end state is felt in Beijing," he added during a conference call with reporters in a briefing on Obama's India visit.

Echoing many Indian strategic thinkers' contentions that China's ties with Pakistan is connected to Beijing's realisation that if India is preoccupied, if not pinned down by cross-border terrorism from the neighbour it will slow the rise of India, Blackwill said, "In other words, China using Pakistan to slow India's rise."

OneIndia News