Despite the ongoing military standoff between India and China in the eastern Ladakh region, the “global interests” of the two Asian giants largely coincide, an expert has told Sputnik.
Boris Volkhonsky, the Associate Professor at the Institute of Asian and African Countries at the Institute of Asian and African Countries, underscored that both New Delhi and Beijing “rightly claim” to be the leaders of the “new world order”.
In the same vein, Volkhonsky reckoned that the “global interests” of India and Pakistan also converge to a great degree, be it on the issue of climate change, debt treatment, food and energy security, or effective multilateralism, to name a few.
Volkhonsky said that New Delhi, as this year’s chair of the SCO and G-20, would be pursuing a “more balanced foreign policy”, and
won’t look to escalate issues with either Pakistan or China, unless in case of a contingency.
He opined that New Delhi’s endeavour to reach a “consensus” on major issues was reflected in its G-20 slogan— One Planet, One Family, One Destiny.
“The Kashmir dispute has been ongoing since 1947 and is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. It is clear that neither side wants to escalate tensions, so they will try to avoid conflicts, although they cannot be ruled out completely, as it could be just a matter of a command of a unit deciding that the other side has crossed a red line,” the expert remarked.
Volkhonsky said that the SCO and other multilateral formats such as BRICS and Russia, India and China (RIC) could play a role in removing conventional differences and bringing the regional countries closer.
He, however, added that the groupings such as RIC needed to grow into a “real association” than existing just as “intellectual platforms”.
The academic highlighted that the entry of Iran into the SCO would contribute to effective multilateralism.
The expert proffered that connectivity initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) must be further developed in order to help the purpose of “regional integration”
“These projects could well be combined within a single system,” Volkhonsky reckoned.
However, he noted that both India and China, the two biggest markets in the world, should overcome their “differences” on the BRI before any progress on these initiatives could take place.
New Delhi has repeatedly objected to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), passing through ‘Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK)’.