Renewing friendship
Ding Ying

CHINESE Vice President Xi Jinping debuted in his first performance on the international stage with a tour of five countries in Asia. On June 17-25, he paid state visits to North Korea, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Yemen. “Vice President Xi’s tour is a voyage of friendship, communication and cooperation,” Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui told Xinhua News Agency. He added that the fruitful, practical and highly efficient tour would advance China’s bilateral relationships with these countries.
The tour was Xi’s first round of formal visits to other countries since he assumed office in March. It also was an important diplomatic mission for China, Zhang said. Zhang said China and the five countries are strongly complementary in economic matters and have a solid basis for cooperation as well as great potential. China and these nations agreed to work together more in the areas of agriculture, trade and economy, energy, resources, infrastructure construction, culture, education, tourism, transportation and investment.
“This cooperation will put vigor into their bilateral relationships,” Zhang said. All five countries maintain traditional friendships with China. Xi said China was willing to enhance its friendship with the leaders of the five nations and promote bilateral communication and cooperation in politics, economy, culture and education. During his meetings with the leaders of the five countries, Xi stressed that China and the respective nations should respect each other and perfect their related policies and stipulations, while creating favorable investment environments. “The magnificence of this tour is that it shows that China’s leadership of a new generation is coming into being, and they have inherited China’s consistent diplomatic policy,” said Shi Yongming, an international affairs expert at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS). Shi stressed that Xi’s visits indicated that China decided to communicate with high-ranking officials in the countries. They also were a good opportunity for Xi to show himself to the world, he said.
When Xi visited North Korea, the two sides agreed to make 2009 the “China-North Korea Friendship Year” to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations. China and North Korea also signed agreements on economic and technological cooperation, transportation, and inspection and quarantine rules. Shi added that even though the North Korean nuclear issue is making progress, there still might be some difficulties, the tendency of which cannot be reversed. “Where Northeast Asia will go after the nuclear issue has been settled is important to the China-North Korea relationship,” Shi said.
Shi pointed out that some observers have forecasted that North Korea might seek to contain China after the nuclear issue has been resolved. “This kind of comment does not have practical evidence,” he said, adding that the facts prove that the only way to completely resolve the issue is for the parties involved to maintain a political balance. Establishing a peace mechanism and maintaining permanent peace in Northeast Asia are major concerns for the region and the world, he said. China and North Korea have special ties that bind their peoples together, and these cannot be changed easily, Shi said. After the nuclear issue is resolved, their friendship and interdependence will still last, he said.
Because North Korea’s economic base is weak, it might be included in the setting up of the Northeast Asia free trade zone (FTA), a move that would solidify its economic ties with China and the region, Shi said. He suggested that the Northeast Asia FTA borrow lessons from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in addressing the economic growth of its members. Among ASEAN nations, the gap between the per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) of the richest country and the poorest country is very wide. “If the FTA is set up within 10 years, North Korea can become a member, because the other countries can agree on some beneficial policies for North Korea as well as offer economic aid to the country,” Shi said. The recent agreement between China and North Korea proves that the two countries will continue to develop their relationship through strengthening their economic cooperation.
North Korea will have a strong ability to recover economically as a member of the FTA, Shi said. And once South Korea and North Korea start to develop harmonious relations, the latter will have a greater space for economic development, he added. Xi and Mongolian leaders reached a consensus on further strengthening a good-neighbor policy and mutual-trust partnership. During his visit, Xi called for an early start of negotiations about a bilateral agreement on the management of border issues, as the two countries share an over 4,710-km-long borderline. Trade and economic cooperation between China and Mongolia rapidly develop in recent years. China has remained as Mongolia’s top trade partner in the past nine years. In 2007, the bilateral trade volume reached $2.03 billion, increasing 28.4 percent than the previous year.
In Mongolia, Xi suggested deepening bilateral trade and economic cooperation by perfecting the cooperative mechanism and actively exploring new areas and new forms of practical cooperation in fields such as mining resources and infrastructure development. Besides, cooperation in culture, humanitarian exchanges, public health, tourism, archaeology and disaster reduction should also be strengthened in future, said the Chinese vice president. Xi’s tour included three countries in the Middle East-Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Yemen. China and Saudi Arabia issued a joint statement on promoting their cooperation and strategic friendship-a further mark of progress in their bilateral relationship.
The two nations have similar ideas about oil policy, said Zhang Bin, a research fellow at the China Center for Energy Strategy Studies, CIIS. Saudi Arabia believes that rising oil prices is not tied to oil supply, but to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, and China does not oppose this opinion, he said. The United States, the largest oil-consuming nation, has been pressing members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which includes Saudi Arabia as the cartel’s largest oil producer, to raise their output. “The pressure forces Saudi Arabia to find friends,” Zhang pointed out. China imports much of its oil from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia offered China precious aid after the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake. This has created a good cooperative atmosphere between the two countries, Zhang said. China and Qatar decided to start political and economic dialogues. Xi said that China and Qatar now have the best-ever cooperative opportunity. The two sides should strengthen communication among high-ranking government officials so as to guide and map out cooperation in wider ranges such as trade, energy, finance, investment and infrastructure construction, Xi said.
China and Yemen agreed to strengthen their economic, technological, public health and educational cooperation. Xi also suggested that two countries strengthen practical cooperation of infrastructure development, energy and telecommunications. In the meantime, as Xi said at the opening ceremony of a seminar on China-Saudi economy and trade in Jeddah, China has always adhered to peaceful development and an opening-up strategy of mutual benefit for developing friendly cooperation with countries in the Middle East and the Gulf region, which will be a win-win solution for all sides concerned.

—The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item

Another crisis in Held Kashmir
Praful Bidwai

FACED with a crisis following the withdrawal of the People’s Democratic Party from the Congress-led coalition, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned without going through the vote of confidence. The Congress-PDP coalition’s fall is a major setback to the cause of moderation and political reconciliation. This is only one casualty extracted by the crisis over the transfer of forest land to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB), and the violent protests over the transfer and its reversal by Governor NN Vohra. The crisis has led to an eclipse of the internal peace process in Indian Kashmir and a possible revival of militant separatism-and a shift towards intolerance and assertion of religion-based or communal identities.
The gains of the past six years-a substantial decline in violence, economic revival and a tourism boom, isolation of strident extremism, and a general acceptance of mainstream political activity and electoral politics-are now in jeopardy. In Kashmir, the biggest winners are the Hurriyat hardliners led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who got totally isolated because of his extremist positions. Another important gainer is the moderate Hurriyat, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who moved from near-irrelevance to prominence by opposing the land transfer on the ground that it would lead to the Valley’s demographic transformation.
Nationally, the greatest gainer is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has cynically exploited the issue to foment violent Hindu-communal protests in many parts of India. The protests’ death toll has crossed the double-digit mark. There are no heroes in the land transfer drama. The greatest villain is former Governor Lt-General SK Sinha, a BJP appointee, who just before his retirement on June 4 ordered the state to transfer 100 acres of forest land to the Board of which is the president. This was to be used to provide temporary accommodation to pilgrims to the Amarnath cave, where an ice stalactite forms. The transfer was illegal and violated the Forest Conservation Act.
Sinha has encouraged pilgrimage to this ecologically fragile area at an altitude of 10,000 feet, carved out a new route through the mountains, promoted tourist facilities including a helicopter service, and extended the annual duration of the yatra from four to eight weeks-although the ice lingam lasts for only one month. The result is a several-fold increase in the number of pilgrims to 400,000 and environmental destruction. The state forest minister and Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Baig, both from the PDP, went along with this, including the land transfer. The PDP falsely claimed it was blackmailed into agreeing by the Congress which threatened to block the rebuilding of the old Mughal Road, to connect the Valley to Rajori and Poonch. When protests erupted, the PDP played the helpless victim. The Congress failed long ago to remove Sinha. It succumbed to his pressure, and venally manipulated the state machinery. Such venality led in the past to the Kashmiri people’s alienation from India, and created grievances, which the separatists exploited with help from Pakistan’s secret agencies. Also culpable was the National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, who established the SASB in 2000, thus taking the pilgrimage’s charge away from the Muslim family which had discovered and looked after the cave. This was a case of the government wantonly interfering with a worthy instance of spontaneous Hindu-Muslim harmony and cooperation.
As protests erupted in the Valley over the land transfer, Hurriyat leaders-marginalised ever since Gen Pervez Musharraf dropped the azadi agenda and proposed autonomy for the different regions of J&K without redrawing borders-jumped into the fray. In recent weeks, they had come around to a position of not opposing the coming Assembly elections. Rather than make a generous gesture to religious Hindus, in keeping with Kashmir’s syncretic culture, Hurriyat leaders and JKLF chief Yasin Malik depicted the land transfer as a means of forcibly settling Hindus in the Valley. This was patently absurd given the tiny size of the plot and the makeshift structures being erected.
They deliberately organised processions to and from the Jama Masjid and the Hazratbal shrine. They also claimed the protests were spontaneous eruptions of popular anger against India’s Kashmir policy. They wrongly maligned the peace process as a way of perpetuating the status quo. This was their way of regaining its lost relevance. In reality, the protests were driven by the same narrow-minded motives evident in the earlier mob violence over the “sex scandal”, in which vigilante squads burnt down the house of a woman suspected to be involved. They caused great hardship to the public by disrupting food and fuel movement. The Valley protests were replicated like a mirror-image in the Jammu region under the BJP’s leadership. The BJP, true to type, instigated violent protests in other parts of India by drumming up its utterly fraudulent argument of “Muslim appeasement” and “anti-Hindu prejudice” on the Congress’ part. This is infusing sectarian divisiveness and communal poison into faith.
This can only help the Valley separatists revive the jehadi militancy which has lost popular appeal. Separatist militants can no longer recruit cadres. But if the present polarisation continues, Kashmir could soon return to the rule of the gun-with disastrous consequences for all of South Asia. Governor Vohra must use all the contacts he cultivated as the Centre’s special envoy for the Kashmir dialogue. He must employ his experience as a former Home Secretary to stabilise the situation by acting in good faith. In particular, he must activate the deliberations of the five Working Groups set up in 2006.

—Khaleej Times

Nuclear dreams and the Muslims
Salman Khurshid

SUDDENLY everyone is worried about Muslims in India. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are worried for them. It is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that has been worried about Muslims all these years, including when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition government gave an indication of taking Sachar Report to its logical conclusion. Providing education, food and shelter to India’s largest minority was seen by them (and perhaps, not them alone) as communalising of the national budget. Reach out to the poor and Muslims with an aim to economically benefit them became a self-confident refrain. Who was to tell those people that Sachar Report is largely about Muslims not having received their legitimate share of the allocations for the poor and needy?
Now look at the Communists — the Left that is worried about Muslims because they are said to be upset over the civilian nuclear deal signed between India and the United States. It might have made sense if the Left parties had no other independent reason for being against the nuclear deal. Surely, this is not the first time that the issue of Muslim opinion has been raised in the country. The Left parties have stood by the Muslims on Babri Masjid issue, and opposed them on concerns of Salman Rushdie’s book Satanic Verses and also on Shah Bano case. They were somewhat ambiguous about Taslima Nasreen, but that can be explained too by the fact that it was too close to home.
The common thread in all that is the Left’s self-centred view that when it comes to Muslims they know best. The truth is that nobody really knows what all Muslims think about this nuclear deal with the US. We have consistently discouraged the idea of a sole spokesperson, and therefore it makes little sense now to seek the voice of select few to help us argue the case for the entire community. The fact is that no one knows about the rest of the country either. But there is good reason to believe that a majority of the population supports what is essentially a good idea. It is, of course, true that the issue has not been debated, as it should have been because of the self-imposed restraint of the Congress party in not wanting to annoy the Left parties.
However, now that the battle lines are clearly drawn the merits of the nuclear deal can be emphasised in the public without any self-consciousness. All along, one has been repeatedly told that right or wrong, the Left parties are a principled political lot. But how eagerly they have lined up at Mayawati’s (Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party leader) door is an eye opener. The latter may think that opposing the deal might fetch her a minority dividend unperturbed by her past advocacy of people like Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

—Arab News