In what exposes Beijing’s ploy to use its state media and Pakistan to embarrass India, China’s state-backed Global Times on Thursday refused to publish an Indian rejoinder to an interview by Pakistan’s ambassador to China, Moin-ul Haque.
In the interview, Haque had called on the global community to take actions to alleviate the suffering of the Kashmiri people.
The Indian embassy in Beijing, without missing a second, came out with a rebuttal in reply to Global Times, slamming Pakistan for its “misrepresentations of the situation in Kashmir”.
“Ambassador (Moin) Haque’s misrepresentations while not surprising cannot conceal the significant progress that Jammu and Kashmir has made in the year following the abrogation of article 370 of the Indian Constitution,” the Indian embassy rejoinder said.
“India’s concerted efforts to bring peace, stability and progress to Jammu and Kashmir stand in stark contrast to Pakistan’s strategy which is little more than a blatant and rapacious campaign of cross-border terrorism aimed at debilitating the region,” the Indian statement said.
But obviously at the behest of Chinese authority, Global Times refused to publish it. Sources in India believe that even Haque might have made such remarks at the prodding of China which is fuming with anger ever since India abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
It was purely China’s ploy to first prompt Haq to make such a statement and then black out India’s reply in its media there. In fact, China is seeing red over India going to the global community exposing its ulterior motives in Ladakh. It is for this reason that Beijing might have asked Pakistan to again and again rake up the Kashmir issue and addressit to the world community. Of late, Pakistan tried to rake up Kashmir at the UNSC at the behest of China where Indian diplomats thwarted the attempt and the UN Security Council also pulled up Islamabad, saying that it is bilateral issue not to be brought on this forum.
This was also a setback to China as well as Pakistan. So now, it has resorted to this ploy. Pakistan, which is already playing to the hands of China, has no objections to its ambassador saying what Beijing wants. In his interview published by Global Times on 7August, Haque accused India of deploying a large number of security personnel in Kashmir, converting it into what he termed was a “police state”.