Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity

India cited number of reasons for staying away from Belt and Road Forum. But, none of them was more important than the question of India’s sovereignty over Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), through which an important part of China’s Silk Road Industrial Belt runs.

In a statement before the summit begin, India’s External Affairs Ministry affirmed that “no country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

• India’s arguments with China on the BRI have had one important effect. It has helped bring the triangular dynamics between India, Pakistan and China in Jammu and Kashmir into sharp focus.
• Although the popular discourse in India sees Kashmir as a bilateral issue with Pakistan, China has always made it a three-body problem.
• China is in occupation of a large part of Ladakh in the north-eastern part of J&K.
• To the west, Pakistan had ceded part of the territory controlled by it to China after the Sino-Indian border conflict of 1962.
• China’s first trans-border infrastructure project in Kashmir – the Karakoram Highway – dates back to the late 1960s.
• Since then, China’s presence in Pak-occupied Kashmir has steadily grown.