R Krishna Das
China is trying to play a divide and rule game by offering help to India in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak.
The US President, Joe Biden pledging Washington’s help to deal with the crises during a conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday did not go well with the neighbouring country. China felt India should remain dependent on it at the cost of QSD.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as the Quad) is an informal strategic dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India that is maintained by talks between member countries. China has been opposing it and now eyes to detach India from it.
China’s Communist Party-backed Global Times today carried a report saying, “There have appeared some voices among Indian netizens calling for their country to quit the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), as the US had clearly not made efforts to help India, which faces a desperate shortage of medical resources amid the alarming crisis.” It was not until Sunday that the White House announced that the US would “help India in its time of need,” it added.
Only the Communist Party in India had made the demand that China was trying to generalise. “Your next-door neighbor is usually first to respond in an emergency situation, your friends come much later. India should now seriously think of its relationship with so-called best friend US which is the most selfish piece of land on Planet,” it quoted an unknown person. India should have the moral courage to leave the Quad, it added.
Many Indian netizens praised China for its generosity and expressed their gratefulness after China’s Foreign Ministry expressed willingness at least three times in less than a week to assist India in the epidemic fight, the newspaper said.
Indian analysts had however sensed China’s strategy that Beijing was not sincerely concerned about India, but instead wanted to highlight Washington’s failure to send vaccine raw materials to India due to export curbs and stockpiled supplies of AstraZeneca vaccines.
“There’s always a hidden agenda behind Beijing’s outreach in such matters,” said a senior former diplomat. China wants to signal to India that America [which initially refused help to India] is not a reliable partner and drives a wedge between Delhi and Washington who share a good relationship. The Global Times newspaper has in the past days criticised the US for failing to provide aid to India, suggesting it is not a reliable partner for India, despite both countries forging closer ties in the past year in a bid to counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
New Delhi has remained silent on Beijing’s offer of assistance; going by the public sentiments that go against China in the backdrop of border clashes. China wanted India to play right into its hands if it had accepted the offer of help considering that it had always on the lookout for domination on the geopolitical stage.
