*BEIJING: India stands isolated among SCO countries after it failed to* supportChina’s ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure project at the end of aforeign ministers’ meeting of a major security bloc on Tuesday, ahead of anice-breaking trip to China this week by India’s prime minister.
The Belt and Road is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s landmark scheme tobuild infrastructure to connect China to the rest of Asia and beyond, agiant reworking of its old Silk Road.
India has not signed up to the initiative as parts of one key project, the$57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, run throughPakistan-administered Kashmir.
Whether or not China will be able to win India round to the Belt and Roadwill likely be a key measure of the success of Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s trip to China to meet Xi for an informal meeting on Fridayand Saturday.
But India’s foreign minister did not express support for Belt and Road inthe communique released after foreign ministers of the China and Russia-ledShanghai Cooperation Organisation met in Beijing.
India, along with Pakistan, joined the group last year. All the otherforeign ministers – from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia,Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – “reaffirmed support for China’s Belt and Roadproposal”, the statement read. It gave no further explanation.
Modi is coming to China as efforts at rapprochement gather pace following atesting year in ties between the two neighbours.
The Asian giants were locked in a 73-day military stand-off in a remote,high-altitude stretch of that boundary last year. At one point, soldiersfrom the two sides threw stones and punches.
The confrontation between the nuclear-armed powers in the Himalayasunderscored Indian alarm at China’s expanding security and economic linksin South Asia.
Modi will come again to China in June for a summit of the ShanghaiCooperation Organisation. China will also have to tread carefully to avoidgiving its close ally Pakistan cause for alarm.
China on Monday reassured Pakistan that relations between the two countrieswere as firm as ever and would “never rust”. – Agencies