Balochistan, where China has sunk in $46 billion to build the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, connecting Gwadar port with Xinjiang—a key infrastructural piece of President Xi Jinping’s one-belt-one-road project—is fast showing signs of becoming a new headache in the already uneasy Sino-Indian relations.
The Chinese leadership is busy battling a move by the US and its allies to keep a possible mention of the ongoing tension in the South China Sea at the G20 Summit in China’s Hangzhou on September 4-5. Beijing has been lobbying with member countries, including India, not to be a party to the West-initiated move. Balochistan was hardly an issue China expected India to raise—it not only adds fresh strains on the frayed India-Pakistan ties but also has the potential of drawing China into it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, had surprised most people with an unprecedented reference to the appalling human rights condition in Balochistan and...
