AMN/ WEB DESK
The Chinese double speak has come to the fore once again. At a press conference in Beijing, the foreign ministry spokesman parried a direct response to its stand on Pakistan granting provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Using an oft repeated cliché, he said it is an issue left over from history between India and Pakistan.
The seemingly quiet response of the Chinese establishment vis a vis Pakistan’s move in forcibly occupied Gilgit-Baltistan exposes its diatribe against India scrapping article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir in August last year.
It may be recalled that China had made protests at that time but now chose to remain quiet on Pakistan in its effort to make changes in Gilgit Baltistan.
India has firmly rejected attempts by Pakistan to bring material changes to a part of Indian territory, under its illegal and forcible occupation.
It has made clear that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the area of so-called “Gilgit-Baltistan”, are an integral part of India by virtue of the legal, complete and irrevocable accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Union of India in 1947.
The so-called claims made by Beijing that countries have shown interest in joining China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have also fallen flat.
When asked to name which other country has shown interest, the Chinese foreign ministry even failed to mention the name of a single country and preferred to use the garb of trilateral or multilateral cooperation.