Saffronists meet communists, tongues wag

A Communist Party of China (CPC) delegation led by its international department’s vice minister Sun Haiyan visited the ruling BJP’s headquarters. Significantly, the CPC delegation also called on RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale. Chinese Ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, also joined the CPC delegation in the meetings. Apparently, during the meeting, a BJP delegation headed by party general secretary Arun Singh discussed at length advancing inter-party communications between the BJP and the Communist Party of China.

According to media reports, the BJP has maintained a continuous relationship with the CPC and since 2008, at least 12 such interactions between the BJP and China have taken place. This does seem odd, considering the leftist ideology of the CPC and the BJP’s right-wing Hindutva agenda. On expected lines, the saffron party has rubbished opposition attacks by stating that relations are improving between the two nations, under Modi’s leadership.

It is an open secret that for years, the BJP kept shouting that the Congress had signed an MoU yielding to Beijing, tearing down on Nehru and his ‘ failure’ to handle China in the 1962 war.  The BJP keeps on  alleging that Rahul Gandhi signed a secret MoU with the Communist Party of China in Beijing in 2018 in the presence of Sonia Gandhi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It has also been demanding that the Congress make public the details of the MoU.

 The meeting assumes significance on several counts. First, it comes just days after China reaffirmed its territorial claims over the Shaksgam valley in the backdrop of India’s objections. Secondly, China supported the Pakistan military against India during Operation Sindoor.  China deployed its HQ-9 air defence systems and supplied Pakistan with PL-15 missiles explicitly aimed at India.

Apart from Ladakh,  China is making persistent efforts to intrude into the Chicken Neck ( Siliguri) Corridor,  via South Doklam,  and through Bangladesh, which is under the Belt & Road initiative of Beijing. As expected, the Modi government has officially criticised China’s infrastructure development projects in the Shaksgam valley. Incidentally, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq km of Indian territory in the Shaksgam valley to China in 1963 from areas illegally occupied by it.

While what was actually discussed at these meeting will never be made public, one would have expected the saffron party to have taken up with the Chinese burning issues like border transgressions, frequent claims of Indian territory , easing of rare earth and critical mineral supply  and thier unflinching support to Pakistan, which in turn gives a ideal base to  terrorists.