DW: China blocked a recent Indian move to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammad...literally
Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf
bannedthe group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat...
chief Masood Azhar at the UN. In April, Beijing put a similar move on hold. Why is China protecting Azhar?
Siegfried O. Wolf: China's diplomatic support for Pakistain-based bully boyz is multi-faceted. Therefore, one must look at Beijing's latest action at the UN in a larger context.
China's protection of Masood Azhar is only one component of the Chinese campaign to provide Pakistain its diplomatic support, which includes informal "lobbying work" to prevent Pakistain from being listed as a state that sponsors terrorism. The possible sanctions would not only have immense political and economic implications for Islamabad, they will also reflect poorly on Beijing as Pakistain is widely seen as a close China ally. Therefore, Chinese authorities try to undermine all Indian attempts to officially name Pakistain as a state-sponsor of terrorism on international platforms like BRICS or the Heart of Asia conference.
Beijing is now also drawing on Islamabad's improved relations with Moscow. China is increasingly involving Pakistain in multilateral dialogues on regional cooperation and security in relation to the Afghanistan-Pakistain region and Central Asia in an attempt to minimize Pakistain's international isolation.
Another dimension of China's move to block the Indian effort to designate Azhar as a terrorist is the threat that anti-Indian krazed killer groups like the JeM could turn against the Pak state. This would have dangerous implications for China, especially for its massive investments and development initiatives in the South Asian country, including the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistain Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. We must not forget that international terror groups like al Qaeda, "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
" (IS) and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) oppose Beijing for its alleged anti-Moslem policies against the Uighurs in its western Xinjiang province. China doesn't want an additional confrontation with Islamist groups.
Finally, there is no doubt that the India-China rivalry might also be a factor in Beijing's support for Islamabad and Pakistain-based terrorists. In this context, China's major development projects like "One Belt, One Road" to link China with Europe and the Middle East, and several other infrastructure projects show that Beijing considers Afghanistan an important country for its economic, security and geopolitical interests.