Don’t Show Double Standards in Combating Terrorism: India’s Message To China Ahead Of SCO Meet

 

New Delhi : Ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting to be held in Tianjin, India has made it clear in not so a subtle message to China that Beijing should not adopt double standards when it comes to combating terrorism. “Tomorrow, we will be meeting in the format of the SCO, whose primary mandate is to combat terrorism, separatism and extremism,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said during his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Monday. “This is a shared concern and India hopes that zero tolerance for terrorism will be strongly upheld,” he said.

 

Jaishankar’s statement assumes significance as, only last month, India refused to sign a joint declaration adopted after the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting held in Qingdao, China, as it did not have any reference to the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir, on April 22 perpetrated by Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh refused to sign the statement after it omitted the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 innocent civilians. What peeved India was that while the statement omitted Pahalgam, it referred to militant activities in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. In his speech at the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting, Singh had laid down the broad contours of India’s transitional shift in its policy against terrorism, calling upon the member countries to unite in eliminating the menace for collective safety and security.

 

“Peace and prosperity cannot co-exist with terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass sestruction in the hands of non-state actors and terror groups,” he had stated. “Dealing with these challenges requires decisive action. It is imperative that those who sponsor, nurture and utilise terrorism for their narrow and selfish ends must bear the consequences. Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of policy and provide shelter to terrorists. There should be no place for such double standards. SCO should not hesitate to criticise such nations,” Singh added. The Defence Minister had asserted that India launched Operation Sindoor in response to the heinous terror attack in Pahalgam exercising its right to defend against terrorism and pre-empt as well as deter further cross border attacks. “During the Pahalgam terror attack, victims were shot after they were profiled on religious identity,” he reminded the participants in the meeting.

 

“The Resistance Front, a proxy of UN-designated terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) claimed responsibility for the attack. The pattern of Pahalgam attack matches with LeT’s previous terror attacks in India. India’s zero tolerance for terrorism was demonstrated through its actions. It includes our right to defend ourselves against terrorism. We have shown that epicentres of terrorism are no longer safe and we will not hesitate to target them.” The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organisation of 10 member states. It was established in 2001 by the China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In June 2017, it expanded to eight states, with India and Pakistan. Iran joined the group in July 2023, and Belarus in July 2024. Several countries are engaged as observers or dialogue partners.

 

The SCO is primarily centred on security-related concerns, describing the main threats it confronts as being terrorism, separatism and extremism. It has addressed regional human trafficking and weapons trafficking and created terrorist blacklists. At the SCO summit held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2004, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) was established. On April 21, 2006, the SCO announced plans to fight cross-border drug crimes under the counter-terrorism rubric. In October 2007, the SCO signed an agreement with the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe to broaden cooperation on issues such as security, crime, and drug trafficking. As of 2010, the organisation was opposing cyberwarfare, saying that the dissemination of information “harmful to the spiritual, moral and cultural spheres of other states” should be considered a “security threat”. An accord adopted in 2009 defined “information war”, in part, as an effort by a state to undermine another’s “political, economic, and social systems”.

 

It is in this context that Jaishankar’s remarks during his meeting with Wang Yi assumes significance. By voicing “zero tolerance” ahead of the upcoming SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting, India stakes out a firm stance that cross-border terrorism will no longer be tolerated, aligning with its actions post-Pahalgam. According to Ash Narain Roy, Director of the New Delhi-based Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), China is trying to use the SCO or any other platform to spite India. “So, Jaishankar is trying to pre-empt what happened during the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting,” Roy, who last week attended the SCO Digital Economy Forum in Tianjin, told ETV Bharat. “But it is possible that the same story might be repeated during the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting. However, even if some space is given to India, even partially, it should be seen as an advancement. Jaishankar is trying to send a strong message to the SCO.” MS Prathibha, Associate Fellow at the East Asia Centre in the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, concurred.

 

“What India is saying is that if you can condemn all terror attacks, why can’t you condemn Pahalgam,” Prathiba told ETV Bharat. “India is urging China not to show double standards when it comes to combating terrorism.” She said that what India is indicating is that what is the point of being a part of a multilateral forum when there are double standards in dealing with the menace of terrorism. In essence, Jaishankar’s statement is both symbolically and strategically crucial. It transforms the response to a tragic event – the Pahalgam massacre - into a broader regional and international framework, pushing for sustained collective pressure against terrorism at the SCO.