Pakistan left red-faced as China daily confirms downed 'spy' drone was Chinese-made

Does China genuinely want Pakistan to smoke the peace pipe with India or is Beijing interested in keeping the pot of India-Pakistan tensions boiling for obvious strategic reasons? The latter has long been suspected but no clear signals of the Chinese intent are available.

Against this backdrop, a strange development has just taken place. The development is so strange that it borders on the bizarre.

The People’s Daily , the biggest official daily newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party with a circulation of up to four million and having at least a dozen editions in foreign languages, published an interesting report captioned “Shot Down Drone in Pakistan Made in China” on Saturday. It quoted another Shanghai-based website “Observer” as saying that the shot down drone by Pakistani military was recognized in Beijing as the Chinese-made DJI Phantom 3.

Interestingly, this news story has been the most viewed story on the People’s Daily website. One is not sure whether the story was carried by mistake because if this is the case then it won’t remain on the website for hours and won’t be acknowledged as a top trending story. One will have to wait and watch if the newspaper removes the story.

However, as a long time watcher of the Chinese media, this writer has no hesitation in saying that news stories and opinion pieces are not published by the Chinese media (all of which is state-owned) without going through a multi-layered vetting system. Invariably, the Chinese media reflects the government’s views.

That should indeed be the case even for the People’s Daily story. It is a highly embarrassing story for China’s all-weather ally Pakistan as it goes contrary to what Pakistan has claimed and corroborates the Indian stand.

On 17 July, foreign secretary S Jaishankar had remarked thus on Pakistani allegations about an alleged spy drone: “The photograph of the drone in question indicates that it is not of Indian design, nor of any UAV category held in the inventory of the Indian armed forces. It appears to be of Chinese design, and is commercially available off the shelf.”

Pakistan’s civil and military leadership would obviously look sheepish after the People’s Daily report. Islamabad had in a way justified the recent uptick in its ceasefire violations by accusing India of sending a “spy drone” into Pakistan-administered territory for espionage. But after the corroboration of Indian stand in Chinese state media, the Pakistani claims ring hollow.

It is not surprising though that Pakistan continues to display its anti-India mindset, reflected by Pakistani soldiers’ refusal on Saturday to accept sweets from the Indian side on the occasion of Eid, a ritual that has gone on uninterruptedly even in the face of utmost India-Pakistan tensions.

However, the bigger story in this context is what is China’s attitude in context of India-Pakistan tensions which are running high currently.

It suits China strategically if military tensions between India and Pakistan continue to run high. At least that has been the age-old theory and a fairly logical argument too as Indo-Pak tensions would keep a large chunk of Indian troops bogged down on the western borders.

But this traditional paradigm may well be shifting. The above mentioned story of the People’s Daily may be a subtle signal of the changing Chinese strategy.

China has recently unveiled its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious trans-continental connectivity project driven by China’s best known diplomatic tool: its cheque book diplomacy. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), announced recently, is of pivotal importance to the larger BRI as far as China is concerned.

During his recent trip to Pakistan, Chinese President Xi Jinping had pledged to invest $46 billion in Pakistan, much of it for the CPEC project. India is stiffly opposed to the CPEC as it proposes to pass through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir which India claims as its territory.

China won’t be able to implement the BRI if the CPEC runs into rough weather. The CPEC cannot have a smooth run if India remains a steadfast opponent because of its route. Besides, adverse security and political climate too would be bad for implementation of the CPEC.

Therefore, while ratcheting up tensions along the India-Pakistan border may suit the strategic calculus of Pakistani military establishment, China may be on a different page.

Chinese economy has begun to face tough challenges and none knows it better than China that one cannot become a superpower without the necessary economic heft.

It is, therefore, in China’s interests that India-Pakistan tensions do not continue to simmer. This may be a plausible explanation of the Chinese state media publishing a rare story like the one mentioned above which goes against Pakistan’s strategic interests.