diplomatic offensive +China-Pakistan dialogue +NEW DELHI: As India mounts aagainst Pakistan over the issue of terrorism, China has again signalled it will continue to prop up Islamabad as a counterpoise against India's bid for membership of Nuclear Supplies Group Last week, China held another round of Arms Control Consultation with Pakistan in which it discussed Islamabad's application for NSG membership and also "indicated" on placing Pakistan's views and inputs to the group for consideration. Like in the case with the statement on India, the Chinese communication on Pakistan too says it will bring the view of Islamabad to the NSG. China's assurance is still important though in the light of Beijing's use of Pakistan to blunt India's campaign for membership.After China, with the backing of a few other countries, blocked India's bid for membership at the Seoul NSG plenary in June, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi proposed a dialogue between the director generals of disarmament of the two countries when he met his counterpart Sushma Swaraj here last month. While discussing NSG, Swaraj had spoken about the importance of India meeting its clean energy goals in context of the Paris climate agreement. This approach, of course, failed to provide any breakthrough in talks even though the two officials agreed to again meet soon over the issue.China, in fact, has maintained all along that the NSG consider a criteria based approach for non-NPT countries before getting into any country-specific issue.

Source: Times of India September 25, 2016 19:19 UTC