Bring China Into Kashmir

By Mowahid H. Shah

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, writing in The New York Times of June 8, 1999, has advocated a Camp David-like approach for Kashmir. By her own admission, she got her cues from former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, whom she met at Berkeley. Briefly, Camp David led to rapprochement between Egypt and Israel and Jordan and Israel, but left the Palestinian issue unresolved. The core of the Middle East problem has been the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over the same piece of real estate. The broader Arab-Israeli conflict is derivative.

Nearly a decade after Camp David, the intifada burst out in Israeli-occupied territories. Suicidal resistance to the occupiers was followed by more crackdowns on Palestinians. The vicious cycle continues to date. True, Arafat and the PLO can call a small slice of Palestine their own. But genuine peace remains a mirage with a new Palestinian generation, not heeding Arafat or caring to know the why behind Wye.

Coming back to Kashmir, who will be the Kashmiri Arafat? There won’t be many takers for a one-way ticket to the hereafter. Benazir’s plan may have theoretical appeal for some, but can it take off beyond the drawing rooms of Lahore and London? It is dysfunctional precisely because it is Utopian.

Three formulas have been tried for resolving the Kashmiri conflict:

1. U.N.: outstanding U.N. resolutions urging a plebiscite on Kashmir remain to be implemented. Considering the insipid stewardship of Kofi Annan, they will remain so for the foreseeable future.

2. U.S. mediation: quite unlikely in that India would not consent to it and America would not be driven to it. Former U.S. Secretary for South Asian Affairs John Kelly testified before Congress in 1990 that the U.S. was no longer pressing for a plebiscite. Unlike Camp David, which was driven by compelling Israeli interests, there are no such domestic compulsions here for the U.S. to undertake such a high-risk venture.

3. Simla Accord: a bilateral approach suits India and localizes the Kashmir issue, in contravention of Pakistan’s attempt to internationalize it.

Having gone through all the tried and tested routes, it may pay to be a little innovative by bringing China more into the picture. This is what Indian strategists and policymakers dread the most: double-pronged pressure from both China and Pakistan on Kashmir. Some Pakistanis may shun this for the irrational fear of antagonizing the U.S., but it may even have the opposite effect of activating the U.S. on Kashmir. Lest it be forgotten, it was Pakistan that enabled Nixon to play his vaunted China card to such effect.

Mowahid Hussain Shah, who writes a regular column for Pakistan Link, published in Los Angeles, from which this column is reprinted, has been editor of the Eastern Times (Washington, DC), editor-designate of The Muslim (Islamabad), and vice president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the United States. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.