India needs to convince China on NSG membership: Expert

Senior fellow and head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Dr. Rajeswari Rajagopalan on Sunday said India's NSG entry and Beijing's technical hold on Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar will be at the core of the meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Dival and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

She said the discussion gains importance as New Delhi failed to gather consensus in the BRICS Summit on Pakistan sponsored terrorism.

"If we look at BRICS, it was not a great moment for India, as it could not get a consensus view on terrorism and further isolating and pointing to the fact that much of the terrorism in the recent years that India has faced with has come from Pakistan, again it showcase how China is shielding Pakistan in many ways," Rajagopalan told ANI.

Rajagopalan said that there has been growing dissatisfaction in India on how much of destructive role it has played in both the bilateral and multilateral especially in context of NSG and terrorism.

"Unless we don't have a common or selective approach to terrorism, this is going to be a problem which may bite back China in some way or the other," she said.

She said that India needs to make a last minute ditch on the NSG issue in the meeting.

"We have to take that one last effort to convince China to do the right thing by letting India into the grouping, China is not losing anything at all, if at all it would gain some sort of sympathy from India," Rajagopalan added.

Commenting on China's technical hold on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar from branding him a global terrorist, Rajagopalan said, "It is strange that we have Jaish-e-Mohammad listed as a terrorist organisation but its chief cannot be. Moreover, it is unclear as to why the technical hold is still place upon him."

Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart will meet in Hyderabad in the first week of November.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of Beijing blocking India's admission into the NSG and China putting a second technical hold on New Delhi's move to bring about a UN ban on Masood Azhar.

India has also expressed its apprehensions on the 51 billion dollars China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).