India effectively branded Pakistan 'a regional pariah' during Brics summit: Chinese state media

An article in a Chinese state-run paper has criticised India for using the recently-concluded Brics summit to "outmanoeuvre" Pakistan and placing itself in a bright spot while effectively branding its neighbour as "a regional pariah".

It also accuses Delhi of sidelining Islamabad by inviting all other countries in the region, except Pakistan, to a conference that ran parallel to the Brics summit in Goa.

The opinion piece has been written by a Chinese scholar in the state-run Global Times which indicates that the Brics summit worked in favour of India. The Indian media has expressed surprise over the article. This was especially because China continues to block India's membership bid for the 48-member elite Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).

Beijing took Pakistan's side during the summit and also thwarted India's attempt in designating Pakistan as a "terror-state". India also pushed for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council but it was met with frustration.

The Global Times article says India hosting the Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) meeting "bore even thicker geostrategic connotations" and "in effect consigned Pakistan to be a regional pariah".

The Brics and Bimstec meetings took place on 15 and 16 October in the background of the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan.

By inviting regional countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan for the conference, India "breathed legitimacy and substance into an otherwise hallow and moribund acronym organisation", the article says.

It adds that India got an opportunity to put itself in an advantageous position by hosting the summit when compared to Pakistan, as it had its own "agenda-setting powers" for the summit.

The article also refers to India's decision to withdraw from the Saarc summit that was to be held to Islamabad in November following the Uri attacks.

"The collapse of the Saarc summit presented India a rare opportunity to get rid of any constraints Islamabad may have over the regional group, as the same group would soon gather in Goa in the absence of Pakistan".

The article concludes that India's dominance - leaving out Pakistan in the subcontinent - might raise "suspicions and fear for small countries", and that Bimstec as an alternative to the Saarc summit remains "ambiguous".