The visiting Chinese delegation has urged India to act independently on Huawei

Even as India and others insist that Indo-Pacific only stands for peace and security, China warned Monday against attempts to sow 'discord' in the region, saying that nobody should play into the hands of countries which were driven solely by their own strategic interests. 

A member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the 13th CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) National Committee and leader of a visiting Chinese delegation, Yang Yanyi, said the US and a few others had given more emphasis to the military and defence aspect of Indo-Pacific and that their narrative, unlike India's or ASEAN’s, was confrontational. 

"Any regional initiative needs to be open, inclusive, rules based, guided by the principles of respect, sovereignty, non-interference and mutual trust. Such an attempt of deepening mistrust, miscalculation and patterns of behaviour based on zero sum game should be guarded against. Indo-Pacific should be about addressing issues like poverty alleviation and connectivity, not about creating divisions," said Yang, who is in India leading a delegation comprising officials from the Chinese foreign ministry and also strategic affairs experts. 

"The rhetoric and narrative to my ears have been quite confrontational. So I would like to concur with some of the views expressed, including by ASEAN and also by India, that Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean region should not be viewed as contiguous, territorial spaces, but as a closely integrated and inter-connected region," added Yang, who is in India to discuss issues related to the US-China trade dispute. 

Yang recalled PM Narendra Modi’s speech at the Shangri La Dialogue last year in which, while underlining the need for an open and secure Indo-Pacific, he had said Asia and the world will have a better future when India and China work together in trust and confidence, sensitive to each other's interests. In his joint press interaction with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo last week, foreign minister S Jaishankar had sought to address some of China’s concerns when he said that the Indo-Pacific was for something, and not against somebody, and that something stood for peace, prosperity, security and rules. 

Yang also expressed hope that on the contentious Huawei 5G issue India will act in its best interest 'independently' and also keeping in mind the best technology available. 

"Huawei enjoys cutting edge technology and I think it will best facilitate India’s realisation of its dream of becoming a digital economy and building up competitiveness. We need to guard against the attempt of some forces in the world to monopolise science and technology. Some of them could not stomach the fact that developing countries can also excel in science and technology and innovation. They should feel a sense of shame in using state power to attack, suppress private, competitive Chinese companies," she said. 

The US has pushed India to ban Huawei’s 5G operations because of security-related concerns but the Chinese giant has appealed to India to take an independent and informed decision. Modi and US President Donald Trump discussed collaboration in 5G technology for mutual benefit at their meeting in Osaka last week on the margins of G20. Trump, as foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said, spoke about the work American companies were doing in 5G technology.