Pakistan: Signing with the Red Chinese

Under the best of circumstances, the chances of India and Pakistan’s solving their prickly dispute over control of Kashmir are not very bright. Last week, on the eve of the fourth round of talks in Calcutta, Pakistan dimmed hopes of settlement even further by signing a border agreement with Red China, which recognized Pakistani control to a part of northern Kashmir that has long been claimed by the Indians.

India angrily fired off notes to both Rawalpindi and Peking condemning the pact. New Delhi was less disturbed by the barren, mountainous geography involved than by the fact that Pakistan Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto could travel to Peking and negotiate a separate deal on a chunk of Kashmir with the Communist enemy, while the talks with India were still going on, and while Chinese troops still menaced India’s Himalayan frontier. It just might be that Pakistan’s Bhutto was using the Chinese agreement as a club to scare India’s government into making compromises on Kashmir. In any case, he said, “we are under no obligation to explain these matters to anyone . . . We have to pursue our national interests.”