'Intrinsic to our foreign policy, India prefers another approach to issue", experts after India abstained on UNHRC vote on Xinjiang

By Ayushi Agarwal
New Delhi [India], October 7 : After India abstained on Thursday from voting on a UN Human Rights Council resolution on holding a debate on the human rights situation in China's Xinjiang, experts called this 'intrinsic' to foreign policy and that New Delhi would prefer another approach to the issue.
MS Pratibha, Expert on issues related to China and Associate fellow at IDSA said, "India has a long history of abstaining from country-specific resolutions so if you look at India's foreign policy we don't believe in bringing country-specific resolutions and then targeting a specific country about such issues. I think this is something which is intrinsic to our foreign policy where any country which brings in country-specific resolutions, India would abstain from it. It doesn't mean that India supports China. It just means that India would prefer another approach to this specific approach to the issue."
Terming the abstaining of resolution as 'India's self-interest', another expert believes that India is also trying to warn China to not meddle in the Kashmir issue as it has done in the past.
"It is in India's self-interest in terms of abstaining from the current resolution. India is also trying to tell China not to meddle in the Kashmir issue because in 2019 and 2020, China had taken the Kashmir issue to the United Nations Security Council for informal discussions but the other P4 members rejected that proposal and hence China did not raise that issue. So, India is trying to convey to the Chinese that they are under notice by the international community for what they are doing in Xinjiang and the Indian vote is very crucial for the Chinese side", said Srikant Kondapalli, China Expert and Professor in Chinese studies, Dean, School of International Studies, JNU.
"India is also conveying its displeasure not by voting in favour of China. Displeasure to suggest that diplomatic reciprocity is essential in the normal bilateral relations between any two countries", he added.
The expert called the voting at UN 'interesting', adding that those countries that China banked on and are part of China's belt and Road initiative even voted against China.
"It is also an interesting fact that some countries which China was banking on, like Somalia or others, have voted against China and in favour of the resolution. So, this is surprising that China's belt and road initiative, which was initiated in 2013 and is a kind of softening of the many countries' positions on various issues related to China. But surprisingly those countries which have gone through the belt and road initiative have voted against China", Kondapalli added.
The draft resolution on "holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China" was rejected in the 47-member Council after 17 members voted in favour, 19 members voted against, including China, and 11 abstentions, including India, Brazil, Mexico and Ukraine.
The draft resolution was presented by a core group consisting of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA, and co-sponsored by a range of states, including Turkey.