As it monitors what promises to be an important turning point in Sino-Pak relations, Indian analysis will be tempted to focus on its traditional concerns about the time tested strategic partnership between Islamabad and Beijing. New Delhi instead should focus on a new challenge that confronts it. Hu’s visit to Pakistan — with its focus on free trade and permeable borders — highlights one of the consequences of the rise of China. If India does not get its neighbourhood act together, China will emerge as the principal economic partner of most South Asian nations.

Nuclear triangle

Having announced his intent to initiate civilian nuclear cooperation with India, is Hu now free to go ahead with the planned sale of additional power reactors to Pakistan? Hu will find it hard to resist the entreaties from a trusted ally in the wake of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the spokeswoman of the Pakistan Foreign Office, Tasnim Aslam, dismissed as “speculative” the reports on a new nuclear agreement between the two nations during Hu’s visit.

The denial is most likely aimed at the word “new” rather than the deal on reactors itself. The simple fact is that the only way China can sell nuclear reactors to Pakistan is by claiming that the sale is under an “old” agreement that predates Chinese commitment to global non-proliferation norms.