Dating back to the 1950s and rekindled in 1998, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — a series of infrastructural projects in Pakistan which are a part of a Chinese flagship project — has been a constant source of corrosion in Indo-Pak relations. It got further concretised in 2016 when Chinese cargo ships were transported to Gwadar Port. Now, the issue Indian diplomats have with CPEC is that it will pass through the Gilgit-Baltistan in PoK, which our government considers its own territory.

And a major concern that India has had is vis-a-vis cross-border terrorism, which is likely to flourish with increased access to Indian territory actualised by this corridor. And so, for years, while India had been pushing for the UN to recognise Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, the move was continually opposed by China.