Tensions have cooled between India and Pakistan since February, when Pakistani jihadists bombed an Indian paramilitary convoy in Kashmir and killed at least 40 Indian soldiers. Retaliatory airstrikes ended after Pakistan shot down and captured an Indian pilot, and his release this month has headed off escalation between the two nuclear powers—at least for a while.

The global focus now shifts to rooting out terrorists in Pakistan, but China is already easing international pressure on Islamabad to do so. On Wednesday Beijing blocked a United Nations Security Council effort to sanction Masood Azhar, the founder of jihadist terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed. JeM claimed responsibility for the February attack.

Such sanctions, proposed by the U.S. with support from France and the U.K., would designate Mr. Azhar a terrorist and subject him to a global asset freeze and travel ban. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned him in 2010 in part for calling “for volunteers to join the fight in Afghanistan against Western forces.”

A U.N. blacklisting would pressure Pakistan to comply. The U.S. State Department concluded in 2017 that Islamabad failed to stop JeM from “openly raising money, recruiting, and training” in the country.

But Beijing says they “still need more time” to consider the matter, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, “and thus put forward a technical hold.” Don’t expect a change: Beijing blocked Security Council action against Mr. Azhar in 2016 and 2017.


China is shielding Mr. Azhar even as it uses the threat of terror to sanction its own citizens. In its northwestern Xinjiang province, more than one million Chinese Uighur Muslims have been detained in “re-education” centers under the guise of preventing extremism. Xinjiang expert Adrian Zenz told the U.N. Human Rights Committee this week the number may have eclipsed 1.5 million, calling it “nothing less than a systematic campaign of cultural genocide.”

Unlike nearly all Uighurs, Mr. Azhar is a proven threat. Why would China give him a terror pass? Beijing is loath to upset what it calls its “all-weather” friendship with Pakistan, and one reason is strategic. The U.S. cut military aid to Islamabad last year after President Trump cited its support of terrorists in Afghanistan, and China wants to fill the gap.

According to the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker, China has poured nearly $32 billion into Pakistani infrastructure through Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. From 2008-2017, Pakistan imported $6 billion in weapons from China, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, making it Beijing’s biggest arms customer in Asia.

Spokesman Lu suggested that U.N. sanctions against Mr. Azhar could endanger the region’s stability, but the opposite is true. Without meaningful global action against jihadist enclaves in Pakistan, New Delhi may understandably conclude it has few options other than a military escalation.