Pakistan to be a regional pariah

"to outmanoeuvre" its neighbour

uneasy background of Indo-Pakistani tension

a Bimstec meet

Brics country

NEW DELHI: India "in effect consigned" and used Brics, by inviting all countries in the region - except Pakistan - to a conference parallel to the Brics summit in Goa , said a surprising article in the state-run Chinese press today.The opinion piece by a Chinese scholar - in the state-run media - is surprising because it seems to indicate Beijing thinks the summit was a win for India, despite its having blocked New Delhi's attempts to name Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Muhammad in the Summit declaration.The parallel Goa summit was the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or Bimstec, which India planned in tandem with the Brics summit."Given the, which escalated last month, India's inclusion of Bimstec bore even thicker geostrategic connotations. As India invited all countries in the region except Pakistan, it in effect consigned Pakistan to be a regional pariah," said an opinion piece in the Global Times.The article said that after India and various countries pulled out of the November Saarc summit just weeks before the Brics meet, holding"presented India a rare opportunity to get rid of any constraints Islamabad may have over the regional group, as the same group would soon gather in Goa in the absence of Pakistan."That's the "outmanoeuvring" part the article's title refers to. To be sure, India pulled out of Saarc only after the cross-border terror strike in Uri in Kashmir that killed 19 Indian soldiers."By bringing regional countries - Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan - together with the major emerging economies of the Brics, India breathed legitimacy and substance into an otherwise hallow and moribund acronym organization. While the rest of the BRICS members would never openly endorse either side in the Indo-Pakistan tension, India in a way secured its stance vis-à-vis Pakistan by taking advantages of its agenda-setting powers for the summits," the Global Times article said.The article did add, though, that it didn't see Bimstec as being a more effective alternative to SAARC, because "a subcontinent grouping without Pakistan balancing and checking a dominant India may well raise suspicions and fear for smaller countries.Other reasons India managed to "consign Pakistan to be a regional pariah" included the fact that India's economy is currently more robust than that of any other, so it could, to some extent, dictate the agenda of the summit. As well, India was the host, giving it another strategic advantage.For India, this BRICS summit also was "a wonderful platform to coordinate efforts in reforming current global economic and finance governance", the article said. It was referring to the summit having given India leverage in demanding reforms like the ceding of two chairs on the executive board of the International Monetary Fund.