Why is China 'protecting' the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group?

[TomSea]

Why is China 'protecting' the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group?

China blocked a recent Indian move to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief Masood Azhar at the UN. In a DW interview, Siegfried O Wolf explains why China is protecting the Pakistan-based militant group's head.

On Friday, December 30, China vetoed India's request at the United Nations to designate the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad's (JeM) head Masood Azhar as a terrorist. The UN Security Council has already blacklisted JeM, but not Azhar.

New Delhi accuses JeM and Azhar of masterminding several terrorist attacks on Indian soil, including a deadly assault on an Indian airbase in Pathankot in January 2016. Pakistani investigators say Azhar and his associates had no links with the attack.

Vikas Swarup, the spokesman for India's Foreign Ministry, said that his country had requested nine months ago that Azhar be blacklisted, and claimed that most members of the Security Council had backed the move.

"We had expected China would have been more understanding of the danger posed to all by terrorism," Swarup said in a statement, adding that the inability of the international community to ban Azhar showed the "prevalence of double standards in the fight against terrorism."

Continued: http://www.dw.com/en/why-is-china-protecting-the-pakistan-based-jaish-e-mohammad-militant-group/a-36974181