Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Tensions between India and Pakistan that threatened to boil over
Speaker 2: during the weekend have now settled back to a simmer.
Speaker 2: The two countries have been striking at targets inside each
Speaker 2: other's borders since last Wednesday. It's the worst fighting between
Speaker 2: these two nuclear powers in half a century. But now
Speaker 2: they appear to have reached a fragile truce.
Speaker 1: So what you saw with this conflict was really the
Speaker 1: closest that India and Pakistan have come to it all
Speaker 1: at war since possibly the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: Dan Strump is a Bloomberg senior reporter based in India's
Speaker 2: capital of New Delhi. He says the hostilities are the
Speaker 2: latest phase of a long standing territorial dispute over the
Speaker 2: border region of Jammu and Kashmir.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most contested regions the world. Really,
Speaker 1: Both India and Pakistan have claimed this region as their
Speaker 1: own going back to the time of independence.
Speaker 2: But what might look to outsiders like a regional issue
Speaker 2: has serious international implications. Both Indian and Pakistan are nuclear powers.
Speaker 2: India's one of the world's largest economies and the most populous.
Speaker 2: Then there's China, which has been working to grow its
Speaker 2: influence in the region. These factors appear to have drawn
Speaker 2: in the Trump administration. US President Donald Trump surprised the
Speaker 2: world by announcing a ceasefire in a social media post
Speaker 2: over the weekend, but not everyone's happy about that. The
Speaker 2: surprise announcement may have upstaged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaker 1: There's a real sort of sense of dismay and anger
Speaker 1: that you see among Indian politicians and ordinary Indians as well.
Speaker 1: This really throws a ranch in Modi's political standing right
Speaker 1: now in India.
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Speaker 2: Every week we take you inside some of the world's
Speaker 2: biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
Speaker 2: businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today in the show,
Speaker 2: a conversation between Rebecca Chung Wilkins and Bloomberg reporter Dan
Speaker 2: Strump about the increasingly intense conflict between India and Pakistan,
Speaker 2: how the conflict changed in recent days, and the roles
Speaker 2: the US and China have been playing in the background.
Speaker 3: India said that it has conducted military strikes in Pakistan
Speaker 3: and Pakistan, on the other hand, said they have downed
Speaker 3: five Indian fighter jet planes and this is an escalation
Speaker 3: of the two nuclear armed nations. The tensions have been
Speaker 3: similar for the last few days ever since twenty six
Speaker 3: people were killed.
Speaker 4: Dan, Hello, it's been a very busy few weeks for you.
Speaker 1: It's been very busy for all of us here in
Speaker 1: India and Pakistan.
Speaker 4: And I want to get straight into the conflict and
Speaker 4: what's been keeping you so busy.
Speaker 1: So the current conflict goes back about three weeks on
Speaker 1: April twenty second, to a terrible attack that took place
Speaker 1: in Indian Administered Kashmir in a region known as Pahalgam,
Speaker 1: which is a sort of beautiful mountainous meadow region in Kashmir.
Speaker 1: A large group of tourists were vacationing in the meadow
Speaker 1: and armed gunmen came out of the forest and gunned
Speaker 1: down twenty six people. All of them were civilians, mostly tourists,
Speaker 1: mostly Indians. So in the immediate aftermath of this event,
Speaker 1: India very quickly blamed Pakistan for the disaster in Kashmir.
Speaker 1: Pakistan very quickly denied any involvement.
Speaker 4: And where exactly is Kashmir? Because geography really matters.
Speaker 1: In this case, geography does really matter. So Kashmir is
Speaker 1: a large region that sits on the northern tip of
Speaker 1: India bordering Pakistan, and it's about the size of the UK.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most contested regions in the world. Really,
Speaker 1: Both India and Pakistan have claimed this region as their
Speaker 1: own going back to the time of independence.
Speaker 4: And dan, how did Kashmir become so contentious between India
Speaker 4: and Pakistan?
Speaker 1: So the conflict essentially dates back to the independence of
Speaker 1: both countries from the British in nineteen forty seven. The
Speaker 1: British colonial administration essentially left the region in a hurry,
Speaker 1: leaving a whole host of territorial disputes unresolved, and the
Speaker 1: most front dispute of all came to be Kashmir, and
Speaker 1: Kashmir became this sort of touching off point for the
Speaker 1: very first war that the two countries fought immediately after independence,
Speaker 1: and it's been a source of multiple wars over the
Speaker 1: years ever since.
Speaker 4: How did we see the two sides respond in the
Speaker 4: immediate aftermath of this event, So.
Speaker 1: It's about two weeks of posturing. Nothing really happened until
Speaker 1: about a week ago when India announced that it had
Speaker 1: undertaken a series of air strikes on the Pakistani side
Speaker 1: of Kashmir. Pakistan responded with its own strikes. The two
Speaker 1: sides traded artillery fire, small arms fire, and eventually missile
Speaker 1: fire and drone and aircraft attacks were involved as well
Speaker 1: on both sides.
Speaker 4: Right, So that was the military response we've seen from
Speaker 4: the two sides. Were there any changes in terms of
Speaker 4: diplomacy and policymaking.
Speaker 1: So in addition to military strikes, India suspended what's known
Speaker 1: as the Indus Waters Treaty, which is a treaty that
Speaker 1: essentially governs the use of the Indus River and its
Speaker 1: vast number of tributaries. It's so essential to both of
Speaker 1: these countries their reliance on the water that comes from
Speaker 1: this vast sort of river basin. After India suspended this treaty,
Speaker 1: that really raised the fears that the flow of water
Speaker 1: from India to Pakistan, which lies downstream from India, could
Speaker 1: be under threat. And what Pakistan said very quickly after
Speaker 1: the suspension of this treaty was that if its waterflow
Speaker 1: is threatened, it would treat that as an act of war.
Speaker 4: You mentioned that Kashmir is a region no stranger to
Speaker 4: conflicts and skirmishes. So we've seen violence throughout the two
Speaker 4: thousands and further escalations in twenty nineteen. How is this
Speaker 4: time different from what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1: I think it's important for us to point out that
Speaker 1: what we saw in the last week or so is
Speaker 1: far from the sort of full blown wars that defined
Speaker 1: the conflicts that took place in the last century. Over Kashmir,
Speaker 1: what we saw was a major escalation in violence in
Speaker 1: comparison to what we've seen in recent decades. This conflict
Speaker 1: hit much closer to populated civilian areas, hit much closer
Speaker 1: to some of the locations of some of the highest
Speaker 1: levels of government, at least on the Pakistani side. On
Speaker 1: the military side, you saw air skirmishes taking place outside
Speaker 1: of Kashmir along the conventional border between Pakistan and India.
Speaker 1: You saw artillery fire traded on both sides. You saw
Speaker 1: the introduction of new types of weaponry, things like Kamikazi drones,
Speaker 1: Chinese made fighter jets on the Pakistani side, French made
Speaker 1: fighter jets on the Indian side. What several people have
Speaker 1: told us is essentially this conflict resets rules of the
Speaker 1: game it expands the theater around which future conflicts might
Speaker 1: take place and also expands the range of weaponry that
Speaker 1: might be involved.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us about the ceasefire. When did it happen
Speaker 4: and how was it actually reached.
Speaker 1: So, this ceasefire as we know it came over really
Speaker 1: just the course of a few hours of phone calls
Speaker 1: starting from the White House on Friday and Saturday and
Speaker 1: into the weekend. And those phone calls took place between
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio and Vice President Jade Vance and a number
Speaker 1: of high level players on the both Indian and Pakistani side.
Speaker 1: What took everybody by surprise was Trump's post on truth
Speaker 1: Social on Saturday morning in Washington Saturday afternoon here announcing
Speaker 1: that a ceasefire had taken place and it was a
Speaker 1: done deal.
Speaker 2: After the break, Rebecca and Dan talk about India's reaction
Speaker 2: to the Truth and to Trump's announcement, and what role
Speaker 2: China is playing in this conflict. India and Pakistan aren't
Speaker 2: the only countries disputing control of Kashmir. China claims a
Speaker 2: part of the region as well, and as a conflict
Speaker 2: between India and Pakistan unfolded in the back of everyone's minds,
Speaker 2: have been the ongoing trade negotiations that both China and
Speaker 2: India are conducting with the US. Meanwhile, the US approach
Speaker 2: to the tensions between India and Pakistan has been inconsistent.
Speaker 2: Last week, Vice President J. D Vance told Fox News
Speaker 2: that the conflict was quote fundamentally none of our business.
Speaker 2: Then Trump surprised everyone over the weekend by announcing a ceasefire.
Speaker 2: On social media, Rebecca Chung Wilkins asked Bloomberg's Dan Strump
Speaker 2: how each side is reacting to foreign intervention.
Speaker 1: Each side views the prospect of foreign intervention in the
Speaker 1: su conflict a little bit differently. On the Indian side,
Speaker 1: there has been a very deep seated resistance to any
Speaker 1: foreign intervention in the Kashmir conflict. India have used this
Speaker 1: conflict as an issue between Pakistan and India to be
Speaker 1: sorted out bilaterally. And this is a position that goes
Speaker 1: back decades now, and that in some part is because
Speaker 1: India has viewed foreign intervention and foreign mediation in this
Speaker 1: conflict as being something that might be sympathetic to Pakistan.
Speaker 1: I think the Indian side is finding it hard to
Speaker 1: not see this as having lost some ground in a
Speaker 1: way by especially being backed into accepting some kind of
Speaker 1: US role in any kind of ceasepire that is now
Speaker 1: taking hold. So in that sense, there's a real sort
Speaker 1: of sense of dismay and anger that you see among
Speaker 1: Indian politicians and ordinary Indians as well.
Speaker 4: And conversely, how is the US's involvement viewed by Pakistan Now?
Speaker 1: Pakistan, of course, has taken the opposite perspective. It wants
Speaker 1: foreign intervention in this conflict. It wants foreign brokerage and
Speaker 1: foreign mediation and has sought as much in various forums
Speaker 1: around the world, including the United Nation, the Organization of
Speaker 1: Islamic Cooperation, and directly appealing to third party countries as
Speaker 1: well for mediation in this conflict. There's a real sense
Speaker 1: of jubilation and that by bringing in a third party
Speaker 1: like the United States this broker a ceasefire, that this
Speaker 1: is a real victory for Pakistan. And now the two
Speaker 1: sides have future issues to discuss, and there's going to
Speaker 1: be third parties mediating and potentially laying a roadmap for
Speaker 1: conversations that could take place over well who knows how long.
Speaker 4: Now. One of the reasons why the US felt like
Speaker 4: they had to intervene was because they were worried that
Speaker 4: things could take a term for the worst if neither
Speaker 4: side ended up de escalating. Can you tell us why
Speaker 4: the US was so concerned about a full scale war
Speaker 4: breaking out in this part of the world.
Speaker 1: So this conflict for decades now has taken place against
Speaker 1: the backdrop of possible nuclear weapons use. Both countries have
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. India maintains a no first strike rule. Pakistan
Speaker 1: is ambiguous on how it might or might not use
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. At the same time, is a very strong
Speaker 1: incentive for neither country to push the conflict too far.
Speaker 1: It's also a reason why you do see foreign powers
Speaker 1: who might not otherwise be welcome or have any business
Speaker 1: in this conflict stick their nose in, like we just
Speaker 1: saw in just the last couple of day. So it
Speaker 1: really is the greatest fear that underlies this whole conflict.
Speaker 4: So we're speaking on Monday, May the twelfth. Now, what
Speaker 4: are the economic implications for both countries if the ceasefire
Speaker 4: doesn't hold.
Speaker 1: Pakistan remains mired in a real economic crisis and is
Speaker 1: in the midst of trying to obtain access to I
Speaker 1: think around seven billion dollars worth of loans from the
Speaker 1: International Monetary Fund and it badly needs that money. Now.
Speaker 1: On the Indian side, this conflict really was not a
Speaker 1: priority of the last couple of years for India anymore.
Speaker 1: India was under the impression that it was largely not
Speaker 1: quite settled, but a conflict that was more or less
Speaker 1: under control and wasn't really at risk of flaring up again.
Speaker 1: And so as a result, you had India really turning
Speaker 1: its attention elsewhere. Mody had really spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the last couple of years trying to bolster
Speaker 1: relationships with Europe within the lease, of course, with the US,
Speaker 1: and arguably the most pressing item on Modi's international agenda
Speaker 1: was negotiating a trade deal with the US until this
Speaker 1: conflict broke out. And on the date that the conflict
Speaker 1: broke out, Mody was actually hosting Vice President JD. Vance
Speaker 1: in India, where the two talked about a number of things,
Speaker 1: but talked about this trade deal that the two countries
Speaker 1: are trying to hammer out. It's been a real distraction,
Speaker 1: you could say, for both sides, which is probably a
Speaker 1: pretty good incentive for the two to also hold the
Speaker 1: ceasefire and try to put the conflict behind them, at.
Speaker 4: Least for now you mentioned Vice President JD. Vance was
Speaker 4: in India during the Kashmir attack. He visited India actually
Speaker 4: with his family and dined with Prime Minister Modi at
Speaker 4: his residence, and last week he said that the conflict
Speaker 4: was fundamentally none of the US's business, but that then
Speaker 4: did appear to change. So how should we see the
Speaker 4: US in this relationship. Do you see the US taking
Speaker 4: a back seat if this co develops further, or do
Speaker 4: you see it taking a more interventionist role from here?
Speaker 1: It's hard to see how the US, how the Trump
Speaker 1: administration can take a backseat. Now after all of the
Speaker 1: sort of tweets and posts and proclamations online, I think
Speaker 1: the US has fully inserted itself into this conflict, whether
Speaker 1: it wants to be or not. And that is potentially
Speaker 1: a problem for the US and for the Trump White House,
Speaker 1: which is really stretching itself as it tries to play
Speaker 1: peacemaker in all these different conflicts around the world. Trump,
Speaker 1: of course, pledged from day one to solve the Ukraine
Speaker 1: Russia conflict that's still ongoing. The conflict in Gaza is
Speaker 1: still ongoing, and now you've got Trump sticking his nose
Speaker 1: into this conflict as well. You know, now it remains
Speaker 1: to be seen what shape exactly this purported US mediation
Speaker 1: is going to take. And as I said, a lot
Speaker 1: of people on the Indian side have really just rejected
Speaker 1: the idea of US intervention at all. So we'll just
Speaker 1: have to see exactly how this looks.
Speaker 4: And what about China, who has been such a supporter
Speaker 4: of Pakistan, where do you see its role potentially in
Speaker 4: this dynamic.
Speaker 1: China has been one of those countries that from the
Speaker 1: beginning has been calling for both sides to de escalate,
Speaker 1: but it's also made very clear that it is on
Speaker 1: the side of Pakistan in this dispute, and that backing
Speaker 1: has really increased in the last couple of years in
Speaker 1: the form of foreign investment in weapons sales as well.
Speaker 1: And you saw the introduction of some of that on
Speaker 1: the battlefield in just the last couple of days. And
Speaker 1: you know, that's a real complicating factor for India because
Speaker 1: India and China don't get along. India Pakistan don't get along,
Speaker 1: the US and China don't get along, and now you
Speaker 1: have the US in India increasingly getting along. So this
Speaker 1: is very quickly turning into a sort of However, many
Speaker 1: ways fight in this part of the world, so it
Speaker 1: does make the world look, at least on the margin,
Speaker 1: a little bit more risky and a little bit more dangerous.
Speaker 4: Dan, thank you so much for making time, Thanks for
Speaker 4: joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 2: wan ha. This episode was produced by Young Young and
Speaker 2: Naomi mm. It was edited by Patty Hirsch and Daniel
Speaker 2: tan Cap and fact check by Bloomberg's editorial team. It
Speaker 2: was mixed and sound designed by Alex Suguiera. Our senior
Speaker 2: producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponzo.
Speaker 2: Our deputy executive producer is Julia Weaver. Our executive producer
Speaker 2: is Nicole Beemster Bower. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
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Speaker 2: See you next time.