India has revoked or refused to grant travel visas to at least three opponents of the governing Chinese Communist party trying to attend a conference on Indian soil, a move that will satisfy Beijing but frustrate activists for democracy and human rights.
The New Delhi government said yesterday that Ray Wong from Hong Kong and Lu Jinghua, a US-based dissident, had been denied visas. Dolkun Isa, who heads the Munich-based World Uighur Conference representing ethnic Uighurs of western China, had his visa revoked earlier in the week.
Like many Asian nations, democratic India has a complicated relationship with a rising China, vying with Beijing for influence in the Pacific but also importing billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods annually and seeking to attract Chinese investment in infrastructure.