India and China can lead efforts to tackle the Rohingya crisis by offering humanitarian aid to Myanmar’s Rakhine state, an editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper. The two countries can also assist Bangladesh in resettling the refugees, enhance economic cooperation with Myanmar, and promote “greater integration of trade and investment in the area including the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor”, the editorial suggested.

Arguing that it is impossible for Beijing to ignore the situation Myanmar, which is an important trade partner and plays a unique role in China’s Belt and Road initiative, the Global Times article further argues that Indian interests too cannot “be divorced from peace and stability in a nation that forms a bridge between South Asia and Southeast Asia”.

In August, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government had announced that it was planning to deport all 40,000 Rohingya refugees living in the country. On September 18, the government told the Supreme Court in an affidavit that the continued illegal immigration of Rohingyas to India had “serious national security ramifications and threats”.

The Supreme Court of India had ordered that no Rohingya refugee be deported till the next hearing in the case on November 21.