Liar, liar pants on fire! This children's rhyme strikes one's mind immediately when two pathological liars, Pakistan and China — both addicted to lying — join hands.

Within a few days of assuming the charge of new Ambassador of Pakistan to China, Moin ul Haque has launched an anti-India tirade. In an interview to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime's mouthpiece, The Global Times, Haque said that necessary actions should be taken to ease the "suffering" of Kashmiri people.

With the both the interviewer and the interviewee having a common goal—India—to target, the article turned out to be a jugalbandi (tied together) of lies between the 'iron brothers' asking the global community to "play the role of honest broker" in Kashmir.

The Chinese state-affiliated media does not believe in publishing rejoinders after unleashing a fraud, false propaganda. Still, the Indian embassy in Beijing sent a strong rebuttal slamming Pakistan's "lies and half-truths" about Jammu and Kashmir, an integral part of India whose affairs are internal affairs of India and where Pakistan, or any other country, has no locus standi.

"Ambassador Haque's misrepresentations, while not surprising, cannot conceal the significant progress that Jammu and Kashmir has made in the year following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. In the last one year since the historic decision on August 5, 2019, several positive and affirmative union laws have been extended to J&K, resulting in the more effective protection and promotion of social, economic and political rights, especially among under-privileged sections such as women, children and minorities. People have been afforded the opportunity to elect their representatives at the grassroots level through elections to the block development councils on October 24, 2019," said the statement issued by the Embassy of India in Beijing.

Quite expectedly, the hawkish newspaper refused to publish India's response. How could China enrage Pakistan by publishing evidence of the change sweeping through Jammu and Kashmir?

"The administrative machinery of the UT has been revived, grievance redressal mechanisms activated and funding to grassroots level institutions eased, bringing about a revolution in governance and making the Kashmiri people masters of their own destiny. 50 new educational institutions were established in the region over the last one year, the largest addition in 70 years. Over half a million Kashmiri students have availed government scholarship schemes through the course of the last one year, a year-on-year increase of nearly 400 per cent. New health infrastructure, including medical and nursing colleges, as well as state-of-the art hospitals, will soon make affordable and high quality healthcare services a reality in the region,” India said.

Ambassador Haque, in the interview, wanted the global community to take actions to alleviate the suffering of the Kashmiri people. Perhaps, he should have said Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

"It is in fact Pakistan that has repeatedly effected administrative and demographic changes in territories that it has occupied illegally and forcibly in J&K and Ladakh. The government of J&K has advertised 10,000 job openings for youth at all levels, with another 25,000 in the pipeline. Concerted efforts to attract foreign investment to the region have seen over 150 MOUs concluded. Rural market interventions and leveraging of IT have brought benefits to farmers in a region known for its apples and saffron. The focus on relieving hardships has brought water and electricity connections to nearly 300,000 households in some of the remotest areas of J&K," India laid bare the bluff of the Pakistani ambassador.

"Perhaps Ambassador Haque could consider holding up a mirror to his own ‘regime’ and reflect on Pakistan's own actions in the region before making ludicrous characterizations of the Indian government’s actions. The Pakistani obsession with irredentist pursuits has also been laid bare in its latest exercise in political absurdity on 4 August 2020, when it made untenable claims to Indian territories in the state of Gujarat and the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh," it added.

It is not ironic for a Pakistani diplomat to talk about India and not his own country in his first interview on a foreign assignment.

Pakistan's never-ending, self-defeating obsession with India is remarkable as Haque spoke about the "Indian military siege of the Kashmiri people" in his interview.

He surely wouldn't have expected this reply from India which has received more coverage than his interview: "India's concerted efforts to bring peace, stability and progress to J&K stand in stark contrast to Pakistan's strategy, which is little more than a blatant and rapacious campaign of cross-border terrorism aimed at debilitating the region. Its unprovoked ceasefire violations, numbering close to 3000 in the first seven months of 2020 alone, provide support for terrorist infiltration along the India-Pakistan Line of Control (LOC). Terrorists recruited, trained and armed by Pakistan have disturbed peace and order in J&K, with over 450 incidents of terrorist orchestrated violence taking place since August 2019, leading to several civilian casualties."

The pants are certainly on fire and many of them! But trust both Pakistan and China to still not learn any lessons from it..