May 8, 2015
Sanjay Kapoor
Chinese President Xi Jinping's announcement of a massive $46 billion investment in Pakistan during his recent visit to Islamabad left observers in Washington, Riyadh and New Delhi in serious shell shock.
In these days of austerity and economic slowdown, nobody goes around buying up countries. But, by all appearances, that’s exactly what China has done.
The mammoth scheme to develop a 3,200-km industrial corridor linking the Pakistani port of Gwadar and the western Chinese city of Kashgar, in Xinjiang province, dwarfs the handouts Pakistan has received from the US or from benevolent Saudi Arabia.
From those allies, Islamabad has got driblets – always in the form of some kind of performance-linked funds. For the Saudis, that meant: Open so many madrassas and make people wear short pyjamas and long beards. I am not sure whether chasing out the Shia Muslims, too, figured on the Saudi wish list. The US demands were a bit more complicated, ranging from pampering the Mujahideen when the Soviets were occupying Afghanistan to smoking the same militants out when they were declared the enemy after 9/11. The US government also expects no more than a token protest when it violates Pakistan’s sovereignty when sending out its murderous drones to kill Taliban militants. And it expects Islamabad to turn a blind eye to the killing of innocents – called “collateral damage” – in these same attacks. As of November 2014, supposedly “clinical and precise” attacks by US drones had killed 1,147 people, though they were targetting only 41, according to human rights group Reprieve. One can only wonder what the total might have been if they hadn't been so careful.
Along with a lot more money on the table, Beijing promises to make no such confusing and unreasonable demands – which could well spell trouble for Washington.
Until now, the Pakistani military, which is plugged in with the US defence forces, has ignored the harm this collaboration has caused the country. The primacy that the army has occupied in Pakistan’s scheme of things has constrained media freedom and liberal spaces. Democratically-elected governments have been few, but they are largely controlled by the army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
But if Beijing emerges as Islamabad’s biggest backer, as well as its most constant and least demanding, that could change.
For many years, China has professed a friendship with Pakistan “that is higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea”. This bond has grown since Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra actively wooed Chinese Prime Minister Zhou-en-Lai during the Bandung Conference in 1955 – much to the chagrin of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
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