OCTOBER 7, 2015 | ANDREW SMALL
In an interview with The Cipher Brief, Andrew Small, an expert on Chinese policy in South Asia for The German Marshall Fund, discussed the evolving China-Pakistan relationship. He said that ties between the two countries are “deepening,” as China becomes more engaged with Pakistan’s economy and security.
The Cipher Brief: What is the state of the China-Pakistan relationship? Where do you see it heading?
Andrew Small: For decades, China’s relationship with Pakistan has been based on mutual security cooperation, with India their shared rival. As militancy in the region escalated, counter-terrorism started to play a significant role too, and Beijing grew increasingly concerned about the long-term stability of the country that is arguably its closest friend.
Now, plans for a $46 billion “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” are finally adding a serious economic dimension to the relationship. While it’s unlikely that all of the investment plans will be realized, the potential is there for the scheme to have a transformative impact. From Beijing’s perspective, there are certainly commercial motivations – including funneling money to Chinese industries that are having to cope with a domestic downturn – but there is also a broader strategic agenda. China is trying to find ways to stabilize its western periphery and sees the large-scale influx of economic resources as a way to change the balance of incentives for actors in the region. These calculations may prove to be misplaced, but they are resulting in a more serious Chinese commitment to investments in Pakistan than we’ve seen in the past.
A further effect is to bring the China-Pakistan relationship a little further out of the shadows: ties between the two sides had been managed almost exclusively by a small political, military and intelligence elite; now they are becoming the subject of a much broader public debate. China remains extremely popular in Pakistan, and the relationship is deepening, but in the coming years some of the mythologies around it are likely to fade, as the daylight creeps in.
TCB: What risks does the China-Pakistan relationship pose for the U.S.?
AS: Generally, the United States has been welcoming of this evolution in Sino-Pakistani ties. It wants to see Pakistan’s energy and infrastructure situation improve and has tried to help marshal the resources for similar plans – on a more modest scale – in the past. China and the United States have also been working closely together on trying to forge a political settlement in Afghanistan, in which Pakistan occupies a central role. The level of alignment and coordination on these issues is unusual as Beijing and Washington’s relationship is otherwise heading in a more strategically competitive direction. The United States has longstanding concerns about Sino-Pakistani proliferation practices, and there are some risks resulting from Beijing’s plans to use Pakistan’s naval facilities as a base for power projection in the Indian Ocean. These concerns would magnify if Sino-U.S. ties were to become more adversarial. For now though, the China-Pakistan relationship is more an area of cooperation than contention.
TCB: How does China’s involvement and influence in Pakistan affect Pakistan’s relationship with its neighbors, particularly India and Afghanistan?
AS: Traditionally, China has acted as something of an enabler for Pakistan’s problematic relationship with India. By providing Pakistan with arms, significant support to its nuclear program, and diplomatic cover – even for the likes of Lashkar-e-Taiba – it has helped to facilitate important elements of the Pakistani army’s strategy. The Sino-Pakistani relationship remains one of the biggest points of bilateral contention between Beijing and New Delhi. Nonetheless, during moments of crisis, such as Kargil in 1999 and the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, China has also acted as a force for restraint – it wants to see relations between Pakistan and India function in a stable, predictable fashion, not with the residual risk of sudden war. With the new China-Pakistan economic corridor, Beijing has reinforced its message that the investments hinge on Pakistan endeavoring to be at peace with itself and its neighbors. That applies to Afghanistan too. For a long time, China effectively outsourced its policy there to the Pakistani intelligence services. Nowadays, Beijing plays a far more active role and has strongly encouraged Pakistan to help forge a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban, rather than backing its militant protégés. Chinese interests, from Xinjiang to the new Silk Road schemes, increasingly rely on broad stability in the region, rather than just a defense of narrow security and commercial goals, and it has finally started to bring its influence in Pakistan to bear in trying to achieve them.
THE AUTHOR IS ANDREW SMALL
Andrew Small is a transatlantic fellow with GMF's Asia program, which he established in 2006. He was based in GMF’s Brussels office for five years, and worked before that as the director of the Foreign Policy Centre's Beijing office, as a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and an ESU scholar in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He is the author of the book The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New...
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