Pakistan’s China Card

By PLS

Why does Pervez Musharraf make accommodating noises during official visits to Washington, while more or less ignoring U.S. interests?

For one thing, look to China.

China has provided 80% funding for the new port of Gwadar on Pakistan’s Baluchistan coast not far from the ultra strategic straits of Hormuz. Up to now the biggest maritime activity (except for traditional fishing) on this coast was ship breaking—the process by which unskilled labor dismantles rustbuckets to be sold as scrap mental. The Gwadar port, due to open for business in a few months, will be run by a Singapore company. That will make it a top notch operation.

The Highest Highway in the World

Gwadar’s a long way from China, you might say. Yes, but China started on the first segment of its reach-to-the-sea project a long time ago. In 1986, after 20 years of work, the Karakoram highway was completed. This 1300 kilometer (800 mile) road connects Pakistan’s capital Islamabad to Kashgar in Xinjiang. That highway alone made it easy for China to flood Pakistan with cheap consumer goods.

The China trade isn’t new. Shopping in Lahore in the days before the Karakoram Highway, I fell for China’s high kitsch alarm clocks. And I furnished my kitchen with glasses and china (!) from China when I was a Fulbright lecturer in Lahore. Then came the fans and the refrigerators—and the computers. And now, in an effort to allay disquiet in its landlocked and economically backward Western provinces, China is not only investing in those provinces. China is making sure there’ll be a cost-effective route to markets in the Middle East and points West for export items produced there.

Connecting the Termini

But wait! What about the missing link, you might ask, between the Arabian Sea and the foothills north of Islamabad? Well, a new 280 mile highway is underway to replace (or parallel) the less than up-to-date road links between Gwadar and the north. In addition, there are plans to link the new port, via rail as well as road, to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Pipelines may also be in the works. In the days before 9/11 and before Al Qaeda found a refuge in Afghanistan, US business (with US government support) was negotiating with the Taliban to thread pipelines through Afghanistan. Looks as if the Chinese may get there first—and Pakistan will benefit, too.

China needs more and more energy and it needs outlets for its increasingly sophisticated manufactures. While the US is neglecting domestic infrastructure, underfunding education and getting itself bogged down with ill conceived, badly managed, budget busting wars, China is tending to business. Business brings wealth, which powers power. Increasingly China is the key to sensitive policy issues.

Expanding Interests

For instance, the key to ending the genocide in Darfur is widely considered to be China: persuading the Chinese that overlooking human rights violations in pursuit of oil and business opportunities is not a good idea. China put great stock in having been chosen to host the upcoming Beijing summer Olympics, but the glory could be sabotaged, it’s been hinted, if China fails to play a more human rights oriented role in Sudan. Should China deign to play that role, moreover, China’s image will be enhanced, not diminished.

Meanwhile, although it may or may not be true, as an Australian admiral contends in his tome 1421, that the Chinese discovered America before Columbus did, current Chinese leaders are visiting and cutting economic deals with Brazil. And then there’s North Korea, and the question of all the US debt that China owns....

So Pakistan will get infrastructure and considerable further economic benefit (though the Baloch are already certain they’ll be getting the short end of the stick) by cooperating with China, but history suggests a bit of caution, a bit of prudence.

Beware of Greeks (or Whoever) Bearing Gifts

Remember when the USSR so generously built that beautiful paved road from the Soviet Uzbekestan border to Kabul? The highway’s high point was the engineering marvel known as the Salang tunnel. It was a terrific road. I know. I drove it. And the highway was good for trade. But it was also good for the Soviet invasion.

Then there was the euphoric period of good relations between India and China. It was Hindi-Chini bhai bhai! on billboards all over India. That’s “Indians and Chinese are brothers!” Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put great confidence in this Asian counterweight to Western influence and power. Then came the nightmare. Like Pakistan’s border with China, India’s was drawn by the British, and the Chinese are not reconciled to it. So they invaded a totally unprepared India, rolling over the mountains and not stopping until their army was all but swimming in the Brahmaputra River. Eventually the Chinese withdrew, but Nehru never recovered psychologically from the treachery. And the border has been heavily guarded ever since.

Now, in Pakistan, it’s Paki-Chini bhai bhai! Not least because friendship with China is seen as a nice buffer against India. But does Pakistan really think it can be the tail that wags the Chinese dog, however seductive its geography?

Comments

[cd]

Even if the Chinese "discovered" (ie reached) the Americas in the 1420s, the Norse got there (and it has been documented extensively) 400 years before that... (And that's not counting the Native Americans, who, well, have been there since around the latest glaciation, at least.)

[PLS]

True, but all that's not "news" or pertinent to the psychology of a resurgent China and its admirers/detractors/observers.

[strategist]

The port - highway - China link is fascinating. Do you think that the Chinese intend to use Gwadar as a base for naval and surveillance operations?