Pakistan might be reeling under debt and the flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) might be facing serious problems, but when it comes to Sino-Pakistan relations, rhetoric is all that matters. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, met in the South China island province of Hainan last week and grandly proclaimed that “the joint construction of the belt and road should be accelerated to bring more benefits to the two peoples.” At a time when there are serious doubts about the viability of the CPEC projects, it was important for the two nations to send out a message that all’s well. This $62 billion flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vanity agenda, the Belt and Road Initiative, is critical for the overall health of the Sino-Pakistan engagement, which otherwise is just fuelled by their anti-India foreign policy frameworks. Xi’s likely visit to Pakistan, deferred from earlier this year, has only added a sense of urgency to this dynamic.
China has been forced to pump in some more money and Pakistan has been forced to take on more debt only to sustain the façade of a productive economic engagement between the two nations. Amidst increased delays and funding crunch, Pakistan has had to roll back several projects and China has complained of security concerns and inept administration. But then, there is always the India factor to tide over these mundane matters.
And so the second round of China-Pakistan foreign ministers’ strategic dialogue saw the Pakistani side briefing “the Chinese side on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, including its concerns, position and current urgent issues” and the Chinese side reiterating “that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between India and Pakistan, which is an objective fact, and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully and properly through the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation.”
China has been trying to raise the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Security Council at the behest of Pakistan since last August, when India revoked Article 370, but has been repeatedly rebuffed by other powers. Yet, it has not given up, if only to show Islamabad how much Beijing cares about it. In their joint statement, China underscored once again that Pakistan was “its staunchest partner in the region” and it would “firmly support” the country “in safeguarding its territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence” and in “striving for a better external security environment.”
China’s growing salience in Pakistani foreign policy calculus can also be gauged by the recent deterioration in Saudi-Pakistan ties. Earlier this month, Pakistan took a loan from China to repay a $1 billion Saudi loan that was called in after Islamabad tried to pile up pressure on Saudi Arabia to mobilise the Islamic world on the issue of Kashmir. Riyadh had helped Islamabad with a $6.2 billion package in 2018 to tide over a serious economic crisis. But Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession led to a serious disagreement when Saudi Arabia declined to entertain Islamabad’s call for convening a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Kashmir.
Then, this month, against the backdrop of the first anniversary of Article 370’s revocation, Shah Mahmood Qureshi publicly challenged Riyadh, saying “Today, I am telling the OIC to convene the meeting of the council of foreign ministers. If they cannot do it, then I will be compelled to ask the prime minister [Imran Khan] to call a meeting of Islamic countries [Iran, Turkey and Malaysia] that are ready to stand with us on the issue of Kashmir.” At a time when fault-lines in the Islamic world are hardening and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to challenge the Saudi position as the guarantor of the Islamic world, this rant would have certainly rankled in Riyadh.
In a damage control exercise soon thereafter, Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa decided to visit Saudi Arabia on August 17 to placate the Saudi leadership. But more humiliation awaited him when unlike his past visits, he could not meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). These are remarkable developments in a relationship which has been a longstanding one and Saudis have been instrumental in bailing a failed state like Pakistan repeatedly.
Given its economic dependence on Riyadh, Pakistan cannot afford to alienate the Saudis. Islamabad is trying to rally China’s support, but it cannot replace what Riyadh has been able to offer. Not surprisingly, Pakistan has begun to backtrack and is trying to mend fences with Saudi Arabia. But it is a sign of the changing geopolitical realities that Riyadh is today keener on its ties with India than with Pakistan. As MBS tries to modernise the Saudi economy by reducing its dependence on oil, close economic ties with a country like India are going to be critical.
The UAE-Israel deal, resulting in full diplomatic ties between the two, has further opened up new possibilities in the Middle East. India has been able to leverage its economic heft effectively so far and, in the process, has managed to generate positive diplomatic externalities. While it would be farfetched to suggest that there has been a permanent rupture in Pakistan-Saudi ties, the very fact that Riyadh today doesn’t want to toe the Pakistani line when it comes to its engagement with India is a significant achievement of Indian diplomacy.
Pakistan’s reliance on China continues to grow and, with Islamabad bereft of other major partners around the world, Beijing’s control over Pakistan is likely to be total very soon. It is for Pakistan to decide if it is prepared to exist as a glorified colony of China. But as the world changes rapidly, Pakistan’s India obsession has meant that its foreign policy choices will not be governed by the evolving ground realities but by its ideological antipathy towards New Delhi. The times, they are a-changin’, but Pakistan remains trapped in a time warp of its own making.
(The writer is Director, Studies & Head, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)