Daily Times

Indo-China relations appear to be flourishing. To cement the bilateral relationship, Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi is visiting China. Recent years have seen a Sino-Indian diplomatic thaw. In a recent interview for Time magazine, Modi said that not a single bullet had been fired along the disputed border between India and China for over 25 years, which clearly indicates that they “are showing great maturity and a commitment to economic cooperation”. But, despite normalisation of ties, the partnership between India and China does not yet constitute a genuine strategic partnership as the warming of relations between the two Asian giants remains hamstrung by many geostrategic rivalries. From the Indian perspective, one of the greatest stumbling blocks for the two countries’ further rapprochement is the nature of China’s strategic interaction with Pakistan.
Pakistan indisputably remains a highly strategic card in China’s balance-of-power game in the region. Pakistan may not be a major power in the global sense but a combination of factors makes it play a significantly enhanced role in regional affairs. Whenever China’s foreign policy achievements in South Asia are discussed, people tend to think of Pakistan first. Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif could not have been more correct when he said during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to Pakistan that “Friendship with China is the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy.” Pakistan-China dosti (friendship) is not just media manufactured hyperbole. China has emerged as Pakistan’s great economic hope, as is apparent from the triumphant declaration of energy and infrastructure projects worth $ 46 billion, which is being projected as China’s biggest overseas investment. Pakistan hopes that the windfall investment will end its energy crisis and transform the country into a regional economic hub.
China has always valued the geostrategic position of Pakistan and considers it useful in countering India. China, which helped Pakistan build its arsenal of nuclear weapons, is Pakistan’s top arms supplier now, a position until recently held by the US. Pakistan’s military, diplomatic and economic dependence on China will increase in the years to come.
China, which has already entrenched itself in various sectors in Pakistan over the last few years, clearly understands the nuances of working with the political elite of the country. This has put the Chinese in an advantageous position vis-à-vis the US when it comes to manoeuvring in the evolving economic landscape in Pakistan. Pakistan is the most crucial link to China’s grand designs for a new silk road connecting the energy fields of the Middle East and the markets of Europe to the East Asian region. The ambitious 3,000 kilometre long China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will link the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang to Pakistan’s Gwadar port through a massive network of roads, railways and pipelines. The proposed corridor will shorten the route for China’s energy imports from the Middle East by about 12,000 kilometres.
But the Sino-Pakistan relationship is not without its underlying tensions. Dealing with internal tensions within Pakistan could prove to be the real challenge for China. Political speeches have but one iron law: listen for what the politicians are not saying. It must be recalled that President Xi had to cancel his scheduled tour in late 2014 due to security concerns arising out of political disturbance in Pakistan. He was invited to be the chief guest at this year’s National Day military parade on March 23 in Islamabad but is reported to have declined the offer. Xi’s first Pakistan visit is also the first visit of a Chinese head of state in a decade. Does a brother take a decade to visit the home of his own brother?
One should also be wary, if not sceptical, of the promised $ 46 billion investment as the devil lies in the details. According to a report, during the decade between 2001 and 2011, China pledged $ 66 billion of assistance to Pakistan but only six percent of this finally materialised. For sure, this is not what Pakistani leaders would like the world to know about their so-called relationship being “higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the Indian Ocean and sweeter than honey”. In the euphoria of rhetorical flourish, both Sharif and Xi will not talk about the big questions regarding the implementation of the multi-billion dollar projects, which may not in existence right now but the answers to them will matter far beyond.
Politics in Pakistan is a complex conflict between the Centre and periphery. As rebels from the periphery launch attacks against the central authority, it not only takes a toll on national politics but impacts external players, particularly China. Complicating matters for Beijing, the corridor will pass through the politically volatile Balochistan province of Pakistan where the Chinese plan will have to grapple with a whole host of complex challenges, including unrelenting separatism and long-running violent insurgency. Moreover, China is reported as getting increasingly upset about the dangers of having Islamist extremists just across the border.
Elimination of terrorism is possible but what is missing is sincerity of intent. Pakistan has always expressed its commitment in the fight against terrorism but its hands seem to be tied in this regard. Given Pakistan’s ideology of jihad and policy of asymmetric warfare against India, it cannot go all out against terrorist organisations in its territory. China cannot forget that Pakistan’s relationship with the US started deteriorating just because of their different approaches towards combating terrorism. If rooting out Uighur separatism and terrorism in Xinxiang is such a top priority issue for China, then reassuring statements from the Pakistani leadership may paper over Beijing’s frustration for a while but will not help the latter in the longer run. But Beijing shares a very complicated relationship with Islamabad in this respect for the simple reason that Pakistan’s practice of state sponsorship of terrorism has actually benefited China in the first place.
China’s economic, technological and military transformation, enough to make one’s head spin, has been as stunning as it has been speedy. While both states appear to be becoming more closely linked economically, bilateral relations between India and China have alternated between episodes of harmony and hostility making the resolution of the border dispute more challenging. As Beijing is vigorously seeking to expand the horizon of its economic, political and diplomatic relationship with New Delhi for its own “peaceful rise” as a global power, the drumbeat of criticism over the anti-India rationale of the Sino-Pak alliance is likely to grow louder in India.
The yardstick of a successful foreign policy is an observable change in behaviour of the target country’s leadership. Sometimes it may not be the real shift in the target country’s behaviour but a change in one’s own perception about the target country. However, change does not occur in the form of abrupt turnabouts in foreign policy but, rather, through incremental adjustments. Howsoever incrementally the changes may be effected, they need to be visible too.
Will India’s PM Narendra Modi, in his visit to China to lay the groundwork for a new approach to India’s most important bilateral relationship, persuade the communist leadership to gradually develop an alternative vision of its relationship with Pakistan whose strategic logic is beyond their shared hostility towards India?

The writer is an assistant professor at the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies and coordinator at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice in Jodhpur