There was a great pomp and show. There was the din of “eternal Pakistan-China friendship” broadcast on every media channel and printed in every newspaper incessantly for almost two days. A Chinese head of state was paying a desperately awaited visit to Pakistan for the first time in many years. The government rolled out the proverbial red carpet when Chinese President Xi Jinping landed at Chaklala airbase, where the Pakistani president and Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif, along with federal ministers and all services chiefs, received him. Earlier, eight Pakistan Air Force (PAF) JF-17 Thunder fighters escorted President Xi’s plane when it entered Pakistani airspace. A 21-gun salute was presented to the Chinese leader as he alighted from his plane. He was later presented a guard of honour by a contingent of armed forces and PAF jets did the fly past.
It was the first time that a Chinese top leader spoke to Pakistan’s parliament. His emotive warmth resonated when he repeated the torch song of Pakistani rulers on the history of Pakistan-China relations: “It is often termed as higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean and sweeter than honey by Pakistani brothers while Chinese people refer to Pakistani people as good friends, good partners and good brothers. Both countries should maintain strategic communication on regional and international issues. China supports Pakistan’s constructive role in Afghanistan.”
However, it was the Pakistani PM, Mian Nawaz Sharif, who spilled the beans and said it all. During his welcome speech for Mr Xi, he said, “It symbolises our determination to create win-win partnerships, which threaten none, but benefit all.” The business entrepreneur came out of the garb of a politician. All the party leaders of Pakistan’s bourgeois politics stood in unison, foregoing their wrangling facades and deceptive conflicts. So did the honchos of the capitalist state. Some perhaps were guilelessly hoping for a “Chinese miracle” to cure Pakistan’s cancerous capitalism, while most were all praise for Xi Jinping.
However, what Sharif meant by this friendship is that it is not really between the people of the two lands but between the elite businessmen who are now looking for massive profits from the projects announced, which will be “built” by Chinese companies and private contractors along with subcontractors and commission agents. Sections of the state and the bourgeois representatives present in that hall of deceptive power will try to get a share of the massive generation of wealth through the exploitation of the resources and workers of these countries. Obviously, the Pakistan army’s Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) will muscle in to be the first to get the lucrative road construction contracts. However, they will be awfully disappointed. Those who think that this landmark visit and the memoranda of understanding (MOUs) will turn around the fortunes of Pakistan’s crumbling economy are sadly mistaken, to say the least.
The Chinese are not making this investment for a utopian and sentimental friendship, as the intelligentsia and the media would have us believe, but for naked, exorbitant profits and strategic hegemonic designs in the region. China’s investment aims at opening up Balochistan and developing Gwadar as a strategic and commercial port. This in turn is likely to increase China’s presence in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The economic corridor will open up new business and commercial/military opportunities for them. The development of an economic corridor linking to Gwadar will obviously increase the presence of the Chinese fleet in the region. Gains for China include the opening up of the relatively less developed western region that will benefit from shorter access to the sea. China’s potential of forward deployment of its naval assets in the Gwadar and Karachi ports will materialise. At the same time, these projects could lead to greater integration of Pakistan’s natural resources and markets with Chinese economic, expansionist plans.
China is also the largest investor in Afghanistan, as well as the biggest arms supplier to Pakistan’s armed forces. China’s interest in Afghanistan appears to be increasing as US forces withdraw from the region. Initially, its involvement in Afghanistan was securing strategic materials, such as copper, iron, etc. The US and other western countries have been complaining that China was taking undue advantage of the security umbrella provided by NATO and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). They wanted it not only to be a consumer but also a provider of security. Now that NATO and the US are pulling out of Afghanistan, China is showing greater willingness to be more proactive in helping maintain the region’s security. Moreover, it realises that Afghanistan’s stability will have a positive impact on the restive Xinjiang province. China’s strategy is to negotiate and engage with the Taliban leadership and play a more proactive role in Afghanistan for these very economic and commercial interests.
China’s main interest is to use the Pakistani military machine for these hegemonic purposes. Another favour that Chinese rulers want to excerpt from their dear friends in Islamabad is to use them as a counterweight in their covert rivalry with India, which is wrapped in the usual hypocrisy of diplomatic gestures of being partners in trade and commerce. However, the Chinese president was miserly when it came to mutual equality in its relations with Pakistan. Ever since Barack Obama attended India’s National Day Parade as the chief guest on January 26 this year, Pakistani rulers had vainly hoped that Mr Xi would attend theirs on March 23. At the same time, the Chinese rulers will host Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi for an official visit to China next month. And these are just some of the long list of benefits that the Chinese want to extract from their subservient Pakistani colleagues.
Perhaps it was for these material and strategic reasons that Xi Jinping was playing the Pakistan-China friendship card so vigorously. What we are also witnessing is that China is projecting its soft power in this region through economic prowess and sophisticated diplomacy. Another element of China’s soft power, which is less talked about, is its political stability. But it is doubtful that the largest investment package of $ 45 billion dollars announced for Pakistan will actually materialise, due to fledgling economic growth and its bleak prospects. It simply will not have the economic muscle to carry out these strategic policies and economic investments.
(To be continued)
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at [email protected]