Daily Times

The US administration has sought a budget of $101 million for Pakistan to “strengthen democracy, fight terrorism, and stabilise the country’s economy”, US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu told a congressional panel on Tuesday.

Lu’s statement came as he presented a written budget request for South and Central Asian Affairs to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. He said that Pakistan was facing “ongoing challenges and opportunities”, in light of which, the requested funding would strengthen democracy, fight terrorism, and stabilise the economy by supporting economic reforms and debt management.

“The President’s Budget requests a straight-lining of our $101 million Pakistan budget,” Lu said. “That money would be used to strengthen democracy and civil society, to fight terrorism and violent extremism, and to support economic reforms and debt management to help stabilise Pakistan’s economy.”

The US has consistently pushed Pakistan to uphold democratic values. Last month, the US House of Representatives adopted a resolution by an overwhelming majority in the US Congress, expressing concerns about the state of democracy and human rights in Pakistan. Islamabad responded strongly, rejecting the concerns as unfounded.

Similarly, Washington has repeatedly emphasised its “shared interest” with Pakistan in addressing the critical threat that terrorism poses to the entire region. The president’s budget, according to the budget request document, was seeking a total of $1.01 billion in foreign assistance for the South and Central Asia region to “compete with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), counter Russian and Chinese disinformation, and prevent terrorist groups from threatening the US security”.

Of the total amount, the US announced it would redirect additional resources to South Asia, and to that end, the president had requested $585.7 million for the region, representing a 4.8pc increase over the 2023-24 budget.

Commenting on Pakistan’s economic relations with China, Lu said that the US was seeking to prevent Islamabad’s “further overreliance” on Beijing.

Responding to a lawmaker during the hearing regarding Washington’s plan to balance China’s “strong and growing influence” in Pakistan, Lu said that the US would supersede Chinese investments.

“China is the past in terms of investment; we are the future,” Lu said. Pakistan is the third biggest recipient of Chinese development finance worldwide with a portfolio of $70.3 billion, a study revealed last year.

Only 2 per cent of China’s portfolio in Pakistan between 2000 and 2021 consisted of grants while the rest was in the form of loans, the study added.

Last year, Beijing rolled over $2.4 billion in loans to Pakistan during a financial crisis for the latter for two years. China had repeatedly helped Pakistan to avert a default amid low foreign exchange reserves through debt rollovers while Islamabad was struggling to win over a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The United States is “always concerned” at the arrest of opposition leaders and urges the peaceful upholding of constitutional and democratic principles, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday regarding the arrest of PTI leader Raoof Hasan and the raid on the party’s office.

Hasan, himself a spokesperson for the PTI, was arrested by the Islamabad police on Monday during a raid conducted by the Islamabad police and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the PTI’s digital media wing, with the interior ministry accusing the party of peddling “anti-state propaganda”.

During a State Department press briefing last night, Miller was asked to comment on the Pakistani government’s decision to conduct the raid, arrest Hasan and even trying to have the PTI banned. To this, Miller acknowledged to have seen the reports of the arrests of PTI leaders, adding that the US is “always concerned when we see arrests of opposition leaders”.

“I’m always personally concerned when I see the arrest of a spokesperson,” Miller said, drawing a laughter from those in attendance due to him being a spokesperson himself.

He said that the State Department “supports the upholding of constitutional and democratic principles, including the rule of law, equal justice under the law, and respect for human rights like freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly”.

Miller added that the department “urges that these principles be respected in accordance with Pakistan’s constitution and laws”, before answering further questions.

Asked about the Department’s views on the state of democracy in Pakistan as well as Bangladesh, Miller replied, “What we as the United States have always done […] is to speak out for democratic values around the world and make sure that – or – and make clear that countries are strongest when they uphold democratic values […] anywhere in the world. And that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

“We will continue to make our values clear,” he added, stressing that “sovereign countries make their own decisions” independent of what the United States or any other country believes. “What we can do is impress upon countries what we believe are the right way to approach questions of fundamental freedom, questions of democratic values, questions of human rights and bring all the influence we can to bear to urge them along that path,” he stated. “And that’s what we’ll continue to do.” The spokesperson was also asked about the deportation and overall state of Afghan refugees in Pakistan but he did not answer that question. The spokesperson was also asked about the Pakistan Army’s decision to snuff out what it calls is “digital terrorism”.

To this, Miller said, “We support media freedom in Pakistan, just as we support it around the world.”