Daily Times

Pakistan remains unable to adjust itself to post-Cold War (1947-1991) realities. One of the impediments is the Cold War machinery laden with Cold War terminologies, thoughts and tactics in both diplomatic and defence spheres. One of the fixations of Pakistan is with the Cold War term ‘containment.’

The Cold War brought along the policy of containment, set forth by George F. Kennan, the deputy chief of the US mission to the USSR (1944-1946). From Moscow, Kennan sent an eight-thousand-word long telegram received in Washington on February 22, 1946. The telegram convinced US President Harry S. Truman to balk at the option of forging amity with the Soviet Union and to instead devise a strategy to militate against Soviet Union’s expansive plans, primarily in Europe. The upshot was the Truman Doctrine of March 1947.The policy of containment was not to eliminate but to hold back the spread or expansion of communism. Precisely, it was Kennan’s telegram which changed the direction of the US foreign policy, and which became instrumental in the origin of the Cold War. Later on, as advisors to subsequent US presidents, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger amplified the same policy.

In December 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved into several states, leaving behind little justification for the continuation of the policy of containment. Interestingly, it is not the US but Pakistan where analysts on TV talk shows, retired ambassadors and retired generals continue to abide by the policy of containment. These people repeatedly bring containment up in the context of US-China relations. It is not that China has replaced the Soviet Union in the enmity equation of the US; it is that these analysts have chosen US-China relations to give a dead concept relevance and misguiding the viewers.

The major arguments given by them are these: “one of the main reasons the US wants to stay in Afghanistan doggedly is to contain China” and “the US is trying to use India to contain China”. On the other hand, they task Pakistan with the vaunted role of extricating China from the resultant snare. It is not known if China had ever requested Pakistan to help it sever the noose of containment; however, it is known that Pakistan has taken upon itself the task of opening the world to China: Pakistan is found championing the cause of undermining the supposed shenanigans of the US or India to contain China. The abuse of the term by these analysts has descended into society setting the pitch to understand everything happening around in the context of containment only. One wonders what ice containment rhetoric can cut, as China is already in business terms with South America and South Africa.

Hardly any foreign policy expert in China appreciates the self-assumed ‘de-containing China’ role Pakistan seems to be playing. What is not known to the Chinese about their own country is known to Pakistani analysts

Pakistan’s China de-containment policy is also the flip side of Pakistan’s effort to forestall its own isolation in the region. Pakistan is more conscious about its isolation than its affability. In reaction to the 21 August speech of US President Donald Trump, Pakistan suddenly felt disengaged from the US, which translated into isolation. Consequently, Pakistan ran from pillar (China) to post (Russia). However the snub, ‘put your own house in order,’ coming on 4 September from the platform of the 9th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit calmed Pakistan down. The excursion — the baptism of fire — portrayed Pakistan’s weakness, not any strength.

Interestingly, what Pakistan is hell bent upon seems to be unknown to China, as hardly any foreign policy expert in China appreciates the self-assumed ‘de-containing China’ role Pakistan seems to be playing. What is not known to the Chinese about their own country is known to Pakistani analysts. In the post-Cold War era, in his book, Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power, published in 2012, Brzezinski mentioned the emergence of a ‘global dispersal of power’ where Russia, China, India and Japan would be maneuvering for positions. Brzezinski also asked the US government to ‘engage China’ to achieve ‘regional stability’ in Asia-Pacific. Nowhere did Brzezinski use the term containment for China. Similarly, in his book World Order, published in 2014, Kissinger acknowledged China’s ‘developing relationship’ with the rest of Asia and the West as healthy. Currently, China is connecting with the world economically and, to augment this connection, China is laying down infrastructure.

On November 9 2010, at a news conference in Jakarta (Indonesia), US President Barack Obama not only dismissed any possibility or policy of containing China but he also declared that the US wanted China to succeed and prosper. On October 18, 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed a wider ‘Open Door’ policy amid foreign demands for more market access by saying that China would deepen economic and financial reforms and open its markets to foreign investors further. On November 9, 2017, on the visit of US President Trump to China, to offset the trade imbalance, Jinping offered a compensatory investment deal having total worth of US $ 250 billion to US industries like energy, technology and aviation. Neither China nor the US is using containment. Containment only seems to be occurring in the minds of Pakistani analysts.

The reality is that the Cold War abused Pakistan into learning the lesson of dependence and, consequently after seventy years of independence, Pakistan still craves a superpower to solicit support and protection from at the first sign of a crisis. The teething problems of Pakistan have gone perennial. The de-containment China policy of Pakistan does more to justify the geo-strategic utility of Pakistan than to express reality. In short, instead of writing a new chapter of accidents to project itself as a victim, Pakistan should abandon Cold War mentality and terms — and if possible the analysts.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com

Published in Daily Times, December 11^th 2017.