Daily Times

Pakistan’s foreign policy since inception has been to look for a fulcrum to balance its weight against its bigger neighbour, India. During the cold war, Pakistan attempted, somewhat successfully, to use the US as this fulcrum. Our newest fulcrum is China. With the coming of the Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), we are committing ourselves irreversibly to the Chinese orbit. Left out of the US pivot to Asia, Pakistan, in my view, has no choice but to do so wholeheartedly.

The Chinese are cut from a different cloth than the US, however. At the height of the US-Pakistan alliance, you had leaders, both military and civilian, who would blame every ill on that country. Blaming the US was always fashionable, thrilling everyone from the left to the right. The Chinese are not going to be willing to countenance such insults, and from the looks of it the message seems to be sinking in, even with our mullahs.

A few months ago, during Ramzan, a delegation of our religious divines went to China to investigate the prohibition on fasting imposed by state authorities on Muslims there. They came back with the report that there was no such prohibition of fasting, even though the said annual prohibition is a well-known fact. In 2007, Lal Masjid crossed a red line with the Chinese. Students from that mosque had been terrorising the G6 neighbourhood in Islamabad for months but the state had turned a blind eye. Then the Lal Masjid folk decided to grab Chinese citizens. There were also Uyghur militants in Lal Masjid. The operation followed coughed up at least 12 dead Uyghurs. Unlike the Americans the Chinese are not going to tolerate any funny business that is aimed at China.

Of all the foreign powers we have dealt with in our history, the British, the US and now China, China is the most staunchly atheistic in its approach to politics. Religion and religious sensibilities play no part in its geostrategic calculations. Once CPEC becomes a reality, it is not going to be business as usual for the mushrooming madrassahs in our country. These would have to get in line and accept the new Chinese reality. It is only a matter of time that Chinese faces will become a common sight in Pakistan along with their culture and practices. China has its faults, but there are many things in that country and civilisation that are worthy of emulation, the equal participation of men and women in public life for example. Their work ethic is another. The common man in Pakistan has already made his peace with the idea of Chinese cultural invasion. This year on our Independence Day, Chinese flags were also on offer and from the looks of it, sold in large numbers.

This is also bad news for militant groups in Balochistan. The self-styled Baloch “freedom fighters” living in the West have been circulating pictures of a Chinese serpent crawling through Pakistan’s western provinces and gobbling up the Middle East. If that is their interpretation of CPEC, they should know that it is fait accompli. The Chinese are going to bulldoze their way to Gwadar if they need to, no matter who or what is in their path. This has been the way of the world since time immemorial. A newer more vibrant and more modern civilisation is going to overwhelm a rotting one. Chinese modernity is going to tear to shreds the outdated and antiquated tribal notions errant Baloch sardars hold on to. To quote that memorable line from TV, resistance is futile.

Is that such a bad thing? Chinese economic influence in Pakistan is going to bring in its wake an unprecedented rise in living standards to Pakistan in general and Balochistan in particular. There will be jobs and prosperity to go around. Roads, schools, infrastructure like never before. Is that not what an average citizen wants? Will the lot of the every Pakistani citizen living in Balochistan not increase fivefold as a result? The logic of economic progress is bound to sink in, and it is only a matter of time that the people of Balochistan will reject those who stand in the way of their material progress.

You will always find naysayers. People who have always taken every opportunity to put down Pakistan will now turn patriotic and say that Chinese are taking over and colonising our country. When the Sindh province made Mandarin compulsory a couple of years ago, these were the loudest voices mocking the decision. Parallels were drawn with the war of 1857. Always looking for a freedom struggle, a group of these would-be revolutionaries even suggested that it should be Arabic that should be made compulsory. The day Arabs decide to invest 46 billion dollars in infrastructure projects in Pakistan, I would be the first one to support such a move. Till then Mandarin it would have to be, along with English. Indeed an Anglophone population, which also a working knowledge of the Chinese language would be our biggest asset. We should maximise our economic potential, instead of limiting ourselves on account of misplaced notions of national and religious pride.

For the common man in Pakistan, the arrival of the Chinese is a most fortuitous event. Let us hope our leaders and our members of intelligentsia have it in them to make the most of it.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com