Editorial

An enveloping ubiquity

The Chinese foreign minister is shortly to visit Kabul and Af-Pak relations are on the to-do list

Editorial June 14, 2017

If one were to seek evidence of the fading power and influence of the US then one need look no further than the Chinese One Belt, One Road project and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which is a part of it. There are already indications that Beijing has a rising interest in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute and it has now thrown its hat in the ring offering to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Chinese foreign minister is shortly to visit Kabul and Af-Pak relations are on the to-do list.

It would appear that China wishes to breathe life into the moribund Quadrilateral Coordination Committee that is made up of the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. This group has yet to get out of the hangar never mind get on the runway and take off.

This is a first for China and its motives are far from benign altruism. The One Belt, One Road project seen as a whole is the largest undertaking of modern times; and is going to have a geopolitical impact that will reverberate for generations. It will place China at the centre of the world stage economically and strategically. The countries it passes through will also be affected and for Pakistan there lies — for China — a set of unresolved issues that are a rock in the road. Kashmir and the Indian conflict in the broadest sense — and the Pak-Afghan relationship. For China there is also the issue of a restlessness in the western, mostly Muslim, provinces that are it hopes going to settle down under the influence of the prosperity that One Belt, One Road bestows upon them.

The Chinese are a nation of gamblers, but when it comes to international relations they like to bet on certainties. Evening the odds by intervening in parts of an empire they are building by invading nowhere, at least not militarily, makes economic and strategic sense. The collateral benefits for Pakistan — and India and Afghanistan — are potentially considerable. China as the honest broker that cuts through the Gordian Knot? Alexander the Great went on to conquer Asia as far as the Indus and the Oxus. We watch with interest.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2017.

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COMMENTS (1)

Feroz | 7 years ago | Reply The problem between Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as use of proxies to promote violence is known to the world --- how come China is so innocent and unaware of ground realities. What will it negotiate when Afghanistan wants and values its sovereignty and Pakistan refuses to abandon its proxies.

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