The concept of hedging: lessons for Pakistan

For several years now, Pakistan has been trying to strike a balance in its relations with the US and China. Achieving such a balance in effect is not easy given the growing great power contestations within the region where both China and the US continue exhibiting maximalist tendencies. The US continues placing its bets on India, not only as a potential counterweight to China but also as the means to wrestle smaller South Asian states away from Chinese influence. Conversely, Pakistan is finding it hard not to choose sides, especially given its increased dependence on China.

The US-China rivalry is probably going to intensify in the foreseeable future. An increasingly assertive President Xi has consolidated power after winning a third term in office this past year. In the leadup to the American elections, both major parties will ratchet up rhetoric against China. The election of an anti-China government in Taiwan earlier this month and Modi’s projected win in the coming general elections will fuel great power contestations further.

Faced with the challenge of contending with a new cold war era, Pakistan would do well by continuing to resist completely joining either of the great-power camps. For this purpose, its strategic planners would do well by paying heed to the concept of ‘hedging’ within international relations.

Hedging is defined as insurance-seeking behaviour, whereby smaller states operating within situations of uncertainty and high risk aim to not only avoid taking sides but sometimes even pursue opposite goals in their bilateral relations with competing powers to safeguard their own national interests and to create diversified fallback options.

The prevalent response to China or Pakistan’s attempt to rebalance ties with the US is not really balancing well between the two powers. Pakistan is not ‘bandwagoning’ either, which implies that a weaker state (in this case Pakistan) aligns itself with a stronger even potentially adversarial power (which can be either China or the US in this context), even if this partnership disproportionately enables the stronger power (China or the US) to gain more from the bilateral partnership. Bandwagoning would be a folly for Pakistan because it thus far has been able to maintain robust relations with both the US and China, and neither great power has taken an overtly adversarial position against it. Yet, Pakistan would not want to see itself trapped in a position of dependency where it has increasingly less to gain from its alliance with either China or the US, compared to what benefits they provide. Pakistan has thus far managed to avert the danger of putting all the eggs in one basket, which is why it cultivated China despite being a ‘non-NATO ally’ during the US occupation of Afghanistan, and it continues trying to patch up relations with the US, despite its increased military and economic dependence on China.

Islamabad has a compelling case to demonstrate to both US and China how its own actions are being compelled by uncertainties stemming from the very actions of these great powers themselves. The US, for instance, continues arming India, even as US military alliance with India is compounding Pakistan’s insecurities, and it is compelling Pakistan to increase its dependence on China.

Ideally, Pakistan should be able to use the US to make its Chinese-lent infrastructure projects under CPEC more viable. Simultaneously, it can continue seeking Chinese investments to lessen its dependence on US-backed aid. Pakistan has engaged with the US to help ensure that its IMF loans were not completely blocked, which was making it more dependent on short-term but high interest Chinese lending.

Pakistan can learn valuable lessons from the alignment choices being made by smaller Southeast and South Asian states. Hedging provides options for overcoming the hazard of entrapment, the peril of abandonment and the liability of corresponding domestic friction accompanying increased dependence on a hegemon. However, the space for hedging may shrink if Pakistan is unable to get its own house in order. It is only then that Pakistan will be able to use hedging to untap its geostrategic potential rather than remaining an elite-captured state operating in a clientalist fashion.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2024.

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