But they agree on China.
Besides the Bomb, there’s nothing more popular in the Islamic Republic than the People’s Republic next door. With Pew poll ratings that hover in the 90s (and never dip below 80), the euphoria we feel for China is at sweaty-palm levels. China’s state press, meanwhile, continues to carry tales of joy towards the men and women next door.
The trend isn’t recent. The last official photograph of Mao Zedong is testament: Chairman Mao’s hands clasping Chairman Bhutto’s — the Great Helmsman banned photo-ops soon after. And it has weathered many storms since: “When it comes to Pakistan, the first word that comes to the mind of Chinese is ‘iron brother’,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said. ‘(Our relationship) has withstood the test of wind and rain.’
It’s the language of love, and as with most Asian nations, the similes flow freely. Our officials go on sober record, only to describe their romance as deeper than oceans, dearer than eyesight, and — a recent favourite — sweeter than honey. A love that could only blossom, perhaps, between two confirmed eccentrics: one as complex as China, the other as complicated as Pakistan.
On paper, this mutual fondness makes no sense. There’s no common language. There’s no overlap in religion. The culture is diverse, dense, and difficult to understand in either place. As to governance, the Communist Party is still the sun, the moon, and the solar system, while our Parliament has never been noisier (though PM Nawaz is often tempted by the Chinese model).
And though this bond runs deep, it’s certainly not old. Both countries boast ancient civilisations, but the nation-states are newborns — Chairman Mao warred his way to Beijing just two years after Mr Jinnah won the case for Pakistan.
These two gents define our differences: China owns the ideals of the man from Hunan, i.e., single-party socialism, while Pakistan claims the parliamentary traditions of Bombay’s finest barrister. Both gardens have been defiled, by market forces and military coups (and only the former’s met with success).
Yet this love works. It forgets conflicting creeds: Pakistan was the first Muslim country to recognise Red China. It forgives lapses of judgment: China let go of Pakistan’s flings with SEATO and CENTO. Both are notorious as neighbours: China’s fistfought with everyone from Russia to Japan (and Pakistan with everyone but China).
But like nauseated relatives, others are less enthused. Snarky Washington think-tanks produce a report a year on how the warmth is waning: how China is growing too distant to be interested, how Pakistan is growing too dangerous to be useful. Even at its sunniest, Sino-Pak bonhomie irritates the West.
Part of this is projection, the bad sort. For too long, Pakistan-China has been painted as a friendship of the Chanakyan kind: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s a set of interests that frustrates other interests, American or Indian or Russian. And it does so via creepy means: nuclear dealings, defence supplies, arms and ammunition. This image must change.
Just the phrase ‘Pakistan is our Israel,’ Beijing’s supposed response to American diplomats tut-tutting ties with Islamabad, was trotted around everywhere in foreign policy journals, if never substantiated. Our local neocons did get a kick out of it, but the irony of the comparison — a hostile state-fuelled by the grace of a massive military machine — was lost on everyone. And besides, better relations with India can only better Pakistan.
Because beneath it all, Pakistan and China don’t require drawing close to offend others: they manage to do that all on their own. While the degree of depth is debated (our lefties say they need us less, their righties say they need us more), what’s clear is that Pakistan and China need each other, for each other.
This brotherhood is based on benefit: unlike Islamabad and its adhoc ways, the Chinese view the world in decades — and it was a lifetime ago that Pakistan brought the sweaty, sweary Richard Nixon to Chinese shores. Today’s China thinks in economic terms, and sating its energy demands. Islamabad, for its part, gains technology and know-how: trade with Beijing makes for the self-reliance it craves.
At the centre of it all lies Gwadar; a fount of potential for Pakistan, and a go-to trade corridor for China.
Which is why this is one relationship the country can’t afford to scuff up — making last week’s events doubly distressing. Though the Chinese remind us our relationship is ‘beyond’ presidential postponements, the times are growing trickier.
First, policy: A nuclear state with war within and three angry neighbours without has no foreign minister. While Messrs Imran and Qadri are the ones responsible for the raincheck, President Xi’s postponement was admitted, denied, and then admitted. Our Foreign Office is excellent — our executive is not. Making appointments may be Kryptonite to the PML-N, but it’s high time they do.
Second: Economics. The balance of trade is tilted in Beijing’s favour, a hard fact that requires redressal — Pakistan talks of increasing ‘exportables’, but does little about it. Besides building underpasses and overpasses in a half of Lahore, the state may want to reconsider our wider malaise.
Third: Terror. Pakistan is moving in the right direction in its assessment of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a band of Uighurs hiding in Waziristan but blowing up things in Xinjiang. In targeting ETIM, Operation Zarb-e-Azab seems well aware of mutual enemies. But, as with the safety of Chinese nationals working in the country, there’s a long way to go.
In another forest analogy, Premier Li said last year, ‘the tree of China-Pakistan friendship (…) is now exuberant with abundant fruits.’ Whatever that means, we’d want it to stay that way.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 9th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ