Aftab Khan: China

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PAKISTAN AND THE CHINESE CENTURY

WRITING in Vanity Fair magazine recently, Nobel Prize-winning economist and one of the world`s top intellectuals Joseph E. Stiglitz highlighted a fact that marks the end of an era in world history and holds immense promise and benefits for Pakistan and its citizens.

According to Stiglitz, at the turn of new year, China will become the world`s largest and most powerful economy overtaking the US and thus launching an era which he says `will last for a very long time, if not forever`.

How this has been established and why it has escaped the attention of the world`s news media is not the subject here and is best explained by the Nobel Prize-winning professor and the fourth most influential economist by academic citation himself.What is important for Pakistan is that this rise in its `greatest friend`s` stature could be the most fortunate event in what has so far been a rather forgettable new millennium for Islamabad. From the fallout of the 9/11 attacks to the growth of internal insurgencies and an increasingly beleaguered economy, the country has been dragging itself along with predictions of doom and disaster hanging over its head.

But China`s ascendancy coinciding with the end of the Afghan conflict means a new dawn could be approaching. It`s not all conjecture: between them, Pakistan`s past two governments have managed to inveigle a $43.5 billion investment deal from Beijing. What is needed now is the proper management and planning of the resulting schemes.

`Pakistan must be more transactional in its relationship with China,` said Dr Akbar Zaidi, a senior economist. `Over the years a lot of MoUs have been signed but rarely have these been translated into actual projects.

Dr Zaidi cited the example of the Thar Coal project, launched with much fanfare in 2011 but which has since run into financial trouble. While the government insists that it`s still on, he says that past history suggests that it is highly unlikely to be completed on time, and may never actually get operational.

`China has seen enough of Pakistan`s troubled governance to know that what is set in stone today may well all have melted away tomorrow,` he said.

`They may put in amounts as seed money which may seem enormous, but which is peanuts for them and then wait and see what sort of response comes from the national government in question. They have done this in Africa and Latin America, and have walked away when things got stuck in a rut.

Dr Zaidi`s hypothesis certainly remains true for most bilateral civilian projects. But it appears to lose weight when tested on defence cooperation between the two sides.

Technology transfer for initial weapons development from China for the M-11 / HATF 3, or the co-production of weapons systems such as the F-7P jet have resulted in a Pakistani weapons production industry that now looks set to prosper.

According to the ministry of defence production, military exports have doubled in the past year. This was clear at the recent IDEAS arms fair with greater interest shown in Pakistani defence goods than in those being displayed by renowned international firms.

One reason for the weapons industry`s success in comparison to the civilian sector is the predominance of the Pakistan military in relations with any foreign power.

However, if that was actually the case here, it would still not account for the number of MoUs signed or the fewer number of agreements reached in spheres that are purely civilian and where the grants given cannot be re-allocated to defence needs.

Debate on investment The biggest current example is of course the Pakistan-China trade corridor, seen as a game changer for the country. It also remains a top priority for the current government, something emphasised by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself. Yet the project, which envisages the construction of a vast transport and communications infrastructure to connect Chinese Kashgar to the Gwadar port, is already in dispute.

`Our problem is that our priorities remain narrowly confined to political and provincial domains,` said Daud Khan Achakzai, head of the Pakistan senate subcommittee on communications and transport. `This project will be developed over a period of at least 15 years and it needs long-term vision and planning, whereas each new government has been trying to amend it to best benefit its constituency.

In such a move recently, the PML-N led government has diverted the original route through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, to include Punjab and parts of Sindh.

This has resulted in an uproar from the benches, especially from KP and Balochistan MNAs.

Achakzai, who is from Zhob, says that while he agrees that Punjab and Sindh should also derive benefits from the project, this should not be at the cost of an already greatly discriminated Balochistan.

`Each province should get its just share; as should Pakistan,` he contends.

`We must have a greater debate over the investment from China, as they stand to gain over 10 days in transport time for goods and energy. Currently, it takes them 12 days to ship goods and fuel from the Middle East, whereas the corridor would cut this down to 24 to 36 hours.

This is particularly important, as Stiglitz points out. He says that while China may have moved into the number one economy slot, that does not mean its pace of growth is going to slow down anytime soon. In particular, experts agree, this means a growth in its demand for fuel and oil will increase, the largest proven deposits of which lie around the Persian Gulf.

As such, almost all indicators suggest that Beijing`s best years lie ahead. That`s something that its adversaries are well aware of and want to control as much as they can. None perhaps as much as the US, as is evident with current American President Barack Obama`s pivot to Asia policy which experts like Stiglitz maintain is nothing less than the encirclement and containment of the Chinese Dragon, preying on the fears of its smaller neighbours over territorial disputes.

The only exception to this appears to be Pakistan. In a recent conversation with this reporter at a defence seminar, Chinese officials described the relationship between the two countries by clasping their hands together and calling the two nations `brothers`. While some of this may be rhetoric, there is also a strong element of truth in it. As such it puts Pakistan in an enviable position to propel itself through the 21st century. The only obstacles in the way appear to be self constructed; their timely removal could help propel Pakistan into a new league of economic success.

PAKISTAN AND THE CHINESE CENTURY
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
Dawn.com

Comedy of errors By Spengler

Everything in tragedy happens for a reason, and the result always is sad; most things in comedy happen by accident and the outcome typically is happy. Sino-American relations are not destined for conflict, although that is possible. The misunderstandings that bedevil relations between the world's two most powerful countries remain comedic rather than tragic. That probably is as good as it gets, for no amount of explanation will enable Chinese and Americans to make sense of each other.

Where the Chinese are defensive and cautious, the Americans tend to perceive them as aggressive; where the Chinese are expansive ambitious, the Americans ignore them altogether. The United States is a Pacific power accustomed to maritime
dominance. To the extent that Americans focus on China's foreign policy, it is to express alarm at China's territorial claims on small uninhabited islands also claimed by Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Apart from some overheated and self-serving rhetoric from a few Chinese military leaders, though, the contested islands are of negligible importance in China's scale of priorities.

The issue may be moot by this writing: last week, China and Japan released a "Principled Agreement on Handling and Improving Bilateral Relations", following meetings between Japan's national security adviser, Shotaro Yachi, and Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi. The document promises to "establish crisis management mechanisms to avoid contingencies" and to employ "dialogue and consultation".

Neither Japan nor China had any interest in a military confrontation in the Pacific, although both sides employed the island disputes to play to their own nationalist constituencies. The Principled Agreement sends a signal that the Kabuki show had gone far enough.

A common American meme in response to supposed Chinese expansionism in the Pacific projected an Indian-Japanese military alliance to contain Chinese ambitions under US sponsorship. Although a few Indian nationalists enthused over the idea, it was an empty gesture from the outside. If India got into a scrap with China over disputed borders, for example, just what would Japan do to help?

The newly-elected Indian government under Narendra Modi never took the idea seriously. On the contrary, after President Xi Jinping's recent state visit to India, Modi envisions Chinese investment in urgently needed infrastructure. Economics trumps petty concerns over borders in the mountainous wasteland that separates the world's two most populous nations.

There also is a strategic dimension to the growing sense of agreement between China and India. From India's vantage point, China's support for Pakistan's army is a concern, but it cuts both ways. Pakistan remains at perpetual risk of tipping over towards militant Islam, and the main guarantor of its stability is the army. China wants to strengthen the army as a bulwark against the Islamic radicals, who threaten China's Xinjiang province as much as they do India, and that probably serves India's interests as well as any Chinese policy might.

Chinese analysts are dumbfounded about the US response to what they view as a sideshow in the South China Sea and only tangentially concerned about India. They struggle to understand why a vastly improved relationship with Russia has emerged in response to US blundering in Ukraine.

As a matter of diplomatic principle, China does not like separatists because it has its own separatists to contend with, starting with the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province. Washington thought that the Maidan Revolution in Kiev last year would take Crimea out of Russian control, and Russia responded by annexing the peninsula containing its main warm-water naval base.

When the West imposed sanctions on Russia in retaliation, Moscow moved eastwards - an obvious response, and one that strongly impacts Western power. Not only has Russia opened its gas reserve to China, but it has agreed to supply China with its most sophisticated military technology, including the formidable S-400 air defense system. Russia was reluctant to do so in the past given Chinese efforts to reverse-engineer Russian systems, but the Ukraine crisis changed that.

Western analysts, to be sure, now observe that the new Russian-Chinese rapprochement might be a challenge for the West. The New York Times devoted a front-page feature to the opinions of the usual suspects among Soviet watchers in its November 9 edition.

This was obvious months ago, and should have been obvious before the fact: the West merely threw B'rer Putin into the briar patch to his east. Of all the miscalculations in Western policy since World War II, this was perhaps the stupidest. The Chinese are left to scratch their heads about their unanticipated good luck.

It is wrong to speak of a Russian-Chinese alliance, to be sure, but there is a developing Sino-Russian condominium in Asia. The energy and defense deals between Moscow and Beijing are important in their own right, but they take on all the more importance in the context of what might be the most ambitious economic project in history: the New Silk Road. The Pacific holds little promise for China. Japan and South Korea are mature economies, customers as well as competitors of China.

Expansion in the Pacific simply has nothing to offer China's economy. What China wants is to be impregnable within its own borders: it will spend generously to develop surface-to-ship missiles that can take out US aircraft carriers, hunter-killer submarines, and air defense systems.

China's prospects are to the west and south: energy and minerals in Central Asia, food in Southeast Asia, warm-water ports on the Indian Ocean, a vast market, and access to world markets beyond. The network of rail, pipelines and telecommunications that China is building through the former Soviet republics and through Russia itself will terminate at the Mediterranean and provide a springboard for Chinese trade with Europe.

The whole Eurasian landmass is likely to become a Chinese economic zone, especially now that Russia is more amenable to Chinese terms. That the Americans would have helped bring this to fruition by tilting at windmills in Ukraine baffles the Chinese, but they are enjoying the result.

The economic impact of this is hard to fathom, but it is likely to extend Chinese influence westwards on a scale that the West simply hasn't begun to imagine. It is not at all clear whether China has a clear idea of what the implications of the New Silk Road might be. The implosion of America's geopolitical position has placed risks and opportunities at Beijing's doorstep, to Beijing's great surprise.

A year ago, Chinese officials privately reassured visitors that their country would "follow the lead of the dominant superpower" in matters relating to Middle East security, including Iran's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. For the past several decades, China has allowed the US to look out for the Persian Gulf while it increased its dependency on Persian Gulf oil. By 2020, China expects to import 70% of its oil, and most of that will come from the Gulf.

The Chinese view has changed radically during the past few months, in part due to the collapse of the Syrian and Iraqi states and the rise of Islamic State. It is hard to find a Chinese specialist who still thinks that the US can stand surely for Persian Gulf security. Opinion is divided between those who think that America is merely incompetent and those who think that America deliberately wants to destabilize the Persian Gulf.

Now that the US is approaching self-sufficiency in energy resources, some senior Chinese analysts believe it wants to push the region into chaos in order to hurt China. One prominent Chinese analyst pointed out that Islamic State is led by Sunni officers trained by the United States during the 2007-2008 "surge" as well as elements of Saddam Hussein's old army, and that this explains why IS has displayed such military and organizational competence.

The complaint is justified, to be sure: General David Petraeus helped train the 100,000-strong "Sunni Awakening" to create a balance of power against the Shi'ite majority regime that the US helped bring to power in 2006. How, the Chinese ask, could the Bush administration and Petraeus have been so stupid? To persuade the Chinese that they were indeed that stupid is a daunting task.

China's attitude towards Washington has turned towards open contempt. Writing of the mid-term elections, the official daily newspaper Global Times intoned: "The lame-duck president will be further crippled ? he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. US society has grown tired of his banality."

But the decline of American influence in the region from which China obtains most of its oil is not a happy event for Beijing.

China did not anticipate the end of the free ride from the Americans, and it isn't sure what to do next. It has tried to maintain a balance among countries with whom it trades and who are hostile to each other. It has sold a great deal of conventional weapons to Iran, for example, and some older, less-sophisticated ballistic missiles.

But China has sold Saudi Arabia its top-of-the-line intermediate range missiles, giving the Saudis a "formidable deterrent capability" against Iran and other prospective adversaries. China obtains more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country, although its imports from Iraq and Oman are growing faster. Because the latter two countries are closer to Iran, China wants to strike a balance.

Chinese opinion is divided about the implications of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons: some strategists believe that the balance of nuclear power in the region will suffice to prevent the use of such weapons, while others fear that a nuclear exchange in the Gulf might stop the flow of oil and bring down China's economy. China has joined the P-5 plus 1 negotiations (involving the UN Security Council permanent five members plus Germany) on Iran's nuclear status, but has not offered a policy independent of President Barack Obama's.

Meanwhile the rise of Islamist extremism worries Beijing, as well it should. At least a hundred Uyghurs reportedly are fighting with Islamic State, presumably in order to acquire terrorist skills to bring back home to China. Chinese analysts have a very low opinion of the Obama administration's approach to dealing with IS, but do not have an alternative policy. This is an issue of growing importance. Instability threatens the Silk Road project at several key notes.

China has no sympathy whatever for what analysts there like to call "political Islam". America's flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood - both from the Obama administration and from mainstream Republicans such as Senator John McCain - strikes the Chinese as incompetence, or worse. But China has no capability to go after the Islamists, except for a very limited deployment of marines off the coast of Somalia.

China's policy-making is careful, conservative and consensus-driven. Its overriding concern is its own economy. The pace of transformation of the Middle East has surprised it, and it is trying to decide what to do next.

Its pro forma policy is to join the Iran talks, and offer to join the Quartet (the UN, the US, the European Union, and Russia) talks on the Israel-Palestine issue, but neither of these initiatives has much to do with its actual concerns.

What China will do in the future cannot be predicted. But it seems inevitable that China's basic interests will lead it to far greater involvement in the region, all the more so as the US withdraws.
Read original:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-02-101114.html

Russia and China Really Do Like NATO's Occupation of Afghanistan

The United States is winding down combat operations in Afghanistan and suddenly Russia and China -- who thought the United States had no business there in the first place -- don't want U.S. troops to just turn off the lights behind them.

Senior Russian and Chinese officials have encouraged Afghanistan's leaders to sign the so-called Bilateral Security Agreement with the United States, according to a senior Western diplomat who maintains contact with the Afghan leadership. If signed, the pact would keep U.S. forces playing at least a limited military role for the foreseeable future.

Russia's top U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, meanwhile, told reporters at U.N. headquarters Tuesday that his government is concerned that the White House exit plan is not linked to an improvement of the situation on the ground. Churkin maintains that the United Nations and Western governments minimize the extent of Afghanistan's problems, noting that opium production is soaring and Islamic extremism is leaking out the border and into Central Asia.

"Russia has a lot of worries about what it is going to come after the withdrawal," Churkin said. "We are critical of the work which has been done so far by the ... NATO-led military presence in Afghanistan. In our view they have clearly not been able to fulfill their mandate [of tamping down terrorism] and [are] leaving the country in a situation of considerable military turmoil."

Western officials say that Russian criticism is patently hypocritical.

"Their timeline when they left Afghanistan [in the '80s] is 'we leave Afghanistan tomorrow -- bye-bye,'" said a diplomat from a NATO country. "I would call that a double standard."

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the diplomat said Russia has routinely "played this game of bashing NATO" over everything from civilian casualties to setbacks in the fight against Afghanistan's thriving opium market.

However, Russia quietly supported aspects of the operation, such as approving the military mission's mandate and helping NATO transport material to Afghanistan. And Moscow even eased its long-standing objection to offering the Taliban concessions, approving U.S.-backed initiatives in the U.N. Security Council lifting the travel ban on former Taliban militants and thawing their assets if they demonstrated support for the Afghan government.

Russia's "biggest interest is stability," the official said. "They are never easy but in the end they have always joined the consensus that it's better to have us there than not. They have far too much interest in having security."

The handwringing comes less than two weeks after President Barack Obama declared at Bagram Airport in Afghanistan that the United States will limit its operation to equipping and training Afghan forces and pursuing its war on the al Qaeda terror network. If Afghanistan's new government signs the Bilateral Security Agreement before combat operations formally cease at year's end, the White House will leave fewer than 10,000 troops.

"The perception is that the United States intervened, created a mess, and is now leaving the region responsible for it," said Scott Smith, a former U.N official who served in Afghanistan and now heads the U.S. Institute for Peace's Afghanistan and Central Asia program.

"I think everybody is in agreement that a premature and un-strategic withdrawal that leaves Afghanistan with greater risk of falling into greater chaos is in nobody's interest.

"I've spoken to Chinese officials who say they don't want us in the region forever but 'we don't want to be the cleaner of the mess you made in Afghanistan,'" Smith added.

In March, China's ambassador to the U.N., Liu Jieyi, registered Beijing's concerns.

"The security situation in Afghanistan remains fragile, as represented by the major increases in various types of security incidents since last year," Liu told the Security Council. "We express our concerns over rising civilians casualties and we support capacity-building for Afghanistan's national security and police forces to enable them to effectively fulfill safety and security responsibilities. The parties concerned should fully take into account the need to protect the security and stability of Afghanistan and steadily and responsibly reduce their armed forces in order to ensure smooth progress in Afghanistan's security transition."

Smith said that regional players are drawing parallels with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.

The Soviets continued to provide financial and military assistance to help prop up Afghanistan's then-pro-Russian communist president, Mohammad Najibullah, who survived until the Soviet handouts stopped in 1992 and a coalition of armed mujahideen fighters took the capital.

"There is concern that the U.S.-backed government may collapse in similarly dramatic fashion," Smith said. Najibullah eventually was taken from his refuge on a U.N. compound and strung up by Taliban fighters.

"It is our belief that certain people continue to convince themselves that the situation is fine," Churkin told the council in March.

For Russia, the stakes are high in Afghanistan, which has been a source of heroin exports to Russia and a training ground for Islamic jihadists whom Moscow fears.

Kai Eide, a senior Norwegian diplomat who served as the U.N. special representative to Afghanistan and was in Kabul recently, said Russia's anxiety is growing.

"The Russians today are very skeptical about the U.S. withdrawal plan," he told Foreign Policy. "They are worried about the political vacuum, and the Taliban and [the] drug trade becoming even stronger. I have a sense that the Russians have become more and more interested in seeing some troops remain."
By Colum Lynch, thecable.foreignpolicy.com