Pakistan-China-India Articles

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Pakistan and China: A Fraying Friendship?


By Vivian Salama / Islamabad Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009


Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari (R) gestures with Chinese President Hu Jintao (C) during a review of the honour guard at a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 15, 2008.
Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty




There is an old Chinese proverb that says to attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend. On Friday, an old friend is due to come calling in China. Pakistan's President Asif Zardari will make his second visit to China in four months for meetings with senior political and business leaders. A key ally in the U.S.-led "War on Terror," Pakistan — desperate for money and in need of a good friend — has recently found itself beckoning China for rescue. But is China willing to invest its pennies in Pakistan, much less play superhero for an old but now problematic ally?

Once an "all-weather friend," China stood with Pakistan during its old confrontations with India. Ties between the two countries date back to 1950 after Pakistan joined a small handful of nations in recognizing the communist People's Republic of China. In 1962, war broke out between China and India over the disputed Himalayan border region, further aligning China and Pakistan in the name of a common enmity toward India. Since then, Beijing has often offered its support to Islamabad in the way of economic assistance, but also with no-strings-attached military aid and support to Pakistan's nuclear program. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable Northwest passage.)

Although China has not signed an official nuclear agreement similar to the civilian nuclear pact between the U.S. and India, it has invested heavily in the construction of several nuclear power plants in Pakistan. Unlike its relationship with the U.S, Pakistan's agreements with China seldom came with conditions. "The U.S. hasn't offered to support nuclear projects with Pakistan, so we go to China where we know we are always very warmly welcomed," says Muhammad Saleem Mazhar, director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Punjab in Lahore. Various Chinese-funded projects are also currently underway to boost Pakistan's infrastructure, including the development of a port on the Strait of Hormuz at Gwadar.

However, with Pakistan's security situation growing increasingly volatile and economic conditions turning dire, there may be a turn in tide between these once intimate friends. "The situation is much different now than once upon a time," says William Kirby, T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University. "India has emerged as a much more powerful force in the region and Pakistan has not succeeded in the way that hopeful and loyal supporters had once imagined. It is now one of the great security risks in the region."

Instead of increasing assistance to its old ally, Beijing has apparently been keeping a distance from Islamabad. During Zardari's visit in October, the Chinese snubbed the Pakistani President's request for a full-blown economic bailout. While Beijing did grant Islamabad a soft loan last year worth $500 million, it was nowhere near the estimated $14 billion experts say is needed to get Pakistan back on its feet. "The cooperation we saw during the Musharraf era just isn't there anymore," says Sayem Ali, an economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Karachi. "China would rather develop better relations with India and the U.S., which is not great news for Pakistan because it has always relied on China's help." (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)

The recent instability along Pakistan's Western border with Afghanistan, as well as a series of abductions of Chinese nationals, could lead China to look elsewhere for more reliable friends in the region — allies who can at least guarantee some sort of stability for China to pursue its strategic and economic interests. "Pakistan today needs China more than China needs Pakistan — that is why there is more enthusiasm in Pakistan about its relations with China than vice-versa," says Shabbir Cheema, director of the Asia-Pacific Governance and Democracy Initiative.

China, however, cannot afford to turn a blind eye to a nuclear-powered Pakistan that seems to be constantly teetering on chaos. For one, Uighur separatists in China's Xinjiang province often find inspiration and support in the turmoil in Afghanistan, a conflict entangled in the politics of Pakistan's tumultuous North-Western Frontier Province. "We are now looking at a situation where China and India are on their way to becoming global powers and Pakistan is really in a position of endemic crisis," says Kirby. "China can longer afford to make any unconditional guarantees — particularly where Pakistan is concerned."

Chinese nationals in Pakistan are in as much danger as other foreigners. In the aftermath of a tentative cease-fire between Pakistan and Taliban radicals in the beleaguered Swat Valley, militants there released Long Xiaowei, a Chinese engineer abducted six months ago — an incident that drew unusually forceful language from Beijing.

Pakistan's troubles, however, are likely to keep China involved in keeping its old ally afloat. Ahmed Ejaz, an expert on Asian security at the University of Punjab, believes that for China, the stakes are far too great for it to turn its back on Pakistan. "An unstable Pakistan will lead to an unstable China," says Ejaz. "They know this so they will never leave us alone."

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...880689,00.html

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Can China and India Be Friends?


A Chinese soldier, left, and an Indian soldier maintain ceremonial positions at the Nathu La Pass.
Gurinder Osan / AP


By Madhur Singh/New Delhi Friday, Dec. 21, 2007

To understand the significance of 100 Indian soldiers spending a week running around southwestern China alongside troops from that country's People's Liberation Army in mock battles against imaginary terrorists, it is worth noting that Operation Hand in Hand is the first-ever joint exercise between these two armies. They fought each other in 1962, and have not exactly warmed to one another in the decades since, for much of which India was close to China's erstwhile communist rival, the Soviet Union, while China has been a reliable ally of India's arch-foe, Pakistan. "The two sides will be like two porcupines facing each other," says Delhi-based security analyst C. Uday Bhaskar, "They have had little contact for 40 years, and a negative perception of the other still prevails, more so, perhaps, on the Indian side."

The joint exercise follows a series of smaller steps to break the ice, including a joint mountaineering expedition and joint naval exercises. In 2006, Beijing and New Delhi signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) providing for regular war games and annual defense summits. The thaw in the long-time Sino-Indian cold war began with the 1996 visit of Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin to New Delhi. Since elevating the relationship to a "strategic partnership" in 2005, the two countries have seen bilateral trade exceed $20 billion last year, and have worked together to voice common concerns in such international forums as the WTO and the Bali climate-change talks. "Sino-India relations are definitely on an upswing," says Dipanker Banerjee, director of the Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. "The army exercises are a result of a natural progression of events, so they are a welcome step."

Not everyone is as optimistic. Chief among the irritants to the relationship is a continuing border dispute: India accuses China of illegally occupying 43,180 square kilometers (16,672 square miles) of territory belonging to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, including 5,180 square kilometers (2,000 square miles) ceded to China by Pakistan. China, on its part, accuses India of occupying some 90,000 square kilometers (34,749 square miles) of Chinese territory, mostly in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Recently, Indian security experts have raised alarm over China's alleged military build-up near India's north-east, while India's Indo-Tibetan Border Police has revealed that there have been 141 border incursions by the Chinese in the past year.

"The Chinese have actually hardened their stance regarding the border issue," says Brahma Chellaney, a strategic studies expert with the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, "Last year, the Chinese Ambassador reiterated the Chinese claim on Arunachal Pradesh, and since then they have been trying to put the onus for settlement of the border issue disproportionately on India."

India is also concerned by China's burgeoning and secretive defense expenditure, its building of road and rail links along the border, and its "string of pearls" strategy of setting up naval bases in the Indian Ocean. But China has its own strategic concerns, particularly the fact that India is being courted by the U.S. in a strategy aimed at forging a regional alliance comprising India, Japan, Australia and the U.S. To that end, last September, India held joint naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal with the U.S., Australia, Japan and Singapore, soon after China's military exercises with Russia and the Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China has also been protesting against India's refusal to allow Chinese direct investment in Indian ports, telecommunications and other sectors for security reasons.

This week's Sino-Indian military exercises are aimed at defusing some of this tension. "The exercises will help build military confidence between two nations that have a record of supporting dissidents on the other side — India in Tibet and China in India's North-East," says foreign affairs expert C. Raja Mohan. "They both now share a counter-terror agenda, and it is an important step forward for the two to collaborate." On the domestic political front, the exercises also offer the Indian government an opportunity to quiet criticism from its leftwing coalition partners over its pro-U.S. tilt.

Given its scale, Operation Hand in Hand is essentially symbolic, although it may set the stage for bigger and more regular war games in future. "However," says Chellaney, "Sino-Indian relations need to move beyond mere symbolic gestures towards more substantive steps to resolve outstanding issues." As the economic and security architecture of Asia is re-drawn, competition for resources and influence is likely to grow between Asia's second and third biggest economies. But this need not necessarily lead to tension, as Bhaskar points out: "What matters is how China wants to see India in the long run — as a worthy global power, or as an antagonist that must be mired in South Asia. In the past China has leaned towards the latter approach; it has been arming Pakistan to bog India down. But the way things are evolving, particularly with continuing economic globalization, that may not continue to be the case." Both India and China realize that they need peace to stay on their high growth trajectories. And for this, hand-in-hand will work better than fist-to-fist.


Source:Can China and India Be Friends? - TIME

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Zardari reaches China for trade, energy talks




Saturday, February 21, 2009


ISLAMABAD/WUHAN: President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday arrived in China on his second visit in four months to promote economic cooperation, improve agriculture output in Pakistan and seek Chinese assistance to meet the energy crisis facing the country.

Hubei Vice Governor Duan Lun Yi, Pakistan’s Ambassador to China Masood Khan, Chinese Ambassador in Islamabad Lou Zhao, and senior Chinese and Pakistani government officials warmly received Zardari at the airport, APP reported.

“The focus of the president’s visit is on promoting cooperation in the fields of agriculture and hydroelectric power projects as well as the financial sector,” a Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement released on Friday. He said several memorandums of understanding (MoU) and agreements, including a free trade agreement on trade and services would be signed during the president’s four-day visit. According to the statement, the president would visit Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to attend a Pak-China Agriculture and Water Resources Forum. He would then travel to Yichang and observe the Three Gorges Dam project, the largest hydroelectric power project in the world. The president is also scheduled to travel to Shanghai and interact with chairmen/CEOs of leading Chinese banks and financial institutions to discuss means to increase cooperation between Pakistan and China.

The president would also hold meetings with the governor of Hubei and the mayor of Shanghai. The Foreign Ministry statement also said he would interact with intellectuals and scholars from important think tanks and universities in Shanghai. It said Zardari would meet several Chinese leaders and interact with media during his visit. staff report/app

Source:Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan