#dnaEdit: Strategic corridor

Chinese President Xi Jingping describes Pakistan as an “Iron Brother” and the latest stage of the relations between China and Pakistan as “all-weather strategic partnership”. There was a sense of gratitude when Xi told the joint session of Pakistan’s parliament during his recent two-day official visit that when China was isolated in the world, it was Pakistan which stood by Beijing. This was clearly in evidence when the then US national security advisor Henry Kissinger used Pakistan as the facilitator to connect with Mao’s China in 1971-72. It seems now that China wants to connect with west Asia through Pakistan’s deep-water Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea through its westernmost province of Xinjiang. 

It is an interesting development because Xinjiang has been a trouble spot for China’s communist leaders with the emergence of militant Islamist group among the restless Uighur tribal people in the province. There have been times when the Chinese authorities have expressed the apprehension that it is the Islamic militants in Pakistan who were providing help to their counterparts in Xinjiang. It seems that China now believes that one of the ways of dealing with the political unrest in Xinjiang is to make it the centrepiece of an integration plan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the means to achieve this strategic goal. It will be the first time in the region that an international corridor is being planned between the two sovereign states, which focuses on infrastructural projects highways, transport, energy, besides the development of the Gwadar port.

It can be argued that the prosperity that CPEC could bring to the whole arc of western China and north-west-south-west Pakistan could serve as an effective antidote to both tribal and militant Islamic violence of the area. It was not surprising then that in his speech to Pakistan’s  parliament that Xi had promised economic assistance to develop Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) . What happens in CPEC should be a matter of interest all the stakeholders in the region. It puts to test the general belief of modernisers that economic development is the answer to political violence unleashed by religious fanatics. The transformation is not going to happen overnight. It will be a decade before the results of the economic integration plan can be assessed. It is interesting that Xi praised Pakistan as a front line state in the war against terrorism. So, CPEC is a tacit means to counter terrorism. The economic corridor could also be used for transporting military ware as well as troops.  

Pakistan-China relations will remain a matter of concern for Indian strategy experts because there is the clear perception that Pakistan and China pose a security challenge on the eastern and western borders of India. Past experience suggests that China is not going to enter the conflict in case of a war between India and Pakistan. In a similar manner, Pakistan will not aggravate the situation by joining the Chinese side in case of an India-China war. The war scenario between India and China or India and Pakistan seems the most unlikely eventuality in the near future. China would also desist from taking on a strategic role in south Asia or in the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which now includes Afghanistan. It is true that Pakistan is keen to use the China card to counter India’s predominance in the region. China is not in a position to oblige because South Asia is peripheral to the strategic Chinese interest.