Abhijit Iyer-Mitra
When one talks of the China-Pakistan nexus, the Indian response, almost reflexively, tends to be one of bitterness and fear. Recent announcements made during Chinese President Xi Xinping’s short visit to Pakistan have only exacerbated these worries. However, far from generating fear, any dispassionate analysis of the Pakistan-China relationship should give every Indian a sadistic satisfaction that two nations are stuck with each other and deserve each other, in every sense of the words.
What exactly has Chinese friendship brought Pakistan over the years, in hard, tangible terms? According to Pakistani experts, the bomb design they received from the Chinese has been too bulky to fit into their missiles and aircraft. Instead, some Pakistanis claim, that they have got their hands on a partial French design, proliferated to Israel, and have managed to connect the dots on their own. In private, these same Pakistanis also complain that the Chashma-3 and Chashma-4 reactors are “non-functional, rusty junk”, with no practical application, other than to showcase Chinese support for Pakistan and cock-a-snook at the India-US nuclear deal.
Chinese weapons are purely quantitative gap fillers – in other words, they are missile fodder. The Pakistanis still prefer their American F-16s to anything the Chinese can give them, and will go out of their way to source second-hand F-16s. In private, Pakistanis also express deep contempt for Chinese avionics. They say that they always insist on Italian radars and avionics to compensate for the appalling quality of Chinese hardware.
On the few occasions that the Pakistanis have received functional Chinese hardware, the Chinese have hiked the prices to exorbitant levels, once their combat viability was proven. A case in point is the C-801 anti-ship missile. During trials in the Arabian Sea, the Pakistanis set the target at the maximum range of 120 kilometres, despite Chinese protestations. The missile, unexpectedly, managed the full flight envelope and also scored a bulls-eye on the target ship. The very next day, the Chinese presented a revised proposal, hiking the price of each missile sixteen-fold.
This is the litany of complaints that one hears about every single benefactor the Pakistanis have had. Their public bile, of course, remains directed at the United States – too often and too frequently spewed, to be rehashed here. But, in private, the harshest of words are reserved for the Saudis. As the Pakistani narrative goes, the peace-loving Muslims of Pakistan have had their peace-loving Islamic ways and democratic processes hijacked by the Saudis and their Wahhabi fanaticism.
The fact that native Pashtun tradition (Pashtunwali) can be far more brutal than any Saudi law, does not register; the fact that Pakistan’s radicalisation cycle is uniquely Hanafi – a different school from the Salafi/Wahhabi Saudi strain – does not register. The fact that the Pakistani state actively enforced and abetted radicalisation is also conveniently forgotten.
What we have here is a spoilt brat that refuses to accept responsibility for its own actions and blames every one of its woes on others. China? Perfidious and miserly! Saudi Arabia? Responsible for all the religious fanaticism. United States? Responsible for terrorism within Pakistan as junior partner in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion who seek to destroy a pure, chaste and virginal Pakistan.
China is about to discover, what America still refuses to accept and the Saudis learnt only last month – that Pakistan takes, but does not pay its dues. Contrary to what the Indian Press would have us believe, Pakistan has never been subservient to any country, has always hijacked its donor’s agenda, and fed its own self-defeating masochistic policies. In that sense, Pakistan has always been more non-aligned than India has ever been, and also managed its non-alignment more skilfully than India. The only problem is that this has been a losing proposition.
Take, for example, the Chinese announcement of close to $46 billion worth of investment in Pakistan’s infrastructure – especially in the energy sector where Pakistan has faced crippling shortages. What we need to remember is that these are mere pledges, not actual contracts. Much like the billions of dollars that China promised Afghanistan which never materialised, these announcements are pipe dreams, at best.
When China sees a good bet, it doesn’t announce it. After all, China became India’s biggest trading partner without grandiose gestures or announcements. On the contrary, China makes announcements to hide the truth – and this is possibly the case with its promised investment in Pakistan as well.
Remember that in both the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars, the Chinese made noises about intervening on Pakistan’s side, but in the end, didn’t move so much as one brigade, leave alone a division. For that matter, where has China been all these last 30 years that Pakistan has been moving from one economic crisis to another?
Let us, however, assume for a moment that the above analysis is incorrect and the Chinese intend to live up to their promise and invest $46 billion in Pakistan. Where would that leave India? For starters, Chinese investments come as complete packages and do not generate local skills. When China says it will build a bridge, it does not trained bridge-builders in the recipient country. It comes in with Chinese tractors and bulldozers, Chinese labour and Chinese raw material, builds the bridge, and goes away. What this means is that Pakistan will not acquire these skills nor will Pakistani businesses benefit.