Weekly China Newsbrief and Sitrep

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By Godfree Roberts selected from his extensive weekly newsletter : Here Comes China

Editorial Comments

Now that the excitement of all the major Heads of Countries virtually speaking at the UNGA is over, we can come to initial conclusions.  The theme of this gathering was to investigate the UN itself, and to position it to be a better global gathering place where internal relations can be discussed, problems solved and the work of multi-polarity between nations can continue.  President Putin gave a serious statesman speech without any fireworks, stating why the UN is important and calmly outlining the conditions in our world today, which actions should take priority and what the Russian focus is in the medium and long terms.  His gift to the UN and staff is a free SputnikV Vaccine.  Chairman Xi did the same and also came bearing gifts, putting some money where their mouth’s are in essence.  Here is the transcript and this quote stands out:  (Note my bolded sentence).

“Since the start of this year, we, the 1.4 billion Chinese, undaunted by the strike of COVID-19, and with the government and the people united as one, have made all-out efforts to control the virus and speedily restore life and economy to normalcy. We have every confidence to achieve our goals within the set time frame, that is, to finish the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, lift out of poverty all rural residents living below the current poverty line, and meet ten years ahead of schedule the poverty eradication target set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

China is the largest developing country in the world, a country that is committed to peaceful, open, cooperative and common development.  We will never seek hegemony, expansion, or sphere of influence. We have no intention to fight either a Cold War or a hot war with any country.  We will continue to narrow differences and resolve disputes with others through dialogue and negotiation. We do not seek to develop only ourselves or engage in a zero-sum game. We will not pursue development behind closed doors. Rather, we aim to foster, over time, a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other. This will create more space for China’s economic development and add impetus to global economic recovery and growth.

China will continue to work as a builder of global peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of international order. To support the UN in playing its central role in international affairs, I hereby announce the following steps to be taken by China:

— China will provide another US$50 million to the UN COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan.

— China will provide US$50 million to the China-FAO South-South Cooperation Trust Fund (Phase III).

— China will extend the Peace and Development Trust Fund between the UN and China by five years after it expires in 2025.

— China will set up a UN Global Geospatial Knowledge and Innovation Center and an International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals to facilitate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

So why is it that the Chinese government seemingly fails to convince the western public that China is not their enemy? Alternatively stated, why is it that the western countries are successful in portraying China as their enemy?  The answer is non-complicated at a first look.

At present, 90% of Americans learn about China through Western media, so it’s hard for the Chinese Government to convince Americans of anything.

American media are even more tightly controlled than Chinese media and far less trustworthy, says the American Press Institute, “Just six percent of Americans say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions”.

Americans don’t trust what their media tell them, but they don’t have other sources of information, either.

Joey Yu says: (February 22) —”The average American also has never left the United States. Never seen another country unless it’s through the media, and what the media shows them is probably outdated.”  • And nearly all Western media has the constant anti-Chinese political refrain which has brainwashed many even highly educated American and British professionals. I have given up trying to correct such people because I would lose their friendship if I continue to do that. But that brainwashing rankles.

First we had President Trump’s speech at the UNGA, which can only be categorized as a blistering and outright attack on China, well outside of the theme set for this meeting, while pretending to be the ‘Peaceful Nation’.  The Chinese commentary was immediate and devastating. I pulled these few comments describing President Trump’s speech out of just one of the Chinese commentaries:

Discriminatory, did the US President come to the UN for a quarrel, vulgar, full of loopholes, fooling only the American public, undisguised attempt at a new cold war, a destroyer, a creator of tensions, a hysterical attack that violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have, pays no heed to diplomacy, they believe power is everything, they want the agenda of the international community to serve US politics, and the UN General Assembly be turned into Trump’s presidential campaign, the US has performed so poorly in handling domestic affairs that reforms could barely be advanced, it has to pass the buck to digest the domestic anger.

And then finally:  “This is the sign of stagnation and the decline of a major power. It’s hoped the US government will not go further in this direction, which will only end up deceiving itself.”

With that as a backdrop, this selection from Godfree’s Here Comes China Newsletter focuses on

• vaccines,
• how the ‘scary social credit system’ actually works,
• a purported whistle blower,
• Pakistan and Belt and Road
• Chinese foreign investment.

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While in the western countries there is a concerted effort against vaccines, and a tremendous amount of backlash from citizens against vaccines for Covid-19 (and I don’t blame them at all given who is developing these for the western world), in China the situation is completely different:

China will not need a sweeping coronavirus vaccination programme because the pathogen is effectively under control in the country – at least for now. Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), said that large-scale vaccination would only be needed if there was a major outbreak, like the one in Wuhan in February. “This is an issue of balancing risk and return”.[MORE]

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We’ve seen endless propaganda with visions of brutal control of the citizens via the so-called Social Credit System in China.  Let’s take a look at how it really works.

The chairman of China’s embattled HNA Group Co. Ltd. was restricted from excessive spending on travel, golf and other activities by a court as debt woes continue rattling the once high-flying conglomerate. A district court in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi province, issued orders to limit spending by HNA and its 67-year-old co-founder and Chairman Chen Feng, a court document database showed Wednesday. As the legal representative of HNA, Chen will be restricted from taking flights, buying train tickets that are pricier than economy class, accommodations in luxury hotels, spending on entertainment such as golf and leisure trips, buying property and nonessential vehicles, and investing in high-yield wealth management products, according to the orders. The Xi’an court said it issued the orders in a debt dispute filed against HNA in August. [MORE]

It seems absolutely fine to me that if someone mismanaged his large business and lived a luxury life, that he should be brought back to a normal lifestyle while fixing his business.

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We`ve all heard of the Chinese Virologist that is being trotted out on most western mainstream media, saying that China developed the Covid-19 virus in a lab and she was told to stay silent.   Yet, I bet very few have seen the Chinese commentary on this:

Chinese defector’s shocking virus claim: Dr Li, a formerly a specialist at Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, said her supervisor first asked her to investigate a new “SARS-like” virus in Wuhan – but that her efforts were later stifled. She said she reported back that cases appeared to be rising exponentially but was told to “keep silent and be careful”. “’We will get in trouble and we’ll be disappeared’,” her supervisor reportedly said.  Dr Li travelled to the US in late April before speaking out, saying she had to leave Hong Kong because she “knows how [China] treat whistleblowers”. [MORE]

A press release from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) denied her claim and stated that: “Dr Yan never conducted any research on human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus at HKU during December 2019 and January 2020. We further observe that what she might have emphasised in the reported interview has no scientific basis but resembles hearsay.” The director of HKU’s School of Public Health, Keiji Fukuda, said in an internal memo to staff that none of the researchers named by Yan were involved in any cover-up or “secret research”.[MORE]

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Pakistan and China signed the Development Agreement for the first China Pakistan Economic Corridor’s (CPEC) Rashakai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Monday. Chairman Atif R. Bokhari said sufficient headway has been made on this front and the zones are now gearing up for business. “Pakistan’s proximity with China will allow these SEZs to foster economic interdependence for mutual economic advantage,” he added. [MORE]

In Pakistan, the Belt and Road project is everywhere. A dinner at the Islamabad Club quickly turns into a reminiscence of different visits to China. After a lecture in Lahore, a group of young men from Baluchistan want to know if China’s monumental economic initiative will develop their region — or cause it to lose its identity. The acronym for the corridor linking China and Pakistan, CPEC, can be heard in hotel lobbies and restaurants; it stands out for those who cannot understand Urdu. There are young people who have come of age since the beginning of the initiative and for whom it constitutes the only possible horizon for professional advancement. Earlier this year, I spent three weeks traveling in Pakistan, the crown jewel of the Belt and Road project, the country where the initiative first took root and therefore the most plausible candidate for the place where its future can be surmised and understood.

So central is the Belt and Road to Pakistani politics that it should not be thought of as a specific enterprise. Rather, it provides the overarching framework for every economic policy and project. In short, the initiative is something that should feel very familiar to policymakers in Brussels and other European capitals.

In my discussions with economic authorities and think tanks, it quickly became obvious that the main debate in Pakistan today is about the best way to adapt policy decisions and reforms to the Belt and Road framework. The Belt and Road can thus be compared to the European Union and the role it played for countries in Central and Eastern Europe after the 2004 and 2007 enlargements. Which decisions should these countries make in order to better occupy their place within the given political and economic order?

That many in the West still think of the Belt and Road purely in terms of infrastructure is something I find deeply perplexing. In the project’s inaugural speech that Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered in Astana in 2013, infrastructure was no more than one of the five pillars of the Belt and Road — and very obviously not more than an ancillary one. The real action was clearly elsewhere.

At the time of Xi was giving his speech in Astana, it was common to hear from different officials and intellectuals in Beijing that the Belt and Road was meant to be completed in 2049, around the time of the first centennial of the new China. Last year, while living in Beijing, I started hearing that the temporal horizon was even longer. Many spoke openly of a 100-year project. This is not the time-scale of an infrastructure plan. The Marshall Plan was concluded in just a few years. Interestingly, in Pakistan this idea — that the Belt and Road is a project of economic and technological development, culminating in a new global political and economic order — is clearly understood.  By Bruno Maçães, a former Europe minister for Portugal, is a senior adviser at Flint Global in London and the author most recently of “History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America” (Hurst, 2020). The paperback edition of his “Belt and Road: a Chinese World Order” will be published this month.  [MORE]

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Over 80% of the World’s Na­tions received Chi­nese For­eign In­vest­ment in 2019. Chi­na’s out­bound for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment to­talled USD$136.91 bil­lion, for a YoY de­cline of 4.3%. The in­vest­ment sum nonethe­less made China the world’s sec­ond biggest source of for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment af­ter Japan ($226.65 bil­lion). As of the end of 2019 Chi­na’s to­tal for­eign di­rect in­vest­ments were $2.2 tril­lion, third be­hind the United States ($7.7 tril­lion) and the Nether­lands ($2.6 tril­lion). Chi­na’s out­bound for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment com­prised 10.4% of the global to­tal in 2019 – the fourth con­sec­u­tive year that this fig­ure was above 10%. Chi­na’s to­tal for­eign di­rect in­vest­ments were 6.4% of the to­tal, on par with 2018. 80% of Chi­na’s for­eign di­rect in­vest­ments in 2019 were in the ser­vices sec­tor, with key ar­eas in­clud­ing leas­ing and com­mer­cial ser­vices, whole­sale and re­tail, fi­nance, in­for­ma­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions/ soft­ware, real es­tate, and tran­sit/ ware­hous­ing. [MORE]

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Selections and editorial comments by Amarynth.  (Go Get that newsletter – it is again packed with detail).

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China and Jammu and Kashmir’s new status

August 10, 2019

Beijing has a lot of influence over Pakistan and indirectly is in a position to leverage the next moves by Islamabad

M.K. BHADRAKUMAR

In the aftermath of the Indian government’s decision to remove “special status” for Jammu and Kashmir and split the state into two union territories, the most keenly awaited regional and international reaction – and a hugely consequential one – would be that of China, not the US or even any of the other three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

This is for three reasons. First, China is the only P5 member that is party to the Kashmir dispute by virtue of its Faustian deal with Pakistan in 1963 – the Sino-Pakistan Frontier Agreement and Sino-Pakistani Boundary Agreement – as well as because of Aksai Chin being a disputed territory.

Second, it is well known that China has a larger-than-life influence over Pakistan, and therefore, indirectly, is in a position to leverage the next moves by Islamabad on the J&K situation in practical or political terms.

Third, of course, China is a veto-holding P5 member. Although not involved in the making of the UN resolutions on Kashmir in 1948-1949 – which was an Anglo-American enterprise at a juncture when Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru somehow deliberately refrained from seeking Soviet help to counter India’s isolation in the UNSC – nonetheless, China is a powerful protagonist today if the Kashmir file were to reopen in New York at Pakistan’s behest.

Chinese reaction

On Tuesday, the Chinese reaction to the announcement in Delhi on Monday relating to J&K has come in two parts in the nature of remarks by the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Beijing – a relatively low-key reaction in diplomatic terms in comparison with a full-fledged statement, as Turkey, for instance, has done. One part exclusively relates to Ladakh’s new status as union territory, while the other one relates to the “current situation” in J&K.

Both remarks are devoid of any stridency, and on the whole India can live with them, although Western media, unsurprisingly, has hyped them. In fact, neither voices any overt backing to Pakistan. And, importantly, there are no new overtones as such in the well-known Chinese stance.

The remark on the change in Ladakh’s status begins by underscoring explicitly that China is voicing its “firm and consistent position,” which “remains unchanged.” That is to say, it regards part of Ladakh to be Chinese territory and India should not unilaterally create facts on the ground through domestic laws. If India does, China will consider that unacceptable and it “will not come into force.”

The remark rounds off stating the Chinese stance that India should speak and act with prudence on the boundary question, strictly abide by relevant agreements on peace and tranquility and avoid precipitate steps.

This is exactly what China has maintained and can be expected to state. No doubt, this is also what India would expect China to observe in regard of the unresolved border dispute. The Indian stance on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a fine example.

The gray area here is whether the administration of Ladakh as a union territory will entail administrative arrangements on the ground that tread on Chinese sensitivity. Prima facie, that is unlikely to happen, since the two militaries present in the vacant spaces observe ground rules.

On the other hand, the interesting aspect of the Chinese spokeswoman’s remark on the J&K situation is that there is no direct reference to the specific situation involving the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution. The remark is of a generic nature. It repeats that the J&K situation is a matter of serious concern, but underscores categorically that “China’s position on the Kashmir issue is clear and consistent.”

‘International consensus’

Most important, it flags that China is in sync with the “international consensus” that the Kashmir issue is a historical conundrum that India and Pakistan have to grapple with by exercising restraint and prudence. This means, however, that the two countries “should refrain from taking actions that will unilaterally change the status quo and escalate tensions.” China calls on the two countries to “peacefully resolve … [their] relevant disputes through dialogue and consultation” in the interest of regional “peace and stability.”

Indeed, the “known unknown” here is to what extent, if any, the current upheaval in Hong Kong influenced Beijing to sidestep the Indian government’s specific move to abolish Article 370 and abandon J&K’s “special status.” To be sure, a grave situation has arisen in Hong Kong, which has assumed anti-China overtones.

No analogy holds 100% in politics, but there are similarities in the public alienation in J&K and in Hong Kong that foreign powers are exploiting. In fact, China also has to contend with its equivalent of India’s Article 370 – the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which is as sacrosanct as an international bilateral treaty, signed between China and Britain on December 19, 1984, in Beijing.

Legally binding

Curiously, the Joint Declaration is also legally binding, and like Article 370, it commits China to allow Hong Kong to “enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except for foreign and defense affairs” even as the territory will be “directly under the authority” of Beijing.

Most important, the Joint Declaration affirms that the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is responsible for the “maintenance of public order … Military forces sent by the Central People’s Government to be stationed in … [the HKSAR] for the purpose of defense shall not interfere in the internal affairs” in the HKSAR.

The treaty is valid for 50 years, but a crisis is looming large on the horizon, and there is much speculation that patience is wearing thin in Beijing. A top Chinese official said on Wednesday: “Hong Kong is facing the most serious situation since its return to China.”

A Beijing-datelined commentary by Xinhua on Monday titled “Bottom Line on Hong Kong brooks no challenge” was furious that “black-clad, masked protesters removed the Chinese national flag from a flagpole in Tsim Sha Tsui of Hong Kong and later flung the flag into the water Saturday, an unforgivable, lawless act that has blatantly offended the national dignity, is an insult to all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots, and must be severely punished in accordance with law.”

All factors taken into account, as the saying goes, the pot cannot call the kettle black. The MEA’s response to the Chinese remarks on J&K has gently drawn attention to the reciprocity that governs inter-state relationships by underscoring that the legislation known as the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill 2019, introduced by the government in Parliament on August 5, is “an internal matter concerning the territory of India. India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise.” India has scrupulously maintained silence on Hong Kong developments.

asiatimes.com

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

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THE “BALOCH LIBERATION ARMY” IS A FOREIGN-BACKED FEUDAL TERRORIST GROUP

May 23, 2019Asif Aziz 

The so-called “Baloch Liberation Army” issued a video ultimatum to China over the weekend to discontinue its CPEC development projects in Pakistan’s Balochistan or face a renewed wave of terrorist attacks against its interests there, with this message unambiguously proving that the group is far from the “national liberation movement” that it purports to be but is really just a bunch of regional feudal terrorists that are doing the Hybrid War bidding of foreign powers.

South Asia As The Center Of The US’ “Pivot To Asia”

The US’ much-discussed “Pivot to Asia” was naively assumed by many to mostly concern East and Southeast Asia as America finagled to “contain” China there, but the reality is that South Asia seems to be taking the central focus in this new strategic paradigm. The US’ alliance with India is a geopolitical game-changer in Eastern Hemispheric affairs because it positions the South Asian state as the key component of the “Chinese Containment Coalition” that’s gradually being assembled against the People’s Republic, which in turn marries the two Great Powers’ interests and makes the US a stakeholder in India’s regional security. Accordingly, the overlap of interests that both of these allies have in stopping China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) has taken the form of the Hybrid War on CPEC against that global vision’s flagship project, ultimately manifesting itself in the upsurge of terroristattackscommitted over the past year by the so-called “Baloch Liberation Army” (BLA).

The Tip Of The Spear

While purporting to be a “national liberation movement” and being treated as such by the Mainstream Media, the BLA is really just a bunch of regional feudal terrorists that are doing the HybridWar bidding of foreign powers. It’s enough to pair their directly stated objectives with the tacit ones of the US and India to realize this, especially keeping in mind the group’s latest video ultimatum to China over the weekend to discontinue its CPEC development projects in Pakistan’s Balochistan or face a renewed wave of terrorist attacks against its interests there like the recentGwadar hotel storming that it proudly claimed credit for. There should be no doubt among objective observers that the BLA is an anti-Chinese terrorist organization tasked with being the tip of the US’ “Pivot to Asia’” spear by waging the Hybrid War on CPEC and destabilizing BRI as part of one of the most important proxy conflicts in the New Cold War, with the US and India also doing all they can to publicize the group’s goals and generate sympathy for them among the international audience.

Unreformable Feudalists

That second-mentioned point is actually much more difficult to do than it may seem because the BLA doesn’t even make a pretense of supporting anything “noble”, instead openly saying that it’ll continue carrying out terrorist attacks against civilians in order to forcibly drive out foreign investment from this historically underdeveloped province so as to safeguard the feudal structure that has survived there for centuries. Unlike the US’ usual terrorists of choice, the BLA aren’t pursuing a religiously fundamentalist vision but a separatist one, albeit a future where the traditions of the past predominate to the detriment of the locals’ socio-economic development. Baloch culture is still very tribal and controlled by chieftains who the locals are expected to remain loyal to, even though those communal leaders sometimes behave more like feudal lords by treating those below them as their personal property and depriving them of their wealth.

Chinese-Driven Socio-Economic Changes

That’s begun to change in recent years, however, as billions of dollars of Chinese investment flooded into the region and consequently saw the construction of modern-day transportation, health, educational, and social infrastructure through CPEC. China knows that Pakistan is theglobal pivot state because of its irreplaceable role at the crossroads of Eurasia’s many countries and civilizations, with its province of Balochistan being the fulcrum of this entire vision because it hosts the CPEC terminal port of Gwadar, hence why it’s investing so heavily in its potential all across the board. Be that as it may, some of the traditional feudal lords feel threatened by these changes because they know that their power over the people will naturally decline as the province becomes more developed, which is why they’re more than eager to engage in acts of terrorism against their homeland and its Chinese partner in order to preserve this failing system in which they have a key stake.

The Amero-Indian Proxy War

The US and India are well aware of this state of regional affairs and are attempting to exploit it to the utmost, taking advantage of the fact that this terrorist campaign is actually decades old but is being revived in response to CPEC and resultantly receiving a bunch of global news coverage because of it unlike before. To be clear, the Pakistani state is meeting the needs of the local population and addressing their various grievances, so those who are engaging in the BLA’s terrorism aren’t “freedom fighters” but loyal feudalists who are treasonously cooperating with foreign powers in order to suppress their own people. Even so, that angle of their campaign is conspicuously left out of the Mainstream Media’s coverage and only the anti-Chinese one is emphasized for reasons of “political convenience” since there’s a clear contradiction between the “democratic” principles that the US and India allege to support and the anti-democratic goals being advanced by the BLA.

BRI-Aid + PBU + Veterans = Democratic Security

It’s therefore important for Pakistan and China to draw international attention to the feudalist goals that foreign-backed Baloch terrorism is trying to achieve, as well as to highlight their own joint actions in bettering the lives of the local people there. The most effective “Democratic Security” (anti-Hybrid War) measure that could be implemented in the province is to promote patriotic organizations such as Dr. Jumma’s Pakistani Baloch Unity (PBU, formerly Overseas Pakistani Baloch Unity before its recent rebranding) and establish a workflow where Chinese humanitarian aid (“BRI-Aid“, the author’s name for this proposed concept modeled off of USAID) is distributed to the locals through the Baloch veterans of the Pakistan Armed Forces who could act as reliable conduits between civil society and the state. The creation of this interconnected structure linking together Chinese aid, local patriotic organizations, and reliable veteran conduits between the two would go a long way towards stabilizing the region, and this model could even be transplanted upon perfection to other BRI countries where similar Hybrid Wars are being waged such as Myanmar’sRakhineState.

Concluding Thoughts

China’s multibillion-dollar investments in Pakistan’s Balochistan are helping its people move from feudalism to the future, but some stakeholders in the old system militantly refuse to go along with this progressive process because they stand to lose power once their “subjects” are socio-economically liberated. In turn, they’ve renewed their terrorist campaign in the region with foreign assistance from the US and India in exchange for prioritizing these two Great Powers’ anti-Chinese objectives in the Hybrid War on CPEC, which explains why the so-called “Baloch Liberation Army” would so audaciously brag about its desire to kill as many Chinese and other civilians as possible yet doesn’t fear being branded as the terrorist organization that it truly is by the Mainstream Media. Far from being the “national liberation movement” that they purport to be, these fighters are nothing more than regional feudal terrorists who are doing the bidding of foreign powers, but the combination of kinetic and non-kinetic “Democratic Security” measures by the Pakistani state, its Chinese partners, and local patriotic organizations can eliminate this Hybrid War threat once and for all.

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By Andrew Korybko
Source: Eurasia Future

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Pakistan relying less and less on US, turning to China, Saudi Arabia & UAE

By Darius Shahtahmasebi
Source

Pakistan is making important strides in its military and naval capacities with the help of China, relying less on US-made weaponry. Despite accepting money from all sides, Pakistan’s relationship with China continues to be strong.

After the Trump administration decided to suspend $3 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, complaining that Islamabad fails to do enough to combat terrorism, Washington has risked pushing Pakistan into the open arms of a number of other notable nations.

China-Pakistan relationship continues to strengthen

China has been a key ally for Pakistan in recent times and is almost certainly the reason why the US has taken a sharp turn in its approach to dealing with the country. (Considering that the Bush administration was caught red-handed funding Pakistani terrorist groups, Washington’s recent disdain for Islamabad makes little sense in the context of wider US imperialism).

Now, China is assisting Pakistan’s Navy to expand rapidly, with the completion and delivery of four advanced warships currently under construction in Shanghai. According to the Diplomat, Pakistan’s Chinese-made naval vessels will arrive through a bilateral arms agreement by 2021. Worth over $348 million, these frigates have the capacity to act as anti-ship and anti-submarine operations, as well as for air defense.

Reports seem to indicate that these ships are to be stationed for defense and security in and around the Gwadar port. This is the same port that many media outlets accused China of attempting to hijack and transform into its own naval base. Perhaps the media sounding the alarm over these reports have helped convince China to try a subtler strategy of creating a naval presence around this strategic area, but either way, the move to acquire Chinese naval ships is sure to irk the United States irrespective of the end result, as some experts are predicting that this will lead to regular Sino-Pakistani patrols across the region.

That being said, this is also the same port in which Saudi Arabia is planning to establish a $10 billion oil refinery, according to the Saudi Energy Ministry, setting Saudi Arabia up as a key partner in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Pakistan turning down American arms

Unfortunately for Washington, Pakistani purchases of US-made military equipment have begun to fall. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute appears to show that US weapons exports to Pakistan dropped from $21 million in 2017, from a whopping $1 billion just seven years prior. Altogether, since the September 11 attacks, the US has provided over $22 billion in overt security aid to Pakistan and another $10 billion in economic aid, according to a July 2018 report conducted by consultant firm Avascent.

However, despite these initial findings, this same report found that Pakistan was increasingly turning to Beijing for its defense equipment and leaving Washington out in the sand. In total, Pakistan has signed billions of dollars’ worth of contracts for fighter aircraft, submarines and warships from China. The report estimated that over the next decade, Beijing will become the single most important arms supplier for the Pakistani military, but maintains options to obtain arms from Turkey and Russia as well. Turkey, for its part, will upgrade two of Pakistan’s Agosta 90B-class submarines, will provide four MILGEM corvettes to the Pakistani Navy, and already provided a navy fleet tanker in 2016.

Pakistan is also reportedly the largest importer of the F-7PG aircraft from China, with more than 50 F-7PG fighters in the Pakistan Air Force (one of these planes just recently crashed in Western Pakistan, killing the pilot).

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

In actuality, China and Pakistan are developing their relationship in more ways than at first meets the eye. It is one thing to spend millions of dollars attempting to beef up a nation’s navy, but it is something else entirely when two nations become attached on a much deeper level, particularly when it involves the citizens of those countries. Just this week, the government of Pakistan announced a new visa regimebetween Pakistan and China, tourism being an area of Pakistan’s economy that China has already been contributing heavily. Reportedly, millions of young Pakistanis are also foregoing English and learning Mandarin instead in order to obtain jobs and degrees. If we fast-forward a few decades down the line, I venture to bet that Western influence in Pakistan will be almost completely invisible.

Pakistani President Arif Alvi also just hailed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), vowing that the scheme will bring economic prosperity to the two countries. The CPEC is essentially a combination of infrastructure projects in Pakistan funded by Chinese loans which are worth at least $62 billion. As explained above, Saudi Arabia is not sitting idly by watching this project develop (not surprising, when one understands why).

READ MORE: Engine of growth: Trade turnover across China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ exceeds $5 trillion since 2013

CPEC, combined with China’s New Silk Road Project, has top US lawmakers and intelligence personnel increasingly “concerned.” One senator stated that he was “concerned about data access China may control through digital infrastructure projects in countries around the world. What is the IC’s assessment of potential dual-use aspects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and what threats do they pose to US interests?”

US allies and partners “seeking greater independence from Washington”

A report compiled by Daniel R. Coats, the director of national intelligence, entitled “Worldwide threat assessment of the US intelligence community” identifies Pakistan as a nation that contributes to the risks of escalation dynamics and security in the region. More noticeable, however, is that while Pakistan appears in the document a handful of times, China is mentioned at least 85 times right throughout the report.

“We assess that China’s leaders will try to extend the country’s global economic, political, and military reach while using China’s military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish US influence,” the report states. “China has built its first overseas military facility in Djibouti and probably is exploring bases, support facilities, or access agreements in Africa, Europe, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.”

Most curious is the foreword of the report which, after outlining all the threats Russia and China pose to the United States in all the different ways, states that “[a]t the same time, some US allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade and are becoming more open to new bilateral and multilateral partnerships.”

Let’s do the math. As already stated, the US has deprived Pakistan of $3 billion in security assistance. Not too long ago, the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) UAE deposited $3 billion into the State Bank of Pakistan to support its economic growth. Saudi Arabia made a similar promise, agreeing to provide Islamabad with a one-year deferred payment facility for importation of oil worth up to $3 billion.

At around the same time, Emirati media announced that the UAE and Pakistan were accelerating defense cooperation after the federal minister for defense production in Pakistan, Zubaida Jalal, received Major General Staff Pilot Ishaq Saleh Al-Balushi, head of the executive directorate of industries and development of defense capabilities at the UAE Ministry of Defense in Islamabad.

Pakistan is also expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia on a framework for $10 billion in Saudi investments. While some media will present Pakistan’s willingness to work with Saudi Arabia as an issue which will rattle and unnerve China, the available evidence appears to show that Sino-Pakistan relations are continuing unabated.

The question of Pakistan’s nukes

Last Thursday, the Pakistani Army Strategic Forces Command conducted a successful test flight of the Nasr close-range ballistic missile, which is nuclear-capable and can reach a specification of 70km.

The target of the ballistic test may surprise you. According to the Pakistani Army statement, the Nasr “augmented Full Spectrum Deterrence posture remaining within the precincts of policy of Credible Minimum Deterrence, against prevailing and evolving threat spectrum more effectively including enemy’s ballistic missile defense and other Air Defence Systems.”

The “enemy” referred to in this statement appears to be a blatant reference to Trump’s recent 2019 Missile Defense Review, which admitted that the US had “discussed potential missile defense cooperation with India” in light of the fact that “a number of states in South Asia are developing an advanced and diverse range of ballistic and cruise missile capabilities.”

Currently, Pakistan has ballistic missiles with ranges that can hit anywhere inside India. It has also built nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that can travel up to 400 miles. Not surprisingly, it was the US that gave the green light to Pakistan to modify its F-16 fighters to be capable of dropping nuclear weapons.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s economic woes put the nation in an incredibly compromising position. Knowing that it can no longer rely on Washington for support, it has to turn to as many partners as it can to keep its economy afloat. While China may not be thrilled by Saudi Arabia’s attempt to wade in on its project at the Gwadar port, it does appear that Pakistan’s geopolitical significance, particularly in relation to China, will entail Beijing continuing to prioritize its relationship with Pakistan. This includes, if necessary, militarizing its available bases in the region through the supply of its Chinese-made naval vessels.

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PM Khan’s Visit To Saudi Arabia Has Symbolic And CPEC Purposes

The first-ever official overseas trip of Pakistan’s new Prime Minister is to Saudi Arabia, where the South Asian leader plans to reinforce the important message of Islamic solidarity while shrewdly positioning his country to potentially get a better series of financial deals from China.

The Significance Of Saudi Arabia

Prime Minister Khan is in Saudi Arabia during his first-ever official overseas trip, and the media is speculating about the reason why he chose that country over all others to visit first. For starters, these two countries have a long legacy of historical ties with one another, and Pakistan still provides military training to the Arab Kingdom’s military. In fact, its former Chief Of Army Staff Raheel Sharif is the Command-In-Chief of the Saudis’ “Islamic Military Alliance”, a geographically far-reaching platform that’s theoretically supposed to bring together a multitude of countries under Saudi leadership but has in practice failed to fulfil this ambitious goal for a variety of reasons outside of the scope of this analysis. Even so, the point in bringing this up is to draw attention to the influence that Pakistan has within the Kingdom, which also aided by the fact that Saudi Arabia is the largest destination for Overseas Pakistanis (roughly 1,5 million) who are mostly there as guest workers.

There are also other symbolic reasons why Prime Minister Khan travelled to Saudi Arabia, and those have to do with the more obvious ones of religious solidarity when considering that the King is officially regarded as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Pakistan’s leader has become very pious at this stage of his life and wants to project the image that he, his new administration, and his country at large follow Islamic principles (ergo why Pakistan is officially an Islamic Republic), so it’s important to reinforce Islamabad’s historic friendship with Riyadh to draw attention to this within the larger international Islamic community (Ummah). Moreover, Pakistan under Prime Minister Khan perceives of itself as one of the Ummah’s current military and future economic leaders. The first-mentioned role is by virtue of its status as the only nuclear-armed Muslim country and global distinction in having the only military that ever defeated Daesh-like terrorism on its own without outside help, while the latter relates to CPEC.

The flagship project of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity is expected to make Pakistan the Zipper of Eurasia and the Convergence of Civilizations, which could in turn transform it into the center of 21^st-century geopolitics and the primary engine for realizing the Golden Ring of multipolar Great Powers. So promising are these prospects that Saudi Arabia recently decided to participate in this initiative by making its terminal port of Gwadar an “oil city”, which accordingly makes the Kingdom a stakeholder in the South Asian state’s overall success as well.  This is very important in the current context because Pakistan is facing a looming financial crisis with its balance of payments and is in need of international support to avert a possible crisis. Saudi Arabia’s CPEC-related investments in Gwadar and elsewhere, as well as any loan that the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank could provide, would be especially helpful at this moment in time.

CPEC Won’t Be Reconsidered, But It Could Be Reviewed

With this backdrop in mind, it’s actually quite prudent for Prime Minister Khan to visit Saudi Arabia before any other country because he could ideally obtain financial support or promises thereof which could consequently make his presumable future negotiations with Pakistan’s Chinese strategic partners all the easier. To explain, China will predictably also chip in to help its ally because it has obvious interests in retaining financial stability in its irreplaceable Silk Road partner, but Pakistan would understandably want to ensure that it gets the best deal possible, which is why shoring up support from other sources beforehand is crucial before going to Beijing to negotiate the terms of any forthcoming assistance. Relatedly, Prime Minister Khan’s government might also seek to renegotiate the terms (e.g. repayment period, interest rates) of existing Silk Road deals if a possible review uncovers that his predecessor’s administration agreed to unfavorable ones for corrupt reasons.

To be clear, nothing of the sort has been discovered thus far and Abdul Razzak Dawood, Prime Minister Khan’s advisor on commerce, clarified earlier remarks that were attributed to him by the Financial Times which reported that he wanted to halt the implementation of CPEC projects for one year prior to reviewing and possibly renegotiating them. He said that his statements were taken out of context but didn’t exactly refute the essence of what he supposedly conveyed, which is that a review and renegotiation process could possibly commence but that it wouldn’t involve halting the implementation of CPEC projects or outright scrapping them like the newly (re-)elected government of Malaysia’s Mahathir has already done. What this means in practice is that Pakistan could try to get better terms for the deals that it already signed in order to advance it and China’s collective interests.

China’s Self-Interests In Restructuring The Silk Road

To explain, China isn’t the “greedy neo-colonial land-grabber” that it’s maliciously framed to be through weaponized infowar narratives but instead wants to build a sustainable economic ecosystem along the New Silk Roads in order to function as reliable markets for its overproduced goods, which in turn can allow the People’s Republic to indefinitely continue growing without having to risk the political consequences that might come from an economic slowdown. That’s why China is working to improve the capacity of its partners through infrastructure and commercial investments, free trade deals, and general loans in order to improve their development prospects and correspondingly make them the sort of partner that the country needs. The cumulative effect of these dynamics is supposed to be mutually beneficial for both parties, but in the unexpected event that the Silk Road host and loan recipient has difficulty repaying the assistance that it’s received, then China has every interest in modifying the terms.

China understands that many of its Silk Road projects have very long-term “return on investments” (ROI) that make them the easy target of domestic demagogues (notwithstanding any possible corruption that the host government, whether current or previous, might have been engaged in when agreeing to their terms), so it’s wisest for Beijing to agree to extend their (already sometimes lengthy) loan repayment periods upon request in order to make them easier to service and assist the authorities with deflecting unwarranted criticism. This is especially the case with physical connectivity projects whose benefit consists in qualitatively enhancing the effects of the economy but can’t be immediately seen solely in the context of any single initiative. China already expects that it will take a while for it to recoup the original principal of its loans, so pushing it further back a comfortable period of time like what it’s in the process of doingin Ethiopia isn’t going to radically upset its grand strategy.

In addition, and referring back to the invisible qualitative enhancements that many Silk Road projects have, China invested in many of them not to “make a quick buck” but to lay the basis for an entirely new international economic order that would eventually lead to political changes in the global system by facilitating the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity, so while the profit that could be reaped from interest payments is obviously significant, it’s not a be-all and end-all in itself to stand in the way of China’s grand strategy. If a country has difficulty repaying its loans, it’s better for China to consider providing debt relief in the form of lowering interest rates in order to ensure that its partner retains its macroeconomic stability and pays back at least the principal of what was lent. It could also consider decreasing it beyond that level in exceptional cases in order to retroactively make part of the original loan a grant if circumstances necessitate doing so.

Concluding Thoughts

To return back to Prime Minister Khan choosing Saudi Arabia as his first-ever official overseas trip, the grand Silk Road significance is that it could potentially provide Pakistan with leverage to negotiate more advantageous terms for a forthcoming Chinese loan that would aim to avert its impending balance of payments crisis. Furthermore, the successful clinching of such an agreement through these means could lead to Pakistan possibly renegotiating the terms of existing CPEC deals – but importantly, not halting their implementation or pulling out of them – in order to reach a better win-win arrangement with China in light of the country’s newfound financial circumstances that could make servicing its debts much more difficult than before. China has self-interested reasons pertaining to Pakistan’s irreplaceable geostrategic connectivity role in the New Silk Road that compel it to be flexible in the face of positively responding to Islamabad’s reasonable requests to reconsider some of the terms of its CPEC deals in order to ensure that their repayment isn’t painful.

China didn’t initiate OBOR in order to “conquer territory” and turn its partners into “neo-colonial vassals”, but to simply ensure its own viability as a rising Great Power given the particularity of its export-dependent macroeconomic structure that necessitates securing reliable access to international markets, hence its interest in loaning billions upon billions of dollars in building them up in the first place. Bearing this in mind, the country has every interest in making sure that this end is reached, even if the original means in attempting to do so end up being modified in response to the changed financial conditions in certain Silk Road host countries, which could foreseeably see some of Pakistan’s and other states’ loans restructured as a result. So long as the reasons for doing so are verifiable, as they are in Pakistan’s case (even without any speculative review uncovering evidence of the previous government’s possibly corrupt motives when clinching earlier deals), then there are no rational grounds for China to reject this request.

By Adam Garrie
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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!