Pakistan’s foreign policy has perennially sought that elusive alliance that would solve its key problems: building its economic and military potential and supporting it in its intractable conflict with India. Pakistan’s relationship with the United States has been premised on the former’s hope that American aid—both military and economic—will bolster Pakistan’s ability to counter Indian economic and military might. However, Pakistan has never been certain of American support and consequently has sought other countries with which Pakistan’s leaders feel an affinity—be it ideological or strategic—to diversify its avenues of support. China has been a source of military assistance, while Saudi Arabia is an ideological and economic collaborator. Between them, the two countries are seen as Pakistan’s friends of last resort.
When the Americans complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, Pakistan may hold less importance for the United States (see Staniland in this volume). To compensate for this lack of American interest, Pakistan’s leadership may attempt to make Pakistan pertinent to other countries that may afford Pakistan with the economic and military support that the Americans had provided since 2001. In the event of an American retrenchment, Pakistan is likely to turn ever more to Saudi Arabia and China, even if this means providing military guarantees to Saudi Arabia and acting as China’s surrogate against India.
With this post-2014 future in mind, in this chapter I briefly recount the history of Pakistan’s ties with Saudi Arabia and China from the 1950s to the present. Next, I examine how Pakistan’s relationships with both are likely to evolve in the policy-relevant future.
Pakistan gained its independence in 1947, with a weak military and few military supplies and severely limited economic resources. To contend with its myriad weaknesses, Pakistan sought extensive help from the United States. The United States saw Pakistan’s overtures in the context of America’s expanding role in post–World War II Asia. By the mid-1950s, the United States warmed to Pakistan’s entreaties, especially since India under Premier Jawaharlal Nehru was a nonaligned nation. The two countries signed a mutual defense assistance agreement in 1954 and a bilateral executive agreement in 1959. Pakistan also entered into the U.S.-led military alliances known as Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), in 1954 and the U.K.-led alliance known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), in 1955. By 1959 the United States was providing $227.7 million per year in economic aid and $61.1 million per year in military aid to Pakistan. Yet while Pakistan viewed the relationship with the United States as a way to counter India, the United States was not interested in being involved in any India-Pakistan conflict.1
In the subsequent decades, Pakistan repeatedly sought and obtained American economic and military aid but Pakistan was never been fully satisfied. For the vast majority of their bilateral history, Pakistan and the United States have differed on the nature of the threat that motivated their partnership: for Pakistan it was always India, for the United States it was initially Communism and later global terrorism. Despite American generosity, Pakistanis have long opined that the United States is an “ungrateful and fair weather” ally. To augment the support it received from the United States, Pakistan’s leaders have consistently turned to two countries that have in contrast been portrayed as Pakistan’s dependable allies: Saudi Arabia and China.
Over the decades Saudi Arabia has been presented to the Pakistani public as the ideal ideological ally of Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country that would stand by Pakistan in any conflict with India. Having constructed an Islamic identity, both domestically and in foreign affairs, Pakistan’s leaders believed close ties with Saudi Arabia—the guardian of the Muslim holy lands—would burnish Pakistan’s pan-Islamic credentials.
Pakistani officials and even media accounts portray China as the ideal strategic ally: a country that is strong enough to provide Pakistan economic and military support whenever the Americans stopped or reduced aid but also one that has an antagonistic relationship with India. In Pakistan’s eyes this hostility would ensure Chinese support in the event of Pakistan’s conflict with India.2 As an isolated and embargoed regime, the Chinese communist government saw immense benefits in trade and diplomatic contacts with countries—like Pakistan—willing to pursue these ties. Pakistan was China’s bridge to the Muslim world in more ways than one. China has a large Muslim minority in its western region and having a friendly Muslim neighbor next door was seen as strategically and diplomatically useful. Friendship with Pakistan helped China build trade and diplomatic ties with the Muslim Middle East and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was the via media for China’s ties with Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries, with economic (energy) and defense (military and nuclear) components. In recent years, however, China’s window to the Muslim world has become the epicenter of radical Islam and has proven unwilling—and unable—to prevent the spread of radical Islamism into the Xinjiang region of China.
Events of the 1960s and 1970s deeply influenced Pakistan’s perceptions of its allies. The American reaction to the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the 1965 India-Pakistan war was seen by Pakistan as a betrayal by a close ally. President Ayub Khan’s aide-mémoire requested American assistance on the grounds that “Pakistan ha[d] become a victim of naked aggression by armed attack on the part of India” (Kux 2001: 161). In contrast Pakistan believed that the actions of Saudi Arabia and China demonstrated a true commitment to Pakistan. Both countries offered Pakistan aid and loans: China and Pakistan signed an air agreement in 1963 and China offered Pakistan a loan of $60 million.
The American decision to stop military supplies to both India and Pakistan during the 1965 war played a key role in the building of a Sino-Pakistan defense relationship. Right from the start, Chinese investment in the military arena focused on ensuring a captive market for selling its equipment, gaining access to Western technology and equipment from Pakistan, and in later years sharing nuclear and missile technology with Pakistan.3
China also developed a durable pattern for its investment in Pakistan: it focused on trade and commercial links, investment in infrastructure, and access to other markets. The investment was not designed to build Pakistan’s economy for its own sake but to benefit Chinese companies, and expand access to markets (Central Asia) and energy resources (Middle East).4 At periodic intervals China has also provided a limited amount of funding either during natural disasters or to help tide Pakistan over its immediate economic problems.5
However, Pakistan has generally ignored the nuances of Chinese economic investment and preferred instead to focus on the belief that the Chinese, unlike the Americans, are a trustworthy and dependable ally who has always supported Pakistan’s economic development. Over the years, while Chinese aid has been much less than that provided by countries like the United States, it has always received more media coverage and government praise. Even during the 1971 war that led to the loss of East Pakistan, Pakistan ignored the Nixon administration’s “tilt” toward Pakistan and ascribed China’s inaction to Sino-Soviet tensions. Pakistani policy makers are hesitant to contemplate the possibility that China did not perceive it to be in its interests to enter the India-Pakistan conflict. While neither Saudi Arabia nor China was able to prevent Pakistan’s breakup in 1971, the almost mythical faith in their friendship remains intact and will play a key role in framing Pakistan’s policies in the future (Pande 2011).
Pakistan’s founders championed pan-Islamism, believing that the unification of Indian Muslims under one entity would help the cause of Muslims around the world. However, in an era of decolonization and nationalism, pan-Islamism was not a popular concept, especially in the Arab world. Pakistan’s attempts at trying to build pan-Islamic institutions (and to assume a leadership role in the Muslim world) were resented by other, older Muslim states. It was only in the 1970s that the alliance with Saudi Arabia conferred tangible benefits to Pakistan, especially in the economic and military arenas. Saudi Arabia’s assistance to Pakistan has never quite matched the Pakistani expectations despite the effusive rhetoric that Pakistan has long conferred to the kingdom.
Like China, Saudi Arabia has periodically provided Pakistan with loans and short-term emergency aid.6 On some occasions, the Saudis have been more generous than the United States and Western countries in offering disaster assistance to Pakistan. In the aftermath of a massive earthquake in Pakistan in January 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia offered $10 million for disaster relief. Although the United States and its allies offered aid earlier than the Saudis, their contributions (United States, $ 25,000; Canadian Red Cross, $10,000; Britain, $23,000; and Australia, $32,000) paled in comparison to Saudi generosity (Reuters 1975). More recently, in 2005, when Pakistan was hit by an earthquake, and again in 2010, when massive floods engulfed central Pakistan, the United States was again the first to come in with aid but the Saudis gave far more. Pakistan’s leaders have always shied away from praising American support in the form of multilateral inputs, choosing instead to highlight only the bilateral assistance of the so-called dependable allies: Saudi Arabia and China.
Pakistan imports most of its oil from the Gulf and in periods when Pakistan has not been able to pay for this oil the Saudi Arabian government has given them oil at concessional rates or even waived the payment for a few years. For three years after the 1998 nuclear tests Pakistan did not have to pay for the oil that it was provided by Saudi Arabia (Kamal 2008). Pakistan’s economic dependence on the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, continued through the 1980s and into the twenty-first century. By 1983, there were 500,000 Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia, and remittances from Pakistanis working in the Gulf amounted to around $3 billion (Addleton 1984). Pakistan also received funding for general purposes, as well as specific projects and relief grants, from Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) special fund (Burke and Ziring 1990: 422–423).
The 1970s also saw the start of a worrying trend in Saudi-Pakistani relations: Saudi Arabia’s growing role in Pakistan’s domestic politics. Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf state the United Arab Emirates have often supported one or another political party in Pakistan, provided economic aid, or deferred loan payments or oil payments when their preferred party was in power and offered asylum to political leaders. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after being toppled in a military coup in 1999, and the Saudis have made it known that they would offer former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf similar sanctuary now that Sharif, at the time of writing, is back in power and Musharraf is on trial.
Saudi Arabia’s role in Pakistan’s domestic politics started during the political agitation soon after the 1977 elections during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s rule (Simmons 1977). From the state’s inception, Pakistani leaders, policy makers, and even the media have lamented the strong American influence on their domestic politics and sought to label those who are pro-American as “traitors” or “agents”; however, Pakistan has yet to see similar labels applied to those who are close to Saudi Arabia or China. Instead an unspoken rule dictates that Pakistani politicians and journalists avoid criticism of these two ideological and strategic allies of Pakistan.
Although neither country talks about it publicly, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia maintain close military ties. Being short of cash, Pakistan has often looked to Saudi Arabia to finance its purchases of weaponry on the international market. Since the 1970s, Pakistan has sporadically offered military manpower to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies in return for financing Pakistani purchases of military equipment. The most recent instance is the induction of Pakistani volunteers into the military and police in Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia has sought to prop up the Sunni regime against Shia protesters since 2011. Such deployments confer to Pakistan the mantle of protector of the Muslim holy lands.7 Such accolades accord with Pakistan’s self-styled role as the Muslim world’s protector.
The Saudi-Pakistan defense cooperation originated with a 1976 bilateral agreement that provided for an exchange of defense technical knowledge. By the mid-1980s, approximately 50,000 Pakistani military personnel were serving abroad, with the largest commitment (about 20,000 persons) to Saudi Arabia. Pakistani pilots routinely participated in air defense operations in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Arab countries prefer foreign fighters from non-Arab countries as it ensures that the foreigners will not be involved in domestic politics. During the Iran-Iraq conflict, in return for $1 billion in aid, Pakistan stationed around 10,000 Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia.
In return Saudi Arabia assisted by helping Pakistan purchase sophisticated weaponry from the West. To help bolster Pakistan’s military, Saudi Arabia provided concessional loans to Pakistan. In many cases Saudi Arabia agreed to be the guarantor whenever Pakistan purchased military hardware from the United States. It helped that both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were American allies.8 This practice continued over the decades and in early 2014 there was a discussion between the two governments about Pakistan providing trained military personnel to man Saudi Arabia’s security forces and also talks about creating a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) military force to counter Iran (World Tribune 2014).
Pakistan’s military defeat in 1971 and the realization that India was stronger in conventional military technology led Pakistan to turn to nuclear deterrence. Pakistan has pursued a nuclear weapons program since 1972, conducted nuclear tests in 1998, and is believed to be developing tactical battlefield nuclear weapons. The nuclear arena is another field where Pakistan perceived the United States as unsympathetic to Pakistan’s concerns. Nuclear weapons are seen as the only way to maintain Pakistan’s military parity with India, which has permanent conventional military superiority, and refusing to support Pakistan’s right to nuclear armaments is seen in Pakistan as effective partiality to India. Saudi Arabia and China are seen as sympathetic and supportive of Pakistan’s nuclear quest. (For further discussion of Pakistan’s nuclear program, see Clary in this volume.)
There are persistent reports of an understanding between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia whereby Islamabad would provide nuclear weapons or a nuclear umbrella to Riyadh if the Saudis feel threatened by a third party with nuclear weapons such as Iran or Israel. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, however, deny any secret deal, most recently in November 2013 when the BBC spoke of it in a documentary (Urban 2013). The rumors can be traced to a much-publicized visit by then Saudi defense minister, and later crown prince, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, to Pakistan’s top-secret nuclear laboratories run by Dr. A. Q. Khan in May 1999.9 Given Pakistan’s lack of funds and the opacity of the financing arrangements for its nuclear program, it is widely believed that Saudi Arabia provided some of the funding that enabled Pakistan to become the world’s first Muslim country to build and test nuclear weapons.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia remain active partners in pan-Islamist organizations sponsored by the Saudis since the 1970s. Pakistan plays a key role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Rabita al-Alam al-Islami (World Muslim League), and Motamar al-Alam al-Islami (World Muslim Congress) and has provided personnel for Saudi Arabia’s pan-Islamist projects. These ties have helped Pakistan champion the causes of Kashmir and Palestine as well as obtain Arab aid.
Pakistan has also welcomed donations from wealthy individuals and charities from Saudi Arabia to found and support Wahabbi madrassas and universities in Pakistan. Such institutions have proliferated since the mid-1970s and became major recruiting centers for jihadis in the 1980s. Muslim students from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia come to study in Pakistan and many have ended up as foot soldiers in jihadist organizations across the globe.10
If Saudi Arabia is the financier of last resort for Pakistan’s military, China is the major source of military equipment. The Pakistani military prefers more sophisticated American weapons, preferably provided on concessional terms. But the American habit of rationing spare parts in case Pakistan enters wars that the United States does not like, as well as the imposition of periodic American sanctions, have caused Pakistan to seek a more reliable source of armaments. Since the 1960s, China has been that source. By 1982 Chinese weapons systems formed the backbone of the Pakistani military arsenal, composing 75 percent of the tank force and 65 percent of the air force (Vertzberger 1983). Between 2008 and 2012, Pakistan was the main purchaser of Chinese weapons, buying 55 percent of Chinese weapons exports (Lipin 2013).
China’s economic support for Pakistan has been consistent and focuses on high-profile infrastructure projects and small intermittent loans. This differs greatly from the pattern of American assistance, which is far greater ($40 billion between 1949 and 2013) but has been inconsistent and divided across a large number of economic and social projects, making it less visible. Between 1956 and 1979 Pakistan received $620 million in economic aid from China, about one-third of China’s total aid to Asia and the Middle East. In June 1978, China and Pakistan opened the all-weather Karakoram Highway, the highest paved road in the world at an elevation of 15,000 feet. Attitudes toward the highway demonstrate how each side viewed the relationship: for Pakistan, the road demonstrated China’s commitment and friendship. For China, the highway was a land route through which it could gain access to Central Asia as well as to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Pakistan viewed itself as being indispensable for China; China viewed Pakistan as a part (but only a part) of securing its energy sources and markets (Krondstadt and Epstein 2013; Vertzberger 1983).
Sino-Pakistani cooperation in the nuclear field can be traced back to the 1980s. As early as 1983, American intelligence agencies reported that the Chinese transferred a complete nuclear weapon design to Pakistan, along with enough weapons-grade uranium for two potential nuclear weapons. In 1986, China and Pakistan concluded a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. Later that year, Chinese scientists began “assisting” their Pakistani counterparts with the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium. Analysts believe that, since 1986, “China has supplied Pakistan with a wide variety of nuclear products and services, ranging from uranium enrichment technology to reactors.” There are also reports that China “involved” Pakistani scientists in a nuclear test at its Lop Nur (Xinjiang) test site in 1989.11
For Pakistan, the key indicator of true friendship is a country’s view of India and of the Kashmir conflict. China used anti-India rhetoric during Pakistan’s wars with India in 1965 and 1971. But now it is less willing to encourage Pakistan’s anti-India stance. An indication of the change in China’s foreign policy was the speech delivered to the Pakistani National Assembly in December 1996 by President Jiang Zemin of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese president started by reiterating the closeness of Sino-Pakistani relations and referred to Chinese and Pakistanis “as friends in need and brothers bound by common fate.” Subsequently, Jiang asserted that while it was natural for neighbors to have “differences or disputes,” keeping the “larger picture” in mind, “if certain issues cannot be resolved for the time being, they may be shelved temporarily so that they will not affect the normal state-to-state relations” (Jiang 1996). Jiang wanted to convey the message that, just as China had developed economic and cultural ties with India and “temporarily shelved” Sino-Indian border issues because such disagreements could not “be resolved for the time being,” it was time for Pakistan to do the same. Pakistan, however, chose not to receive the message.
Three years later, during the 1999 Kargil conflict, China once again demonstrated that it had no intention of entering into an India-Pakistan conflict. Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif had flown to the United States to seek American support but President Bill Clinton had asked him to “respect the sanctity of the Line of Control” and withdraw his troops. Hoping for Chinese support, Sharif flew to Beijing, where he received a similar message. These messages delivered by the Chinese, however, have not had the intended impact: Pakistan’s leaders still have faith that China will stand by them in any conflict with India.
One of the reasons that Pakistan’s view of China as an “all-weather friend” persists is that despite these political shifts, economic ties between China and Pakistan grew steadily during the 1990s and 2000s. In 2006 the two countries signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and by 2009 their bilateral trade stood at $6.8 billion.12 As part of Chinese investment in Pakistani infrastructure projects, in 2002 China promised to help in the construction of the Gwadar seaport. For Pakistan, Gwadar was important for both strategic and economic reasons: the port’s development would make Pakistan the gateway to shipping routes for both western China and the Central Asian republics. Pakistan also sought “strategic depth” in Gwadar: Karachi, Pakistan’s other main port and naval headquarters, was located too close to the Indian coast.
Gwadar has both strategic and economic benefits for China as well. Gwadar is closer to western China than the ports on China’s eastern coast and is located nearer the Persian Gulf, through which most of China’s oil tankers travel. From the strategic point of view, the Chinese navy’s desire for “blue-water navy” status demands a presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
Pakistan has always sought to leverage its geopolitical location to demonstrate its indispensability (as when it offered bases and assistance to the United States). Pakistan hopes that China will view the Gwadar port as a critical strategic and economic resource. Since China imports most of its oil from the Middle East, overland access to the Persian Gulf would help China avoid concerns over the length of its sea lines of communication (SLOCs) and the fact that the United States still acts as the protector of global shipping. Furthermore, if China decides to station part of its navy at Gwadar, it would send a signal to India. China is not yet sold on using Gwadar, but Pakistan hopes it will do so sooner rather than later.
Chinese support of and aid to Pakistan’s nuclear program has also continued unabated. The Chinese government insists that its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan is purely for peaceful purposes. But in December 1992, China transferred to Pakistan technology related to the M-11 missile. Analysts believe this was Beijing’s response to the U.S. government’s decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan. In August 1993, when the Clinton administration threatened sanctions, China insisted that it had not breached arms-control guidelines.13
In 1995, American intelligence agencies claimed that “5,000 specially designed ring magnets” from the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) had been “exported” to an “unsafeguarded Pakistani nuclear laboratory,” which was “allegedly” involved in nuclear weapons activity. In April 1996 the Clinton administration threatened but then decided against imposing sanctions on China in return for a Chinese pledge “not to provide nuclear assistance to unsafeguarded facilities” (Smith and Devroy 1996; Lippman and Blustein 1996). However, as per the 1997 report of the U.S. director of central intelligence, China “was the primary source of nuclear-related equipment and technology to Pakistan” during the second half of 1996 (DCI 1997).
Despite being a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), China provided weapons technology to Pakistan, a nonsignatory. On May 1, 2001, an American satellite captured an image of a Chinese shipment of parts for Pakistan’s Shaheen-1 and Shaheen-2 missiles—both of which can travel up to 1,240 miles and carry nuclear warheads—crossing the Sino-Pakistani border (Wall Street Journal 2001).
Evidence of Sino-Pakistani nuclear cooperation during the 1980s and 1990s surfaced in 2004 when the Libyans turned over bomb designs and other papers to the Americans. The packet of documents obtained included material in Chinese with “step-by-step instructions for assembling an implosion-type nuclear bomb that could fit atop a large ballistic missile” (Warrick and Slevin 2004). When the Bush administration offered India a civil nuclear deal in March 2006, Pakistan requested the same from the United States. The Bush administration, however, stated that the United States had started to “de-hyphenate” India and Pakistan policies and each country would be treated differently. Pakistan then turned to China to ask for a similar deal.
Many American analysts believe that during a trip to China in October 2008 then Pakistani president Zardari participated in private discussions on a “step-by-step” approach to fulfilling Pakistan’s aspiration for an expanded nuclear energy program. Instead of a deal along the lines of the India-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement, China agreed to “consider further nuclear power reactors” to fulfill Pakistan’s needs. In May 2010, one of China’s state nuclear agencies agreed to build two new reactors in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s post-2008 transition to democracy and its recent economic crisis have complicated Pakistan’s ties with its various allies, especially the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia. Facing a balance of payments crisis in April 2008, and not wanting to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance, the country’s leaders initially turned to China and Saudi Arabia for loans (Reuters 2008). While China offered an immediate loan of $500 million, the message sent by both Beijing and Riyadh was that if Pakistan wanted further help from either country it needed to go to the IMF and follow its stringent conditions.
In November 2008, when Pakistan approached the IMF for an initial loan of $7.6 billion to avoid massive crises, its request was initially turned down. The IMF cited a history of broken promises by a series of Pakistani governments. According to Pakistan’s former representative to the IMF, Dr. Ehtisham Ahmad, the IMF changed its decision and provided an $11.3 billion package only after an intervention from the White House (Rana 2011). Neither Saudi Arabia nor China played a role in this decision, but the people of Pakistan were never told of America’s support in securing IMF funding. The Pakistani government maintained the illusion that China and Saudi Arabia were Pakistan’s true friends.
Saudi Arabia was also a reluctant participant and contributor to the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) grouping. Saudi Arabia did not attend the first meeting of FoDP in September 2008 (Rosenberg and Hussain 2008). While the Saudis attended the next FoDP summit, in April 2009, they remained ambivalent about the amount of aid they would provide Pakistan. In contrast, the United States and its allies provided the bulk of the $4–5 billion pledged, with the United States and Japan pledging $1 billion each and the European Union, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates another $500 million each (Solomon 2009).
Once again the largest amount of aid provided to Pakistan came from the United States, its allies, or international institutions over which the United States had influence. Saudi Arabia and China provided only a small amount of aid. Some analysts have argued that the Saudi reluctance to contribute was due to the fact that Saudi Arabia has a better relationship with the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N) than it does with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which was in power during the conference. But there could be another reason, something the Pakistanis are loath to consider: Saudi and Chinese reluctance to contribute could be the result of both countries over a period of time becoming tired of repeatedly assisting Pakistan when they see little signs of Pakistan changing its policies.
While China has continued its policy of investing in infrastructure, seeking markets for Chinese goods, and providing periodic, limited economic assistance, there has actually been a decline in private foreign investment from China to Pakistan. This stood at $0.3 million in 2001, rose to $14 million in 2004, but decreased drastically to $0.4 million in 2005 (State Bank of Pakistan 2014). This decline in Chinese investment resulted from the insecurity throughout Pakistan (e.g., the 2007 takeover of the Red Mosque, the kidnappings and killings of Chinese engineers and businessmen, and unrest in Baluchistan). Currently there are some 14,000 Chinese engineers, technicians, and workers in Pakistan, employed by some sixty Chinese-government-run companies engaged mainly in infrastructure, energy, and dam construction (Rashid Ahmed Khan 2013; Associated Press of Pakistan 2009). Future infrastructure projects include a railroad linking the Karakoram Highway to Gwadar, a fiber-optic line and an oil and gas pipeline (Daily Times 2008). In June 2009 Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with EXIM Bank of China for $700 million to generate electricity through twelve small and medium-sized dams and water reservoirs (Dawn 2009).
China has also maintained its policy of preserving Pakistan as a captive market for defense matériel. As part of a $700 million military aid package signed in 2005, China delivered four naval frigates to the Pakistani navy. China also equipped the frigates with six helicopters (Daily Times 2007; Agence France-Presse 2009). The two countries are also jointly producing the JF-17 Thunder fighter jet. According to analysts, the “very low price” of the JF-17, one-third of the price of a “comparable aircraft” produced by the Europeans or Americans, also makes it “a very lucrative commercial venture” (Bokhari 2008). Sino-Pakistani defense cooperation is Pakistan’s answer to the perceived Russian-Indian military-strategic nexus and growing India-U.S.-Israel ties.
The disaster caused by massive flooding in 2010 saw a repeat of earlier years: The U.S. government was the first to offer aid, providing $150 million, while its ally the European Union donated $135 million more. Saudi Arabia pledged $105 million, but only $5 million of this was in cash, the rest being in-kind contributions. China pledged $247 million worth of aid, of which only $10 million was in cash (Shah et al. 2010). As before, the Pakistani media praised the Chinese and Saudi contributions but glossed over the aid from the United States.
Over the past decade the China-Pakistan relationship has come under some strain due to the rise in jihadi militancy in Pakistan. When China signed the 1963 border agreement with Pakistan, its strategists had hoped that agreement would keep the Sino-Pakistani border secure. Furthermore, Chinese policy makers hoped that friendly relations with Pakistan would prevent their neighbor from providing aid and assistance to insurgents among its Muslim population. (The violent Uighur insurgency has been a domestic security problem for China ever since the 1990s.)
These hopes were partially fulfilled: Pakistan has cooperated with China on the Uighur issue. Despite its self-anointed status as a champion of the rights of Muslim minorities, Pakistan has never taken up the issue of the rights of the Uighurs in China. Pakistan has consistently dissuaded fellow Muslim countries from tabling a resolution on the Uighur issue at the periodic OIC summits of Muslim-majority countries (Malik 2009). In contrast, Pakistan has consistently used these meetings to bring up Kashmir and the status of Indian Muslims.
But despite Pakistani assurances, Chinese civilian and military policy makers remain worried about the large number of Uighurs fighting in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they receive succor from local and global jihadi groups. They are troubled by the Pakistani government’s increasing inability or unwillingness to dismantle and destroy militant groups, which are seen as “assets” vis-à-vis India and Afghanistan. China has always preferred to convey its concerns to Pakistan privately, but in the face of the growing insurgency in Xinjiang and Pakistan’s fecklessness, China has slowly started changing its earlier policy (Swami 2008). On June 24, 2013, ten foreign tourists, three of Chinese origin, were killed in an attack by the Pakistan-based jihadi group Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), reinforcing the Chinese concerns about security problems in Pakistan (Agence France-Presse 2013).
Pakistan’s prized alliances with China and Saudi Arabia are also complicated by both countries’ improved relations with India. Beginning in the 1990s China improved its ties with India on many levels, as seen in its decision to settle the Sino-Indian border dispute. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s ties with India have deepened on the economic and even the defense/counterterrorism fronts. (In 2012, for instance, Saudi Arabia extradited a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative to India instead of sending him to Pakistan (Press Trust of India 2012).) In January 2006, King Abdullah became the first Saudi monarch to visit India. King Abdullah asserted that the Saudi-India relationship was “historic” and referred to India as “my second homeland” (BBC 2006). By 2013 Saudi oil exports to India stood at 27 million metric tons of crude oil annually, or 700,000 barrels per day, making India one of the top buyers of Saudi crude (Mehdudia 2014). It would be unrealistic for Pakistan to expect that the Saudis would be able to ignore growing economic interests in India in favor of an ideological affinity for Pakistan.
Pakistan’s key objectives are regional and include: parity with India, a pro-Pakistan (read “anti-India”) Afghanistan, a China that views Pakistan as a deterrent against India, and countries like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states that need Pakistan on their side in the Middle East. In other words, Pakistan wants to bring Afghanistan into its sphere of influence, to shrink (or at least maintain) the existing strategic imbalance between itself and India, and to enlist China as a sturdy anti-India ally. Pakistan’s vision of the future, however, is not shared by any other actor, in the region or beyond. For decades Pakistan sought to be America’s anchor in the Middle East, in the hopes that making itself indispensable to the United States would help Pakistan achieve its goals. Pakistan failed to achieve this goal, however, and with the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 it is becoming even more unlikely.
As I’ve argued in this chapter, Pakistan’s leaders’ distrust of the United States motivates their pursuit of more enduring alliances with China and Saudi Arabia. Yet these preferred partners have themselves proved unwilling to meet Pakistan’s expectations. Pakistan’s needs, given its fragile economic base and the persistent political instability that keeps potential investors wary, may be too great for the Chinese or Saudis to continue to meet. China and increasingly Saudi Arabia seem unwilling to match Pakistan’s hostility toward India. And as Pakistan struggles to control its militant proxies and to combat the antistate militant groups that have sprung up on its own soil, it becomes less useful to China, either as a security partner or as a conduit for trade.
Both allies have their own objectives in the region, goals that may not be in line with Pakistani interests. Pakistan, for instance, has been on the front lines of the decades-long proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has contributed to intense sectarian violence within Pakistan. Saudi Arabia also makes frequent attempts to manipulate Pakistani politics by supporting one or the other political parties or groups in Pakistan. And while the Saudi government turns a blind eye to funding flowing from the Gulf into militant groups in Pakistan and Syria, Saudi Arabia has its own problems with domestic radical Islam and has learned the lessons of its support for the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Looking at the future, Pakistan is in many ways Saudi Arabia’s ace in the hole; it provides Saudi Arabia strategic depth in the sense of trained manpower (economic but primarily military), defense capability (conventional but also nuclear), and territory to continue its proxy war with Iran.
In this context, Saudi Arabia will continue to provide limited economic aid primarily during natural disasters and may at intervals also allow disbursed oil payments if the Pakistani economy is in dire straits. However, Saudi Arabia doesn’t have weight in international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank, or Asian Development Bank, where the United States aided Pakistan. With the withdrawal of American interest in the region, these institutions may not look as kindly at Pakistan, unless its other ally, China decides to play a role, which it has not yet done.
Pakistan’s defense ties with Saudi Arabia are likely to deepen in the future. In January 2014 both Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and deputy defense minister Prince Salman bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz visited Pakistan within a few days of each other to discuss the two countries’ strategic ties. At the heart of the discussions was Pakistan’s provision of a trained military force in Saudi Arabia and also the setting up of a Riyadh-based Gulf Cooperation Council military force (Al-Rasheed 2014; Syed 2014). A force composed of Pakistanis is attractive to Saudi Arabia for two reasons: there would be no fear that the force would become politicized, and the Saudi regime would be able to post the (Muslim) troops at sensitive religious sites. Growing Sino-Saudi ties may draw the three states even closer: Saudi Arabia may also look to China as a potential superpower ally with vast economic resources and no interest in interfering in other states’ domestic issues (read “human rights”).
China’s policies in the immediate future look like they too will continue along already established lines. China will continue investment in infrastructure and provide relief during natural disasters. However, its aid and investment will be more careful than before. Signs of this future trajectory include the lessened Chinese investment in Pakistan, more limited investment in government-run firms, China’s decision to back out of projects like the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, and its reluctance to use the Gwadar port.
Yet Pakistan will remain part of China’s efforts to manage India’s ascent, and thus China will continue its military and nuclear assistance. Chinese concerns about radical Islam within China—Xinjiang—and also in the central Asian countries bordering China and in Afghanistan will become an increasingly problematic issue in its ties with Pakistan. China may seek the help of Saudi Arabia in its efforts to put pressure on Pakistan and groups within Pakistan but also to try to reduce the funding and support for Uighurs in the greater Muslim world. How far China will be successful on this front is yet to be seen.
Pakistan’s leaders and general public have embraced Saudi Arabia and China as ideal and dependable allies. Lacking friendly countries in its immediate neighborhood, and unsure of its distant allies, Pakistan’s policy makers have sought to cultivate China as a neighbor and ally. China has given economic and military aid and much needed support in the nuclear arena. Pakistanis often contrast China’s “no-strings attached” “generous assistance at moments of our greatest need” with America’s “conditionalities.” But Pakistan’s narrative about the dependability of China does not comport with a more empirical evaluation of the Sino-Pakistan relationship. China’s economic aid has been limited (and often given in loans) and its investment has been trade and infrastructure oriented, which services China’s objectives first (although these activities certainly benefit Pakistan as well). China will be able to extract maximum values from its investments in highways and ports only when Pakistan’s internal security situation improves. Continued insecurity in northwest Pakistan and in Baluchistan will dampen even Chinese interests in such investments, as demonstrated by the sharp decline in Chinese investment in the last few years.
China’s defense relationship with Pakistan was geared to ensure a secure market and dependable ally along an unstable border. While China has used the bogeyman of “Indian hegemonism” (U.S. Embassy Beijing 2004) to strengthen ties with India’s neighbors over the years, it is now increasingly wary of the growing strategic ties between the United States, India, and China’s neighbors in East and Southeast Asia. It would prefer to maintain sufficiently good relations with India so that India does not ally itself with the United States as part of an attempt to contain China. A true Sino-Indian rapprochement would be met with dismay in Pakistan, where the India-centric strategic paradigm remains paramount.
Saudi Arabia has furnished economic assistance, energy aid, and episodic financing of defense purchases. But it has also offered Pakistan substantial ideological and symbolic support. Pakistan’s founders and subsequent rulers have always envisioned Pakistan as the leader of the Muslim world—a goal that it has the ambition, but not the resources, to accomplish. Ties with Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holy places, helps to prop up this self-image and also helps Pakistan to win the support of the entire Muslim ummah (nation) in its fight against “Hindu” India. In recent years, however, Saudi Arabia’s economic and political compulsions have drawn it closer to India. Pakistan’s leaders and strategists have failed to grasp a fundamental reality of global power politics: in the words of former Malaysian premier Tunku Abdul Rahman, while Muslim countries are willing to build “brotherly ties” with Pakistan, they frame foreign policy “regardless of religious status” (bin Sayeed 1968: 238).
Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia and China have been strong over the last six decades, but they still fall short of Pakistan’s objectives. In trying to build permanent partnerships that transcend Saudi and Chinese interests, Pakistan may be seeking something that is almost impossible to attain.
1. As early as 1954, the U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles wrote a reservation into the SEATO treaty that America’s obligation would only extend to cases of Communist aggression. Under the 1954 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement Pakistan agreed to use the aid “exclusively” for “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense.” Hence, while American military aid bolstered Pakistan’s capabilities, there were restrictions on what Pakistan could do with U.S. weapons.
2. Pakistan’s hopes of Chinese support and help were fulfilled early in their relationship. In September 1949 differences on currency devaluation led India to halt trade with Pakistan. At a time when it seemed that India was determined to destroy the nascent Pakistani economy, China’s offer of a barter agreement whereby China supplied Pakistan with coal in exchange for jute and cotton was viewed as lifesaving. As early as January 1963, the two countries granted “most-favored nation” status to each other. By 1963 China was the largest importer of Pakistani cotton.
3. According to a May 1967 report by the Institute for Strategic Studies, Pakistan struck a $120 million arms deal with China for the delivery of one hundred T-59 tanks, eighty MiG-19s, and ten III-28s aircraft (Asian Recorder 1967: 7960).
4. In 1968 the ancient Silk Road was reopened with the first all-weather road linking Pakistani Gilgit and Chinese Xinjiang boosting Sino-Pakistani trade and communications. China helped in the construction of Pakistan’s first heavy mechanical complex at Taxila, near Rawalpindi and helped build East Pakistan’s first ordnance factory. In 1967, China and Pakistan signed a maritime agreement to provide port facilities to each other’s ships. In 1970, a Sino-Pakistan agreement on Chinese assistance in industry, mining, transport, and communications was signed.
5. In 1967, China offered ten million yuan to support Pakistan’s economic development. In 1970, China further offered Pakistan a loan of $200 million for its fourth five-year plan.
6. In 1974 Saudi Arabia provided Pakistan with an interest-free loan of $100 million. In 1975 the Saudi government made a grant of $30 million in addition to the Saudi Development Fund’s pledged soft loan of $30 million to help meet Pakistan’s balance of payments deficit. In 1976 Pakistan received $500 million in assistance from the Arab Middle East, the bulk of which came from Saudi Arabia itself.
7. Arab-Pakistan ties in the military arena are not only limited to Saudi Arabia. Between 1972 and 1977, Pakistan concluded a series of military protocols with Saudi Arabia, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, Oman, the U.A.E., and Kuwait. Under these agreements, training facilities were provided in Pakistani defense institutions for members of the armed forces of these countries. By the late 1970s there were 893 Pakistani advisers and 914 Middle East military trainers. By the 1980s Pakistan had military missions in twenty-two countries, making it the largest exporter of military manpower in the Third World (Roedad Khan 1999: 937–943; Rashid 1986).
8. In 1976 Saudi Arabia offered to fund Pakistan’s purchase of 110 American A-7 fighter bombers. The U.S. government was, however, only willing to allow the purchase if Pakistan agreed not to buy a $150 million nuclear waste reprocessing plant from France. A few years later in 1981 Saudi Arabia financed the $800 million purchase of 40 F-16s from the United States for the Pakistan Air Force. In return, Pakistan agreed to station troops and technicians in Saudi Arabia.
9. According to intelligence tracking by Robert Galluci at the U.S. State Department and Rick Barlow at the CIA, there was evidence that Pakistan supplied Saudi Arabia with nuclear capable missiles and Saudi Arabia considered the Pakistani bomb as its own (Levy and Scott-Clark 2007: 173–174, 225–226, 494; Mir 2005).
10. The International Islamic University in Islamabad was funded by a $10 million grant from the Saudis. The university is located close to the Faisal Mosque, the largest mosque in South Asia, named after King Khalid’s successor, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who provided the funding for the project. In 1977, Lyallpur, the third largest city in Pakistani Punjab, was renamed Faisalabad in honor of King Faisal.
11. For detailed information on Sino-Pakistani nuclear ties, see the publications of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California. Accessible at http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/sasia.htm.
12. Annual trade was $963.7 million in 1996 and $1.8 billion in 2002 (Masood 2010). Details on Sino-Pakistani trade and investment are available on the website of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/yzs/gjlb/2757/2758/.
13. In 1993, China and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) signed an agreement to apply IAEA safeguards to a Chinese nuclear power station sold to Pakistan. Chinese “assistance” was also provided in the construction of a forty-megawatt reactor at Khushab that could be used to provide Pakistan with plutonium for its weapons program (Sun 1993).
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