How many deaths give a single life meaning? In Pakistan, even the massacre of 150 APS students and their teachers in Peshawar in 2014 was not enough. They have become a statistic.
To the Chinese, every national is priceless. This was brought to the fore at a conference convened in Islamabad on 29 October to celebrate China’s 75 years of ‘Progress, Transformation and Global Leadership’.
During the conference, Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar dilated for over an hour on Pak-China ties. Deviating from his prepared text, he made some extempore, unguarded remarks suggesting that President Xi Jinping, during his meeting with our PM, had told him that China regarded Pakistan as an exception in matters of the security of Chinese nationals.
Dar told his audience: “The Chinese are very clear; no matter how lucrative an investment is anywhere, if the security issue is there, they do not send Chinese personnel. Your country is the only exception.”
In an undiplomatic display of remonstrance, the Chinese ambassador Jiang Zaidong publicly contradicted Mr. Dar’s recollection of the PM/Xi meeting. Ambassador Jiang insisted that for Beijing, “Security is the biggest concern”. Jiang continued: "It is unacceptable for us to be attacked twice in only six months,” and urged Pakistan to take action against “all anti-China terrorist groups”. Alluding to the vulnerability of the CPEC programme, he said: ‘’Without a safe and sound environment, nothing can be achieved.”
Our Foreign Office decided to enter the fray. In response to a (planted?) question during the FO briefing later, a correspondent asked the FO spokesperson whether ‘any action [would] be taken against the Chinese Ambassador for violating the diplomatic norms and rebuking our Foreign Minister?’ [Shades of the démarche sent by the previous government in 2022 over US diplomat Donald Lu’s ‘bad manners and sheer arrogance’.]
The spokesperson responded first with the official line that ‘Pakistan is committed to providing full security to Chinese nationals, projects and institutions in Pakistan’. She added gratuitously that ‘the statement of the Chinese ambassador is therefore perplexing in view of the positive diplomatic traditions between Pakistan and China’.
The Chinese have a better institutional memory than our officials. China has not forgotten that 200 Chinese workers died while building the Karakoram Highway (KKH). They are buried in Gilgit. In 2021, nine Chinese workers were killed in a terrorist attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In 2022, a suicide bomber killed three Chinese instructors at the Confucius Institute in Karachi.
In March 2024, five Chinese nationals were killed in a suicide bomb blast in Shangla district, KP. And most recently, in October, two Chinese nationals died in an explosion near Karachi's international airport.
After each of these attacks, our governments have repeatedly resolved to ‘resolutely act against all such forces and defeat them’. Equally often, the Chinese government has insisted on Pakistan taking ‘tangible actions rather than [offering] assurances’.
Why is security of every Chinese so important to Beijing? Because the one-child policy has meant that if anything happened to any individual bread or noodle-winner, six people would be affected: two parents and four grandparents.
The Chinese have a 5,000 year history of resilience, tempered by adversity. Pakistan has a 77 year old history of insecurity, compounded by debilitating insolvency.
China would lose nothing by discarding Pakistan. It has other customers in line on its One Belt, One Road initiative. Pakistan may have a strategic value for China, but that interest is not open-ended.
Pakistan puts its indebtedness at risk. It owes its iron brother $26 billion of debt and has $65 billion committed to CPEC projects.
If a single life matters to the Chinese, a single American life, an individual chosen by over 70 million U.S. voters will have significance for billions beyond the Atlantic and Pacific.
Based on the unconfirmed results, Donald Trump has claimed the presidency. He has been mandated to decide the world’s security.
Trump is a bruised giant, with a narcissistic, insular ‘America First’ mentality. Harris’ promise to ‘strengthen, not abdicate’ America’s global leadership cut no ice with American voters.
Trump has won. Democracy has only itself to blame. Harris has lost. President Biden is to blame. He (like Queen Elizabeth II) delayed in handing over the sceptre to another generation.
NATO, Israel’s Netanyahu, Ukraine’s Zelensky, and immigrants should worry. Trump has plans for them. Trump and Russia’s Putin feel comfortable with each other. They enjoy a ‘very good relationship’. China’s president Xi expects no quarter from Trump. He is ready and equipped to fight a trade and tariff war with the U.S. and its partners.
Pakistan, however, may be forced to choose between a tired benefactor (U.S.) and an increasingly impatient creditor (China), to whom even one life matters more than the CPEC and diplomatic platitudes.
F. S. AIJAZUDDIN
[DAWN, 7 November 2024]
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