China and Pakistan: Casting light on a little-known friendship

[ArsalanKhan21]

China and Pakistan: Geopolitical friends | The Economist

China and Pakistan
Geopolitical friends
Casting light on a little-known friendship
Jan 24th 2015 | From the print edition

• 
  WHEN China sent swift condolences to Pakistan after the slaughter of over 130 schoolchildren in a terror attack in Peshawar last month, it was more than a perfunctory gesture. The two countries have such a long-standing and harmonious relationship that both sides sometimes come close to believing the official mantra that the ties that bind them really are higher than the highest mountains.
  
  Yet misgivings also abound, as Andrew Small, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, points out in an impressive account of a little-understood friendship. China is growing increasingly squeamish about the dangers of having Islamist extremists just across the border. Chinese engineers working on aid projects in Pakistan have been killed by Pakistani extremists. In 2007 Chinese massage-parlour employees were held hostage by militants in Islamabad. The authorities in the capital do not do enough, the Chinese complain, to destroy Pakistani havens of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Muslim separatist group drawn from the Uighur ethnic minority who live in China’s western Xinjiang region.
  
  “China has a good understanding of almost everything in Pakistan, political, security or economic, that might affect the bilateral relationship, but there is one piece they just don’t get: Islam,” Mr Small quotes a Pakistani China specialist as saying. It was especially embarrassing to Pakistan that on the day the retiring head of the army, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, paid his last visit to China in October 2013 a car with three Uighurs and packed with explosives burst into flames in Tiananmen Square. “The most damning narrative would be hard to shake off—that a Pakistan-based Uighur separatist group masterminded a successful suicide attack in the most visible location in China during the valedictory visit of Pakistan’s army chief,” Mr Small writes.
  
  Still, if there were recriminations they were not made public. Indeed, as Mr Small argues, China’s ties with Pakistan, which were established during Mao’s rule and are based on shared hostility towards India, thrive on many common interests. A long history of secret deals between their two armies—overrides the problems with Islamic extremism.
  
  Six years of research have enabled Mr Small to produce a detailed account of decades of close dealings between the two countries. In that time he won the confidence of many sources in the Chinese army, military intelligence and the security services. Their officials are as tight-lipped as the Pakistanis are garrulous. Yet he managed to loosen them up, at least enough.
  
  Mr Small describes a friendship that is more enduring and has far better prospects than Pakistan’s up-and-down connection with America. The high points of that relationship—as when Pakistan facilitated the groundbreaking visit of Henry Kissinger to China in 1971 which led in turn to Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing and later during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—have long since passed.
  
  China helped Pakistan acquire the nuclear bomb, and is Pakistan’s biggest supplier of military equipment. Now it is building two sizeable civilian nuclear reactors that should help ease the country’s chronic energy shortfall. As China expands its reach throughout Asia, Pakistan has become central to its plans for a network of ports, pipelines, roads and railways that will bring oil and gas from the Middle East. The Chinese government is offering tens of billions of dollars for Pakistani projects, Mr Small says. As America’s influence recedes, China is stepping in, though officials will doubtless keep a wary eye on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
  
  Part of China’s justification for spending so much is to bring stability to Pakistan, an argument that the Obama administration has also used, though with little success. Mr Small seems to think the Chinese will have better luck. He may be too optimistic about their ability to achieve much, but given the feckless Pakistani governance that he so ably describes, he has every right at least to hope the Chinese will help restore some order to the chaos.
  
  From the print edition: Books and arts

 

[Beast]

China and Pakistan: Geopolitical friends | The Economist

China and Pakistan
Geopolitical friends
Casting light on a little-known friendship
Jan 24th 2015 | From the print edition

• 
  WHEN China sent swift condolences to Pakistan after the slaughter of over 130 schoolchildren in a terror attack in Peshawar last month, it was more than a perfunctory gesture. The two countries have such a long-standing and harmonious relationship that both sides sometimes come close to believing the official mantra that the ties that bind them really are higher than the highest mountains.
  
  Yet misgivings also abound, as Andrew Small, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, points out in an impressive account of a little-understood friendship. China is growing increasingly squeamish about the dangers of having Islamist extremists just across the border. Chinese engineers working on aid projects in Pakistan have been killed by Pakistani extremists. In 2007 Chinese massage-parlour employees were held hostage by militants in Islamabad. The authorities in the capital do not do enough, the Chinese complain, to destroy Pakistani havens of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Muslim separatist group drawn from the Uighur ethnic minority who live in China’s western Xinjiang region.
  
  “China has a good understanding of almost everything in Pakistan, political, security or economic, that might affect the bilateral relationship, but there is one piece they just don’t get: Islam,” Mr Small quotes a Pakistani China specialist as saying. It was especially embarrassing to Pakistan that on the day the retiring head of the army, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, paid his last visit to China in October 2013 a car with three Uighurs and packed with explosives burst into flames in Tiananmen Square. “The most damning narrative would be hard to shake off—that a Pakistan-based Uighur separatist group masterminded a successful suicide attack in the most visible location in China during the valedictory visit of Pakistan’s army chief,” Mr Small writes.
  
  Still, if there were recriminations they were not made public. Indeed, as Mr Small argues, China’s ties with Pakistan, which were established during Mao’s rule and are based on shared hostility towards India, thrive on many common interests. A long history of secret deals between their two armies—overrides the problems with Islamic extremism.
  
  Six years of research have enabled Mr Small to produce a detailed account of decades of close dealings between the two countries. In that time he won the confidence of many sources in the Chinese army, military intelligence and the security services. Their officials are as tight-lipped as the Pakistanis are garrulous. Yet he managed to loosen them up, at least enough.
  
  Mr Small describes a friendship that is more enduring and has far better prospects than Pakistan’s up-and-down connection with America. The high points of that relationship—as when Pakistan facilitated the groundbreaking visit of Henry Kissinger to China in 1971 which led in turn to Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing and later during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—have long since passed.
  
  China helped Pakistan acquire the nuclear bomb, and is Pakistan’s biggest supplier of military equipment. Now it is building two sizeable civilian nuclear reactors that should help ease the country’s chronic energy shortfall. As China expands its reach throughout Asia, Pakistan has become central to its plans for a network of ports, pipelines, roads and railways that will bring oil and gas from the Middle East. The Chinese government is offering tens of billions of dollars for Pakistani projects, Mr Small says. As America’s influence recedes, China is stepping in, though officials will doubtless keep a wary eye on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
  
  Part of China’s justification for spending so much is to bring stability to Pakistan, an argument that the Obama administration has also used, though with little success. Mr Small seems to think the Chinese will have better luck. He may be too optimistic about their ability to achieve much, but given the feckless Pakistani governance that he so ably describes, he has every right at least to hope the Chinese will help restore some order to the chaos.
  
  From the print edition: Books and arts

Another white man manipulation. From the economist? What he knows about China pakistan? Zero. China also has the Muslim hui and they hardly give a single problem to China.

 

[haviZsultan]

Another typical immature article by westerners aimed at showing Pakistan as a bastion of terror. No one writes about the secular movement in Pakistan. No one writes about the majority of Pakistanis who are sick and tired of terrorism and will give their lives to combat this menace. Instead they show us as implicit in the violence that has killed 50000 in our own country.

China is perhaps the only country which has understood our difficulties facing terrorism. Also do note that a lot of the problem is American made. Look at Abdullah Mehsud. He was a militant released by the United states of *** even though he was a known militant. The first thing he did on his return to Pakistan was kidnap Chinese civilians. So why did the Americans release a known militant and terrorist. Very similar is the story of Pacha Khan Zadran who killed Afghans.

These articles are constantly consumed which claim the Chinese and Pakistani relationship is in jeopardy. China understands how difficult it can be to deal with and eliminate Islamic terrorists when they are in your midst.

@Chinese-Dragon @ChineseTiger1986 Is the terrorism situation in Pakistan affecting ties between China and Pakistan as the author tries to project?

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

To consolidate the friendship and ties with Pakistan is part of our core national interests, and it will never change regardless of what.

China will put more effort to help Pakistan to stop this menace of the regional terrorism.

 

[AgentOrange]

It's not as if Pakistan is actively supporting Uighur terrorism. China and Pakistan both suffer from terrorism and Pakistan has always been very cooperative in addressing China's concerns in this regard. The West will never be able to drive a wedge between China and Pakistan.

 

[EL LOBO]

To consolidate the friendship and ties with Pakistan is part of our core national interests, and it will never change regardless of what.

China will put more effort to help Pakistan to stop this menace of the regional terrorism.

And i love u too....

 

[sicsheep]

not only that, we used our first ever veto in UN for Pakistan IN 1972,

National interest is just as important than religious interest, if not more important.

that said, we cant blame Muslim have sympathies with their fellow Muslims, but it is up to Pakistani government to educate their citizens about what is really going on in China.

 

[Khaliquk]

Pakistani public know China more than many of the Chinese themselves. That's why, according to Wikipedia, Pakistanis are the only nation who like China more than Chinese themselves.

 

[Menace2Society]

Pakistan will continue to support the one China policy. PA will go to war for China if it has to.