China bailing out Pakistan? You gotta be joking! Pakistan has tried its level best to scrounge easy loans from China over the years but has come a cropper each time! Instead they had to always run to the IMF which doled out $7 billion last year but under strict conditionalities like expanding the tax base, increasing electricity and gas tariffs, ending wasteful subsidies and expenditure etc, which Pakistan has failed to comply with so far.
Nusrat Javed made a very interesting comment about Pakistani's mentality. On the question of expatriates playing a role in Pakistan's development he made a very interesting note. He recalled the memories of 1998 when India conducted her Nuke tests. He recalled that many expatriate Pakistanis used to call him everyday and ask him that why Pakistan was not conducting nuke tests. They used to tell him,"Our Indian counterparts here taunt us everyday, when will Pakistan respond?". And when Pakistan responded and FC accounts were frozen in a bid to stop the FC outflow, they used to call him and ask,"Why is Government not allowing us to withdraw our money!". He made another a "controversial" (though I would agree to that) comment that its the families of expats which force them to send remittances. Had their families been living with them, they would rather like to have their businesses and bank accounts abroad than Pakistan because for them "Though I miss Pakistan and am worried about it but Pakistan can't give me the things that I have here." They would keep complaining about the problems and the roughness that they receive yet would not be willing to return back.
