Bhushan
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Quadrilateral ties
By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, 12 Jan, 2010
One important component of the developing global structure is the evolving relationship among four countries: China, India, Pakistan and the US. Three of these countries are in Asia, the fourth is still the only superpower in the global economic and political systems.
The most important of these relations are between the US and China, between India and China, between India and the US, between Pakistan and the US and between India and Pakistan. Each of these has its own dynamics. That said they together form a quadrilateral relationship that is inherently unstable. The challenge for these countries is to bring about stability to this relationship in a way that it serves the interest of all four countries.
Three relatively recent developments and two that go back several decades have created a web of dependency in this quadrilateral relationship. Although Pakistan and the US have worked with one another for decades, the nature of this relationship was transformed by 9/11.
While the attention of the West is likely to shift to Yemen following the botched attack on an American plane on Christmas day by a Nigerian man who was allegedly working for Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, Pakistan is likely to remain the epicentre of global terrorism. At the time of his inauguration as president, Barack Obama made it clear that our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred and we will do whatever it takes to defeat them and defend our country, even as we hold the values that have always distinguished America among nations. Pakistan was at the centre of this network.
The second recent development behind the evolving relationship was the rapid economic rise of China, accelerated by the way it handled the recent crisis in the global economy that experts now call the great recession. Beijing was able to use the economic power of the state to stimulate the economy much more effectively than was done by the leaders of other large economies. The result of its more successful approach was that 2008 and 2009 saw a mild slowdown in the rates of economic growth and change. The Chinese economy is now returning to the high growth rates that have marked its performance over the last quarter of a century. It is likely to overtake Japan in 2010 as the second largest economy in the world.
The third development was the election of Barack Obama as US president. After his inauguration in January 2009, President Obama has shown remarkable willingness to accept that his country will not remain as dominant a player in the global system as was expected after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He remarked repeatedly during his November 2009 visit to East Asia that he was willing to work towards a global system in which the US would be closely aligned with China to lead the world towards sustained economic prosperity and peace.
In fact, he began to lay the foundations of a G2 arrangement that will sit on top of other multilateral arrangements such as G20, the World Bank and the IMF. What seems to be evolving is a three-tier global structure with G2 at the top, G20 in the middle and everybody else at the bottom.
The two developments that go back for decades and will inform this quadrilateral relationship involve Pakistan. The first of these is the long enduring hostility between India and Pakistan that is the consequence of the enormous differences in the two ideas of statehood they represent.
The idea of India is the belief that it is possible to construct economic, political and social systems that would provide for different religious, linguistic and social groups in a way that none would wish to opt out. This idea was espoused by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, but was rejected by Mohammad Ali Jinnah whose idea of Pakistan was built around the belief that the Muslims of British India needed a state of their own to prevent their identity from being submerged by those who followed different systems of beliefs.
To these differences in the two ideas was added the problem of Kashmir that has defied resolution since it is anchored in these two conflicting meanings of statehood.
The other old development that will influence the evolution of this quadrilateral relationship is the all weather friendship between Beijing and Islamabad. Its foundation was laid by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the mid-1960s to counter the growing influence of the US on Pakistan. Bhutto considered that relationship to be unequal, countering President Ayub Khans claim that his country was a friend and the US was not a master in the arrangement that he had worked out. Bhutto said that that claim was a myth. With China brought in to balance the US, it has remained there while the environment in which Pakistan functions has been through several serious convulsions.
These included the break-up of Pakistan when its eastern wing emerged as the independent state of Bangladesh and, more recently, the destruction wrought by the rapid rise of Islamic extremism in the country. It is quite normal in fact it is expected of nations for countries to pursue their own interests in working out relations with other states. Economists have a concept they call Pareto optimality according to which multiparty relationships can only become stable when all parties gain and none loses.
Applying this to international relations, the question arises as to how this goal can be achieved. One way of doing this would be to get the four countries involved to sit around the table a G4 arrangement to work out how they can move forward so that none is hurt but all benefit. Given the centrality of some of the concerns that surround this group of countries, a working relationship between them will bring large dividends to the rest of the world as well.
By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, 12 Jan, 2010
One important component of the developing global structure is the evolving relationship among four countries: China, India, Pakistan and the US. Three of these countries are in Asia, the fourth is still the only superpower in the global economic and political systems.
The most important of these relations are between the US and China, between India and China, between India and the US, between Pakistan and the US and between India and Pakistan. Each of these has its own dynamics. That said they together form a quadrilateral relationship that is inherently unstable. The challenge for these countries is to bring about stability to this relationship in a way that it serves the interest of all four countries.
Three relatively recent developments and two that go back several decades have created a web of dependency in this quadrilateral relationship. Although Pakistan and the US have worked with one another for decades, the nature of this relationship was transformed by 9/11.
While the attention of the West is likely to shift to Yemen following the botched attack on an American plane on Christmas day by a Nigerian man who was allegedly working for Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, Pakistan is likely to remain the epicentre of global terrorism. At the time of his inauguration as president, Barack Obama made it clear that our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred and we will do whatever it takes to defeat them and defend our country, even as we hold the values that have always distinguished America among nations. Pakistan was at the centre of this network.
The second recent development behind the evolving relationship was the rapid economic rise of China, accelerated by the way it handled the recent crisis in the global economy that experts now call the great recession. Beijing was able to use the economic power of the state to stimulate the economy much more effectively than was done by the leaders of other large economies. The result of its more successful approach was that 2008 and 2009 saw a mild slowdown in the rates of economic growth and change. The Chinese economy is now returning to the high growth rates that have marked its performance over the last quarter of a century. It is likely to overtake Japan in 2010 as the second largest economy in the world.
The third development was the election of Barack Obama as US president. After his inauguration in January 2009, President Obama has shown remarkable willingness to accept that his country will not remain as dominant a player in the global system as was expected after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He remarked repeatedly during his November 2009 visit to East Asia that he was willing to work towards a global system in which the US would be closely aligned with China to lead the world towards sustained economic prosperity and peace.
In fact, he began to lay the foundations of a G2 arrangement that will sit on top of other multilateral arrangements such as G20, the World Bank and the IMF. What seems to be evolving is a three-tier global structure with G2 at the top, G20 in the middle and everybody else at the bottom.
The two developments that go back for decades and will inform this quadrilateral relationship involve Pakistan. The first of these is the long enduring hostility between India and Pakistan that is the consequence of the enormous differences in the two ideas of statehood they represent.
The idea of India is the belief that it is possible to construct economic, political and social systems that would provide for different religious, linguistic and social groups in a way that none would wish to opt out. This idea was espoused by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, but was rejected by Mohammad Ali Jinnah whose idea of Pakistan was built around the belief that the Muslims of British India needed a state of their own to prevent their identity from being submerged by those who followed different systems of beliefs.
To these differences in the two ideas was added the problem of Kashmir that has defied resolution since it is anchored in these two conflicting meanings of statehood.
The other old development that will influence the evolution of this quadrilateral relationship is the all weather friendship between Beijing and Islamabad. Its foundation was laid by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the mid-1960s to counter the growing influence of the US on Pakistan. Bhutto considered that relationship to be unequal, countering President Ayub Khans claim that his country was a friend and the US was not a master in the arrangement that he had worked out. Bhutto said that that claim was a myth. With China brought in to balance the US, it has remained there while the environment in which Pakistan functions has been through several serious convulsions.
These included the break-up of Pakistan when its eastern wing emerged as the independent state of Bangladesh and, more recently, the destruction wrought by the rapid rise of Islamic extremism in the country. It is quite normal in fact it is expected of nations for countries to pursue their own interests in working out relations with other states. Economists have a concept they call Pareto optimality according to which multiparty relationships can only become stable when all parties gain and none loses.
Applying this to international relations, the question arises as to how this goal can be achieved. One way of doing this would be to get the four countries involved to sit around the table a G4 arrangement to work out how they can move forward so that none is hurt but all benefit. Given the centrality of some of the concerns that surround this group of countries, a working relationship between them will bring large dividends to the rest of the world as well.
