When a Chinese scholar asked Pakistan to learn from India

It’s too early to say that Beijing is advocating better New Delhi-Islamabad ties, but there is a recognition that the lack of connectivity with India is costing Pakistan

China has long claimed that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, but its relationship with ‘iron brother’ Pakistan should suggest otherwise.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), for example, has always been used as an opportunity for the Chinese embassy to deal directly with local governments and actors in Pakistan. Despite such involvement, there remains much that Beijing is unsatisfied with. Proof comes from recent statements by two influential Chinese interlocutors.

Look at India

The first is from a July seminar organised by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute to mark the 10th anniversary of the CPEC. Pakistani presentations were a mix of the by now common ‘everything-is-going well’ narratives and sharply critical views on the failure of the Pakistani State and the CPEC to deliver on multiple promises.

However, it is the presentation by the lone Chinese participant, Hu Shisheng, the Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) in Beijing that is of particular interest. The CICIR, is one of the most important foreign policy and security affairs think-tanks in China’s Party-State system — its research reaches important echelons in the Chinese leadership system and its researchers represent important perspectives from within this system.

Speaking on a video link, Hu was typically forthright. He suggested that Pakistani provinces “with good conditions take the lead, help those with poor conditions”. He added that if it was difficult to promote reforms at the national or central government level then each province could promote market reforms at their level “so as to accumulate a national culture of reforms at the institutional level”. If even “this is still very difficult, then focus on SEZs like China did at the initial stage, focus on Gwadar.”

Hu asked his Pakistani audience to “look at India” whose rapid development he claimed was “mainly based on the Gujarat experience”. This is an astonishing claim to make for two reasons. One, because here is an important Chinese scholar asking Pakistanis to learn from India, and another, because the economic development model he claimed was Indian is originally a Chinese one. It is China’s coastal provinces that have led its economic growth in the 1980s, and which to this day continue to support development projects in underdeveloped provinces in China’s far west — this is hardly the experience in India.

Increase self-reliance

Hu also suggested that Pakistan “temporarily… not start new infrastructure projects” and instead “focus on revitalising existing projects to ensure that they do not fall idle”. He called on Pakistan to “increase self-reliance” to address its trade and financial deficits without which “past efforts and achievements will become unfinished… have a huge negative impact on Sino-Pakistan relations and… make our opponents to laugh” (sic).

The Chinese analyst declared that the CPEC was not only about physical infrastructure construction, “but also about making Pakistan an industrial powerhouse through making industrial parks, promoting technology transfers, training talents, to improve Pakistan's industrial competitiveness and innovation ability” among other things. This was becoming “more and more important and urgent”, according to him.

Regional bridge

Clearly, Hu had a set of prescriptions for Pakistan, and he laid great stress on it speeding up its industrialisation process so that it became a “powerhouse for regional development and serve[d] as a regional bridge”. But he was also not expecting Pakistan to achieve everything by itself or only with China’s help calling on Pakistan to “strive to bring in new regional partners to participate” in its development project.

Earlier this month, in an interview in China’s Global Times, a Pakistani journalist suggested that India consider joining the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) if it was not to “lose excessively and have difficulty sustaining its high GDP growth.” But Hu seemed to be telling the Pakistanis to take the initiative referring to several India-related regional projects, such as the TAPI (Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India) pipeline and the INSTC (International North-South Transport Corridor) through Iran and Russia.

He also reminded his audience that India and Pakistan had already inked bilateral transit agreements, and said, “we would like to see in the next 10 years, the CPEC can play an important role in sub-regional initiatives to be connected with each other”. While it is too early to say that China is advocating better India-Pakistan ties, there is certainly an acknowledgement that lack of connectivity with India is costing Pakistan.

No way out

As he concluded his presentation, Hu left his Pakistani audience in no doubt about the work that remained before them saying, “there is no way out without reforms… our Pakistani friends need to deepen their reforms and opening up.” Nor did he hold back finally from explicitly promoting China’s development model saying, “CPEC construction must learn from China’s successful reform and opening experience, internationalisation, conducive and friendly business environment… and stimulate market vitality and social creativity.” Among Hu’s “key words for next 10 years for CPEC” was also “unity” — clearly a reference to the lack of that quality in Pakistan today.

Sharp criticism

The second important Chinese statement came following the attack on August 13 on a Chinese convoy in Balochistan. In an article in the Global Times the next day, its former editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, seemed to tell Islamabad either what to do or that Beijing itself would do what was necessary when he declared, “[t]hose who dare to attack Chinese personnel will be eradicated”.

There is a long history of China asserting pressure on Pakistan to ensure the safety and security of its workers in Pakistan, but despite heavy security deployment, including a whole division’s worth for protecting the CPEC projects, attacks and kidnappings targeting them have continued. If Hu Shisheng’s call for “institutional reform” in Pakistan is a gentle rebuke of Pakistan’s state of economic and political management, Hu Xijin’s statement implies a much sharper criticism of its security management.

China’s interest in Pakistan’s internal affairs has increased relative to that of the United States. Such is the way of great or rising powers. The statements by the two Hus clearly reflect China’s desire to direct Pakistan’s affairs.

(Jabin T Jacob is Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, and Director, Centre for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR. Twitter: @jabinjacobt.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own. They do not necessarily refect the views of DH.