The Pakistani state has a range of supporters at the international stage and Pakistani ruling elite is quite adept at calling upon them for support one after the other in the times of crises—so when Saudis turned angry or unfriendly and demanded the immediate repayment of $3 billion loan Pakistani Foreign Minister landed in Beijing to seek immediate help.
Chinese came to their rescue and provided the initial $1 billion repayment. Now the Pakistanis and Saudis are locked in intense negotiations for the schedule to repay the rest of the loan extended to Pakistan almost a year and half ago 'to avoid default on international debt obligations'.
So a year and a half ago Pakistanis were proud of Saudi friendship and after they turned angry, now Pakistanis are proud of Chinese friendship. In 2018, with Islamabad facing a current accounts crisis, the Saudis had extended Pakistan a $6.2 billion package, which included $3 billion in loans and oil on deferred payments worth $3.2 billion. In addition to calling in the loans, Riyadh has frozen the oil credit facility.
Not long ago Pakistani ruling elite was full of praises for their American allies—we were declared 'Most Allied Ally' of Washington, credit facilities were opened, loans were extended and military and intelligence cooperation were established. The major thing was the financial support Washington extended to Pakistani state during three periods of military governments—that included Ayub Khan’s tenure, Zia-ul-Haq’s tenure and Musharraf’s tenure.
We became American pawns and played foolhardy games at the regional chessboard, while contemptuously disregarding our own security concerns, and not surprisingly burnt out fingers repeatedly. No lessons were learnt, however.
Saudi-Pakistan relations are another example of the Pakistani state and ruling elite acquiring huge financial resources from their Saudi patrons and again foolhardily approving the extremely dangerous Saudi relations with private religious and extremist groups in our society. The dangerous impact of this Saudi relation with private groups is an oft-repeated tale that need not be reiterated here.
It, however, goes without saying that extreme form of sectarian violence that our society witnessed is one of the byproducts of this private relation between Saudi state and Pakistani extremist groups.
There, however, are gossips in Islamabad’s political circles that Pakistani state is finally moving out of American and Saudi orbits—we are moving closer to China, a rising global power with the recognized largest economy in the world and corresponding increase in the military spending.
The Chinese state has global ambitions and wherewithal to carry out those ambitions at the international stage is established fact. Many experts of international politics view Chinese Road and Belt Initiative (RBI) as an ambitious attempt on the part of Chinese leadership to replace American led international order—that was painstakingly constructed in Post World War-II era—with an international system of its own making and at the center of which lies Beijing.
China is a big player at the international chessboard—its fast-growing economy, corresponding modernization of its military, its near dominance of regional systems in the geographical location in which it is located, give it the best chance to project itself as a rival of American power in the international arena in near future. There is little doubt in the American strategic community that Beijing is fast moving towards a position where it will start challenging American dominance of the international system.
Where will Pakistan stand if US-China tensions aggravate in near future? Will Pakistan make the strategic mistake of acting as a pawn of its new financial patron, while endangering its security in the new Cold War type tensions between two global giants?
Financial dependence on its new patron will leave Pakistan with very few options in any case. If Pakistani state continues to persist in its bad financial and economic performance there is hardly a chance that it can sustain itself in the long run—Pakistani state’s financial dependence on its patrons will force it to become a pawn of another superpower, this time it will be giant close to home.
Strengthening the country’s economy and its financial conditions are the backbones of its foreign policy. You simply cannot run an independent foreign policy in the absence of a strong financial position or a strong economy. Pakistani ruling elite needs to understand the difference between being an ally of a superpower and being an outright satellite state e.g. Cold War.
Contrast this with Indian foreign policy during the Cold War when it had equally beneficial relations with both Washington and Moscow, both from an economic and military perspective. The basic lesson of our foreign policy blunders during the Cold War is that we cannot and should not become a pawn in the hands of one superpower. So, no matter, what direction US-China relations take in future, we cannot and should not become a pawn.
So taking loans from one patron to repay another angry patron is not the answer to our problems. This is a very shameful situation where the Pakistani state cannot maintain its credibility in the face of repayment demands of one angry patron and have to apply to another financial patron for loan repayment.
This could be a death knell for our dream of an independent foreign policy. This time it was Saudis who were angry with us for taking a foreign policy position that hurt their interests. Next time it might be Chinese who get angry with some foreign policy position that we might be forced to take in the future.
The financial dependence on our patrons is on the basis of another characteristic Pakistani state has developed over the last 7 decades. We have acquired the trait of being a mercenary state. This resulted in repeatedly endangered our security at the cost of earning a few million dollars more.
The Pakistani ruling elite, however, deserves credit for refusing to engage our troops in security duties in the Middle East deeply afflicted with sectarian tensions. The decision to send troops to the Middle East would have direct security implications for our own sectarian scene.