Pakistan’s formidable foreign policy challenges

Other than China, nothing much to write home about

Going by all accounts, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s tour of China – his first tour after assuming office – went off remarkably well. In the context of our increasing ties with the largest neighbour, it would be well worth keeping in mind that the Chinese, and they themselves acknowledge that, today are more or less obliged to utilize Pakistan’s territory as a trade, energy and commerce corridor to markets in the West Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

There is to begin with this obvious logistical advantage of greatly reduced distance for China as against their western flank. But the geo-strategically more compelling, and not much understood by their outside observers, are the highly troubled waters of the South China Sea due to the massive naval build-up by the United States, India, Japan and South Korea. The territorial disputes over islands that China has with a number of countries in the region, particularly with Japan, have attained alarming proportions militarily.

It is these difficulties that China faces today that are hampering the further growth of its trade and commercial relations with Japan and the South East Asian economies. That is exactly where Pakistan comes as the economical and relatively more secure alternative western energy and trade corridor. The sceptics who see the fate of the number of MOUs signed between Pakistan and China during our prime minister’s visit as being no different from what has been the outcome of such bilateral memoranda signed earlier – their non-implementation, that is – do have a point if one were to go on the basis of past record.

Nevertheless, given the factors of Pakistan’s being a preferable route for China in the present circumstances, there is every reason to hope that we would see on ground the execution of the primarily infrastructural projects that China has undertaken to complete in Pakistan.

So far, so good! Beyond that, the new government, not unlike its predecessor, has shown no sign of its even being aware of the formidable challenges and opportunities in the region that stare Pakistan in the face – what to talk of taking any practical steps or forward movement. The difference that the fast evolving regional matrix has made to the current government is that, as opposed to those in office before them, Nawaz Sharif does not have the luxury of running the foreign policy in an incoherent, whimsical manner.

Take our relations with India, for instance. One is anything but for the perpetration of the historically unfriendly ties with India. However, the government would be well advised to take deeply thought out, incremental steps on the basis of reciprocity.

But then, where is this thinking to come from? Not out of our given set of rulers for sure. It is pathetic that the ruling party does not have a single person in its ranks elected to the Assembly, or a member of Senate, who has been cut out to be the foreign minister. Champions of democracy as our political leaders are, they remain blissfully oblivious to how things are handled in the mother of Western democracy, the United Kingdom. As a long standing tradition, the leader of the opposition would have a shadow cabinet of his fellow parliamentarians each being responsible for every department of government.

Now, lamentable as our current political situation is, the government must put its act together on the foreign policy front. Why don’t they take a leaf out the American book of governance?

At any rate it is time for some fresh thinking to be injected in the formulation and execution of Pakistan’s foreign policy. As the US president does, what is preventing the prime minister to broaden his search for foreign minister to beyond politicians and bureaucrats and take in scholars, researchers and academics of the country?

One read the news that during his stay in Beijing, the prime minister visited CICAR which happens to be the most effective think tank in China. And, why so? Because it is of the Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China. One has no means of knowing what transpired at the think tank during the prime minister’s stay there. Nevertheless, here is a brief primer for Mian Sahib on the prestige think tanks have historically enjoyed in China.

Since ancient times, whenever the ruler had a hard choice to take, he would gather the learned lot of researchers and scholars at a remote place and they were not allowed to leave till they came up with the most desirable option and the ruler would do accordingly. The tradition has survived to this day and has now been institutionalised in the form of think tanks all over China.

All our prime minister needs do is to form a group of researchers, scholars and academics to serve as his advisory board on foreign policy. There is no dearth of such individuals in the country whose merit has been established through their tireless effort through conducting and publishing sound research work in various areas including defence, regional security, and bilateral and global affairs as also international politics. Their published work stands testimony to their high merit.

While putting off the treatment of the regional challenges and opportunities to another occasion, one would merely point out a most disturbing omission in Mian Sahib’s initiatives and pronouncements thus far in the realm of foreign policy, and that is Iran. One would have thought that by now (if wishes were horses) he would have visited Tehran. It is too important a friend in our immediate neighbourhood to be ignored.

It has in any case been over the past year or so that the distance between the two traditionally friendly Muslim countries has seen narrowing down ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union before the end of that year.

The writer is a senior journalist, researcher and analyst whose latest book, “Iran and the Bomb: Nuclear Club Busted”, has recently been published. He can be reached at [email protected]