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Old Tuesday, January 04, 2011
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Default For closer ties

For closer ties


By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, 04 January, 2011


CHINESE Prime Minister Wen Jiabao came and went, leaving behind a large economic development programme his country will finance in Pakistan. He promised very little free money. Some cash assistance will be given to help the people hurt by last year`s flood.

Most of the promised finance, however, will flow into the projects that will pull Pakistan more firmly into China`s economic orbit.

I thought it would be interesting for readers of this column to have some background on how the Chinese have looked at Pakistan for many years and how the current programme of assistance fits into their long-term thinking.

I will relate some of the conversations I had with senior Chinese leaders when I looked after the World Bank`s programme in their country. That was for seven years between 1987 and 1994. I developed a good working relation with some of them because of the position I had taken on the West`s approach to China.

The West, in particular the Americans, wanted the World Bank to sever its relations with Beijing because of the Tiananmen Square episode. I refused to comply since I thought — and the bank`s senior management agreed with me albeit somewhat reluctantly — that the bank, as a development institution, should not be forced into taking political positions. The Chinese were very appreciative of this stance. Among them was Zhu Rongji who was then the mayor of Shanghai. He went on to become the country`s prime minister.

Once he took me to his office and showed me a huge map of China that hung on the wall. “I am showing you this map to underscore one thing,” he said. “China is landlocked on three sides. We are the only large country … compare us with other large land-mass countries such as the United States, Canada, India, Russia, South Africa and you will see that we have access to the sea only on one side, the east. We want to open our western landlocked provinces to the Arabian Sea … and the Persian Gulf. Pakistan could help us to do that.”

This conversation took place in the early 1990s when Zhu was vice premier in charge of the Chinese economy.

In another conversation, this time with the governor of Xinjiang province that borders Pakistan, I was told of China`s interest in building tourism ties between the two countries.

The governor said that he wanted to see Pakistani and Chinese airlines flying from Islamabad and Gilgit on the Pakistani side to Kashgar and Urumqi on the Chinese side. “Many tourists from both sides would like to see the Karakoram Highway and the spectacular terrain through which it passes. But doing it as a round trip can be onerous. The tourists should be able to cover one part of the journey by air.”

The governor also encouraged me to take the road trip from Pakistan to Kashgar — the Chinese call the ancient city Kashi — which I did when I led a team from the World Bank. We went in a Toyota cruiser from Islamabad to Kashgar. There were about a dozen of us in that group hailing from almost as many nationalities. We were impressed by the tourism potential of the area.

I related these exchanges and experiences to late president Ghulam Ishaq Khan who promised to have his government establish a dialogue with Beijing on these and other matters. More recently, I have had several conversations with President Asif Ali Zardari who, of all recent leaders, has given more attention to Pakistan`s economic relations with China.

In my meeting with Zardari in 2008 soon after he had taken over as president, I impressed upon him the need to develop and articulate a long-term strategy for defining relations with China. He said that he was planning to visit China every month to forge a personal relationship with the senior leaders of that country. When I said that monthly visits by the head of a large country would be hard for the Chinese to manage, he said he could travel every three months. I happened to be in China when the president came. His visit was extensively and warmly covered by the Chinese media.

Last year, I reminded the president of a suggestion I had made earlier. I had suggested that Pakistan should set up an institute of China studies, possibly in Islamabad, which should provide not only training in the Chinese language and culture but also in Chinese history, the country`s economy and its legal system, its future as reflected in its various five-year development plans, the country`s foreign policy and how it was managing its rise to become the second-most militarily powerful country in the world, China`s business practices and opportunities available for doing business in the country.

A well-developed curriculum and research programme would not only attract Pakistani students but also students from many neighbouring countries. It could easily become a premier institute for Chinese studies outside China. I also suggested that the institute be named after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who laid the foundation of what was to become the `all-weather friendship`. Honouring Bhutto that way would be highly appropriate.

China has already provided Pakistan with large amounts of economic and military assistance. Some high-profile projects were constructed with Chinese help. These include nuclear power plants at Chashma, the port at Gwadar, the Karokaram Highway.

More will follow as a result of the recent visit by the Chinese prime minister. But for Pakistan to cast its relations with its giant neighbour within a long-term framework, much more strategic work needs to be done. An institute such as the one I proposed would be of great help in that context.

The writer is chairman of the Lahore-based Institute of Public Policy, a former finance minister of Pakistan and former vice president of the World Bank.
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Last edited by Predator; Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 03:45 PM. Reason: date correction
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