‘Higher than the Himalayas’
By Lal Khan

Through the Kashghar-Gwadar highway, the distance to the Middle East for Chinese exports and imports of coal and oil will be more than halved.

At the start of the talks during his recent visit to China, Pakistan’s Premier Nawaz Sharif told the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang what has become a traditional cliché in Pakistani diplomatic policy: “Let me tell you very candidly and very sincerely that what I am witnessing here on my visit to Beijing, it reminds me of the saying our friendship is higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the deepest sea in the world, and sweeter than honey.” Subsequently, a broad agreement for the ‘economic corridor’ was among eight pacts signed between the two prime ministers. Much hype has been given to this proclamation and increased hopes have been raised that China will perhaps rescue Pakistan from the disastrous crisis it is inflicted with in the sectors of infrastructure, energy, and the economy as a whole.

Pakistan-China diplomatic relations were established in May 1951 and it is true that the relationship between the rulers of the two countries have been cordial, mainly due to the mutual interests of the two states. However, foreign policy in the last analysis is the continuation of domestic policy and it emanates from the socioeconomic system that prevails in the country. In the last century, China went through three revolutions and a counter-revolution of capitalist restoration.

The first revolution was a bourgeois revolution led by Sun Yat-sen in 1911. It was also known as the Xinhai Revolution that ended the Qing Dynasty and established a Republic. However, it failed to create a unified nation state and complete the other tasks of the national democratic revolution. The warlords ruled their fiefdoms and ravaged China with Japanese and western imperialists plundering the country. The second revolution erupted in 1924-25 and was led by the newly emerging Communist Party (CP). It was a classic socialist revolution on the lines of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 in Russia. However, this revolution was drenched in blood by the reactionary nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. But it was also due to blatant mistakes of the CP leadership in continuing with the alliance with the national bourgeoisie long after that alliance’s sell-by date.

Most of the leaders fled to the countryside and started a guerrilla war based on the peasantry. In October 1949, this long march of the peasant army entered the big cities and the rotten regime of Chiang Kai-shek was overthrown. The workers rose up in these cities and pressurised the new regime under Mao to expropriate capitalism. The imperialists, exhausted by the Second World War, were too weak to intervene and defeat this revolution. Although this was not a socialist revolution yet, but the distribution of land, expropriation of capital and the nationalisation of industry laid the basis for a planned economy. It was on these foundations that the Chinese economy and society made huge advances. But economic growth began to falter in the 1970s and China was faced with stagnation and a social crisis. The foreign policy was based on internationalism till Mao was alive. Due to the elimination of capitalism, aid to Pakistan and other countries was not entirely for profit and economic gains. It was more of a strategic nature and to enhance the international image of China. In the military and other trade deals, corruption was limited. But the support to different regimes in Pakistan and elsewhere was not on a class basis. Hence, all the military dictatorships and bourgeois politicians got Chinese aid and maintained cordial relations. Vicious regimes like the Ayub and Zia dictatorships brutally repressed the workers and masses yet the rulers in China conveniently ignored their heinous crimes.

But after Mao’s death and the burgeoning crisis in China, the rightwing of the Communist Party led by Deng Xiao Peng, instead of creating a workers’ democracy according to Lenin’s four postulates, carried through a counter-revolution by reverting back to capitalism. This process started in 1978 and has not only created the largest socio-economic disparity within China but has transformed the character of its external investment, trade and foreign policy. With the majority of the members of the standing committee of the politbureau of the CP being billionaires in dollar terms, one can well understand the real motives of the policies of China. China is today the biggest investor in Africa, Asia and Latin America with clearly evident imperialist designs and methods. But in the last two years China’s economic growth has plunged to nearly half of its growth rates before 2010. A report in Daily Times on July 11, 2013 sums it up: “Grim trade outlook warned: China exports fall 3.1 percent in June against the forecast of a four percent increase.” They are desperately trying to prop up growth by massive public/private investments in China and abroad. The social costs of capitalist restoration have been cumbersome for China’s teeming millions and there have been hundreds of successful strikes. But with the crisis exacerbating, the fears of the elite in China have also mounted. It is not accidental that now Chinese rulers spend more on internal security than external defence.

The investments in ports, trade routes and infrastructural projects are mainly to increase Chinese exports and reduce the costs of transportation. Through the Kashghar-Gwadar highway, the distance to the Middle East for Chinese exports and imports of coal and oil will be more than halved. It will also cut down the exorbitant cost of Chinese exports by air cargo to the Middle East. But these trade deals and agreements are for the benefit of the Pakistani and Chinese businessmen and corporate capital. The projects being talked about if built at all will be for profits of the contractors and the commission of the officials of the regimes of the two countries. With no end to the crisis of capitalism in sight, the plight of the peoples of the two countries will only worsen. This friendship ‘higher than the Himalayas’ is mutually beneficial for the bosses of the present system. The workers and youth and the deprived masses of China and Pakistan can only unite and prosper when this system of profit is replaced by a system where production and development is for the fulfilment of human needs.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...4-7-2013_pg3_4