Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently made a highly productive six-day visit to China, his first-ever foreign trip after assuming office. His Chinese counterpart Premier Li Keqiang too had included Pakistan in his first-ever foreign itinerary six weeks ago when he visited India, Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany.
During his meeting with the then prime minister-elect Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad, Premier Li – in his oriental civility and courteousness – expressed the hope that Nawaz Sharif’s first foreign visit will be to China.
On assuming office, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not disappoint his Chinese counterpart and chose China for his first foreign visit. There have been questions, though, on the timing of the visit given the country’s burning economic and energy crisis and perilous security situation.
The people of Pakistan, in their recent election verdict, had in fact overwhelmingly flagged an SOS to him and his party to come and rescue them from the hellfire in which the outgoing government had left them. They badly needed him to stay at home to give a sense of direction to the country’s governance in this hour of crisis.
But for Nawaz Sharif, his visit to China was itself a ‘rescue and recovery’ mission. To him, it was a welcome opportunity not only to explore permanent remedies for the nation’s chronic ailments but also to lay a solid foundation with China’s participation for long-term strategic economic cooperation involving some of the real mega projects of the region, which on completion could transform this country’s geopolitics into a huge asset rather than a liability. He was right in this approach, which is also in line with his party’s long-term socio-economic development agenda focusing on projects that in the long run will bring direct dividends to the people of Pakistan.
Economic cooperation has indeed been the bedrock of Pakistan’s multidimensional relationship with China. From the Karakoram Highway reviving and revitalising the old silk route to the newly completed Gwadar port, a whole string of industrial plants, factories, electrical and mechanical complexes, and power-production units including hydro and nuclear power plants, bear testimony to Pakistan-China cooperation and China’s vital contribution to the economic development of our country. Several major energy and infrastructure development projects are already being executed in Pakistan with Chinese assistance.
Nearly 250 agreements provide a vast springboard for ongoing cooperative endeavours between the two countries. Notable among these are a joint declaration signed in 2003 expanding their multidimensional cooperation and a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighbourly Relations signed in 2005. There’s no doubt that in recent years Pakistan-China economic cooperation has expanded significantly.
More than 120 Chinese companies are engaged in economic activity in Pakistan with steady increase in multi-sectoral Chinese investment in this country. Thousands of Chinese engineers and workers are today engaged under very difficult conditions in building roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, schools, universities and hospitals for the people of Pakistan.
But from our side, two vital aspects of our cooperation with China – trade potential and the Gwadar Port – have remained totally neglected for almost a decade. The potential of our trade with China remains unharnessed because the continuing energy crisis has seriously constricted our export capacity. Our industrial wheel is no longer running. Likewise, the Gwadar Port, on its completion by China, was handed over to us eight years ago and is still not operational. Zardari’s Gwadar decision at the end of his party’s government was ill-timed if not politically motivated. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Beijing now was a timely signal that we do indeed mean business.
Unlike his predecessors, Nawaz Sharif was able to firm up commitments with the Chinese leadership on some of the mega projects linked to this strategic port besides having groundbreaking discussions on their immediate follow-up with major Chinese construction companies as well as investment and financial institutions.
At least eight substantive agreements were signed in Beijing, including the one on the ‘economic corridor’ linking Pakistan’s coastal areas with northwest China which will not only boost their transport connectivity but also bolster bilateral and regional trade. It is in fact an overarching long-term plan covering connectivity, construction, economic and technical cooperation, and people-to-people and cultural exchanges.
As part of this plan, both sides have agreed to expand bilateral economic cooperation on high priority basis and start work on the China-Pakistan Cross-border Fibre Optic Cable Project at an appropriate time, upgrade and realign the Karakoram Highway on a fast-track basis, explore cooperation on solar and biomass energy and establish ‘industrial parks’ in Gwadar and along the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, launch at an early date inter-governmental consultations to implement Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcasting (DTMB) in Pakistan.
This indeed is a huge agenda. For China, it is a commitment to realising its own ‘dream of national rejuvenation’ through accelerated development of its western region whereas for Pakistan, it is a commitment to reviving the national economy and realising its ‘Asian Tiger dream’. The developmental goal-specific strategies of the two countries, therefore, coincide. The challenge now lies in how vigorously and faithfully they can translate their dreams into reality. Both sides will have to sharpen their implementation machineries, removing bureaucratic and procedural impediments. A ministerial joint committee will chisel up this long-term plan for its speedy commencement and time-bound completion.
The feasibility studies and implementation schedules are expected to be completed within one year. So far so good. The magnitude of problems on our side, however, is daunting and needs a paradigm shift in our governance patterns. Our corrupt politico-bureaucratic machinery and security situation are the biggest bottleneck and warrant immediate attention if we are serious about realising the common goals envisioned as part of the new ‘game-changing’ plans.
The government is fully aware of these challenges and is apparently already engaged in evolving policies and strategies to overcome them. What it needs is a comprehensive national security strategy with an effective legal framework, an efficient structural mechanism and a coherent functional methodology.
In his first post-Beijing press conference, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal rightly pointed out the need for transformation of our foreign policy into economic diplomacy to give new boost to trade and economic relations with neighbours and friendly countries. I am sure he knows what the basic tools of economic diplomacy are and whether we have them all. Economic diplomacy’s basic ingredients – consistent policies, stable law and order situation and supporting infrastructure – are missing in our country.
We neither have an integrated system of functioning in our missions abroad, which remain a house divided against itself, nor do we have a conducive atmosphere at home for investment and economic productivity. The Foreign Office functions merely as one of the many players in our missions abroad, but takes the entire blame even on matters that do not fall under it. It has no role whatsoever in policy formulation on trade and investment-related issues.
There is no integrated approach to handling development projects and funds. Foreign funds often lapse due to non-utilisation, and a number of projects are lost or abandoned only because there is no coordination among the relevant agencies of our government. In the absence of unity of purpose and a coherent approach, our missions remain without country-specific strategies or market-led product-specific focus. In this rotten system, economic diplomacy is no more than an empty horseless cart. Let us fix the system instead of focusing on the symptoms.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Email: shamshad1941@yahoo. com

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