Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan traveled to Beijing on Friday to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. He also since met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to sign a number of business deals to cement what is called “phase two” of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a significant aspect of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
While some countries have become confrontational against China in a number of geopolitical areas, Islamabad is tilting closer to Beijing in a relationship which President Xi described earlier as one between “iron brothers.” Their nexus is fueled by a common antipathy towards India, and despite the vastly different ideologies of both countries.
“Pakistan and China not only see each other as iron brothers, but they also think that China and Pakistan’s relationship is as high as the Himalayas. It’s the people-to-people relationship,” Khan said in an interview with Global Times published on Sunday. He added that the relationship between the two nations will only “get closer and stronger” in the future, thanks to the CPEC.
The growing closeness of China and Pakistan recently prompted the Indian National Congress and opposition leader Rahul Gandhi to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having “brought the two countries together.”
Is Pakistan increasingly an ally of China? Does Khan’s visit mark Islamabad ultimately “taking sides” in what has been dubbed a new Cold War in the same way the media have framed Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing and the subsequent Sino-Russia statement? Both Beijing and Islamabad have found themselves with broadly overlapping strategic, economic and military interests. And Pakistan, in the bigger picture, also finds itself with few other options for transforming its jagged fortunes.
It has been for a long time, to put it mildly, a struggling country. With a GDP per capita of just $1,194 in 2020, Pakistan has wrestled with poverty, a rising population of over 220 million, and political instability exacerbated by ethno-sectarian conflict and terrorism. In addition to domestic troubles, the nation faces a patchy security environment externally, being locked in a longstanding antagonistic relationship with India, and Afghanistan sitting on its western frontier. This has created the dilemma of Pakistan being a poor country, yet one which is also a nuclear-weapon state with one of the largest armies in the world.
However, Pakistan’s geostrategic position has become essential to its northeastern neighbor, China. On a map, Pakistan is aligned on an almost diagonal trajectory connecting with China from the western Himalayas heading downwards into the Indian Ocean, and in close proximity to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. This route allows China to bypass the politically and militarily sensitive routes of the East and South China Seas and the Straits of Malacca, where the US is attempting to navally encircle them. On this geographic premise, China ultimately presented troubled Pakistan with an offer it could not refuse: to become the “spine” of the Belt and Road project through the CPEC, promising to transform its fortunes. While doing this, China has also given Pakistangrowing access to its enormous consumer market.