India and US’ concerns over Pakistan are old but now China and Saudi Arabia too are indicating wariness over unfulfilled promises.
Few friends or presumed enemies seem willing to trust Pakistan’s promises even under a new leader. Reluctance of ‘friends’ Saudi Arabia and China to pump in billions of dollars in a faltering economy forced Prime Minister Imran Khan to turn to the IMF for a bailout. Ironically, he had said at one time that he would “rather commit suicide than go round the world begging for money”.
The offer of a ‘reset’ in relations by the United States is also not panning out. The US wants Pakistan to help with the peace process in Afghanistan and remains concerned about terrorism. Washington refuses to restore suspended economic and security assistance until it sees signs of change in Pakistan’s conduct.
India, often painted as Pakistan’s ‘eternal enemy’, has refused to hold high-level talks unless Pakistan stops supporting Kashmiri militants and other terrorists. Pakistan, it seems, has a credibility problem with most countries that matter in its foreign policy. American and Indian concerns about Pakistan are quite old but now even China and Saudi Arabia are indicating wariness over unfulfilled promises.
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China is concerned that Pakistan is trying to revise the terms of the approximately $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). From the Chinese perspective, a nation must honour its contracts and the Pakistani penchant for revisiting international business deals with every change of government in Islamabad is unacceptable.
Saudi Arabia is also unwilling to continue giving cash first and making requests later – something it has done as a friend of Pakistan in the past. Its current leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud, wants Pakistan to shed ambiguity and stand by the Kingdom against Iran, in addition to providing troops or other material support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen.
The Saudis say they are willing to invest in Pakistan but, like the Chinese, would want security and a good return for their investments. Pakistan has a poor track record in cancelling projects and using engineered judicial verdicts and criminal cases to deprive foreign investors of promised returns.
Independent Power Producers (IPPs) learnt the lesson on Pakistan’s unreliable investment environment in the 1990s. Over the years, several foreign investors have won hefty international arbitration awards against Pakistan because of allegedly unfair cancellation of contracts.
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Tethyan Copper Company Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Chilean mining giant Antofagasta and Canada’s Barrick Gold Corporation, is claiming more than $11 billion in compensation in the Reko Diq project after proving to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that Pakistan’s decision to cancel its mining contract in Balochistan was unlawful and unfair.
To be fair to Khan, many of these problems are the result of policies that have persisted for decades. But Khan still supports the hyper-nationalist Pakistani narrative that has given rise to Pakistan’s lack of international credibility. It persists with myths about Pakistan’s external friendships and animosities that are at the heart of the country’s global isolation.
The entrenched establishment that brought Khan to office had hoped that a new government, led by a fresh face, would be enough to convince the world that a new Pakistan had been born. In this view, renewed national pride and a celebrity prime minister was all that was needed to make other countries see Pakistan differently than they had in the past.
But a new prime minister and a recycled foreign minister do not change harsh realities. Pakistan does not honour United Nations’ terrorist designations nor does it abide by commercial contracts and agreements considered sacrosanct by the rest of the world. Such attitudes have consequences. Appointment of a new top management cannot help sell the old, bad product.
India was the first to burst Khan’s bubble. Khan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought talks between Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. India initially agreed, leading to premature euphoria in Islamabad.
For years, Pakistan’s leaders have defined the ability to keep India engaged diplomatically as an accomplishment in itself, even when no substantive progress is made in India-Pakistan talks.
As nuclear-armed neighbours, it makes sense for both sides to continue talking. But after terrorist attacks in India following Modi’s trip to Lahore in 2015, Indians had decided to stop talking.
There has been much speculation over why the Modi government initially agreed to the foreign ministers meeting in New York and subsequently changed its mind. The language of the statement by the Indian ministry of external affairs announcing the cancellation was definitely undiplomatic and provocative. But the argument that Pakistan must act against anti-India terrorists operating from its soil before there can be meaningful talks was certainly not new.
As if to prove India’s point that the Pakistani side only wanted talks to score a point, not to solve any outstanding problems, Khan’s response to the cancellation of talks was worse. He tweeted about Modi being among “small men occupying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture”.
Also read: Pakistan backtracks on CPEC plan saying Saudi Arabia cannot be third partner
Those familiar with Pakistani hawks’ characterisation of Indian leaders in the past could see the pattern in Khan’s egomaniacal bravado. Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s propagandists had described Lal Bahadur Shastri as “a little man” during the 1965 war and General Yahya Khan had been dismissive about Indira Gandhi being “that woman”.
Of course, the outcome of the anti-India bombast in 1965 and 1971 was not favourable for Pakistan and, notwithstanding the Modi government’s purported mishandling of ties with Pakistan, nor will the current swagger. But in the Pakistani establishment’s worldview – which is shared by Khan and his hyper-nationalist supporters – that is beside the point.
While India’s refusal to talk could be chalked up to the historic India-Pakistan dynamic, the lukewarm response of China, Saudi Arabia, and the United States to Khan’s diplomatic initiatives represents greater challenges. It seems that major partners around the world want Pakistan to change its policies, not just its prime ministers, and that change in policy does not seem to be on the cards.
If anything, the Khan government, backed by the establishment, has doubled down on the failed policies of the past. Foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, insisted recently that there can be no peace in Afghanistan without Pakistan, implying that Pakistan must be given a veto on the future of Afghanistan. This defies the notion of a peace process that is owned and led by Afghanistan’s government.
Similarly, Pakistan’s UN ambassador recently called on the international community to differentiate between ‘terrorists’ and ‘freedom fighters’ – an argument that was effectively buried by UN Security Council Resolution 1566 of 2004. That resolution defined terrorist acts and declared that they are “under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature”.
Instead of insisting on an ideologically driven, unrealistic agenda for engagement with the rest of the world, Pakistan needs to see itself from others’ eyes and embrace some humility. Whether it’s the issue of terrorism or the question of abiding by international contracts, Pakistan must change its policy direction.
Until that happens, Pakistanis can express to each other as much optimism as they like about their future, based on the ‘dynamism’ and ‘incorruptibility’ of their new leadership. The rest of the world will not be swayed by such rhetoric.
Husain Haqqani, director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C., was Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008-11. His latest book is ‘Reimagining Pakistan’.
You always were and will be a puppet for “your master’s voice”. Pakistan will survive, not because but in spite of you and people like you.
50 years politicians like you rob this country. First time some one who is honest I know he can make mistake because he is new to government. If your new wife have baby after 50 days of marriage who you going to blame her mew husband or her old boyfriend. think. He is trying his best give him time you will see thing will get better Just think about Pakistan not just your hate against Imran khan
As usual, daringly brilliant! Pakistan’s loss but gain to the world. Mr. Haqqani holds mirror to the state of affairs in his country of birth. Pakistan would do well to mend it’s ways soon.
Mr H. A quick question:- HOW LONG were you fighting in Afghanistan? War on terror is entering 18 th year…..where are the RESULTS?
How long has he been in power?
You are blinded by the West.
This man never had any credibility with anyone except the Indians. Critique and criticism are fine and most welcome but, they have to be based on facts not innuendos. I can’t quite follow Haqqani’s logic in this peace of unforgivable trash disguised as a serious attempt to analyze the current situation faced by Pakistan. Who doesn’t know about the sorry state of the country economy and finances. But, most (even Haqqani) would acknowledge the corruption and mismanagement by previous administrations which this schmuck Haqqani was a willing contributor.
There are no friends in International relations only reality of the times. Saudi’s and China are no different but see mutual benefits in promoting diplomatic, cultural and business ties with Pakistan. US, currently (perhaps fortunately) and correctly does not consider relations with Pakistan as a matter of a great priority. BTW, what the US has criminally withheld from Pakistan are the overdue amount it owes Pakistan as an mutually agreed expense incurred by Pakistan part of the ‘war on terror’ campaign sponsored by the US. Pakistan would consider it a blessing to not be a recipient of aid from the US.
Now, Pakistan has a myriad of problems to range from social, religious to include zealotry and even misogyny. But, Pakistan is not a terrorist state unlike India which is an active terrorist state involved in untold atrocities in Kashmir and choking the remaining life out of Kashmiris the result of this human bondage.
Hussain Haqqani is making bold sarcastic remarks on US Policies under Trump Administration by saying “a nation must honour its contracts”. Bravo!
People like Hussain Haqqani and Tarek Fateh earn there livelihood by selling their pens to the enemies of their homeland. What else can you expect from such traitors.
Hussain Haqqani I know where is it coming from 😉
Anyways for your info Saudis are joining CPEC and PM is going to China
Saudis visited Gwadar
I know you will cherry pick negatives
Yes everyone needs food on the table
But out of patriotism you could place love of your country ahead
You had your chance
You blew it
Shikwa e zulmat e shab se tou kaheen behter tha
Apney hisey ki koi shama jalate jaatey
But you needs money
Sad, people like you will not get respect home and abroad alike
You are already seeing
Succinctly put, as always Ambassador Haqqani’s dispassionate analysis of Pakistan is right on target. I only wish if had added a sentence or two for the role of the US to arrange a successful dismantling of this failed-state that simply cannot change what is in its very nature i.e. the terrorism. Military regimes can never relinquish the reins of power once it has taken over a given country, and in the case of Pakistan it has been well over a generation solidified during the General Zia’s dictatorship.
Paki-Army Cabal will continue to sow the seeds of terrorism both in Afghanistan and India to keep things at a full boil to meet the demands or rather the military imperatives i.e. timely promotions, occasions for the boys to display valor, and not the least money laundering opportunities from the clandestine illicit drug trade. IPaki-Army will continue to fight ruthlessly the insurgency wars in three out of its four provinces and further exacerbate it’s tenuous hold.
Lastly, Paki-Army Cabal is also unwittingly killing the entrepreneurial spirit from the society which thrives in the society with the order of the rule of law not arbitrary power as has been the case with crony clients and pateron arrangement further eroding the remaining vestiges of a civil society.
What Ambassador Haqqani didn’t say: The country is not long for this world – I give it three to five years, at best before it breaks into its tribal constituent nation-states, with perhaps leaving the province of Punjab to carry the name of Pakistan should she chooses for it has been the Punjabi elites that have been essential writers of its obituary for the past 71 years. I thank you dear readers.
You perhaps represent the sanest voice on Pakistan, even if out of favour and branded a traitor in your own country! You paint a gloomy picture here but something tells me, change is nigh! For that, Pakistan has to revisit its founding principles that of a supremacist Islamic nation…it has simply become gangrenous for Pakistan..it has outlived its utility as opium for the masses..the rest of the world has no appetite for the same. Of course, it’s not as simple as said. But if the deep sate realises it, the transition can be made without much hassle..Pak being still controlled by the military. A loose federation with India, in return for its economic muscle backing it , can save the day for Pak. Otherwise, it’s soon going to be gobbled up by China! Pakistan should know and would know how China treats its Muslim population in Xinjiang! There is no time to be lost, it’s already too late!