On December 18, 2019, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan implored the world to pressure the Indian government to revoke their controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which promises citizenship to all non-Muslim refugees and immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. In his speech to the Global Refugee Forum, he stated that “if the world acts right now and puts pressure on the Indian government to stop this illegal activity, we could prevent this crisis.” He also referred to the act as “Islamaphobic” and “Xenophobic”, threatening sanctions and potential conflict with India. However, just a couple of months earlier, on July 12, 2019, Pakistan was one of 50 countries that backed China's policies in Xinjiang, with Prime Minister Khan signing a joint letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and commending China's "remarkable achievements in the field of human rights." On the contrary, evidence shows that China is interning entire communities of Uyghur Muslims. They are interned at detention centers where they are forced to consume pork and alcohol, do manual labor, and women are forced to undergo sterilization. When confronted with this double standard, Prime Minister Khan bluntly explained that China had been a great friend of Pakistan throughout history and that “Pakistan does not talk about things with China in public right now because they are very sensitive.”
The concept of mutual alliance based on a common enemy despite significant differences has always existed throughout history. For example, during the American Revolutionary War, The Absolute Monarchy of France signed a treaty of alliance with the fledgling enlightened democratic United States as they both had a desire to defeat Great Britain. Similarly, during the Second World War, the communist Soviet Union welcomed the capitalist United States into the Allies as they both shared a desire to defeat Nazi Germany. Currently, this diplomatic concept accurately represents the relationship between Pakistan and China as both countries seek to combat Indian aggression and influence. At first glance, such an amicable relationship between the Atheistic Communist state and the Islamic Republic should be unlikely as both countries are vastly different, both culturally and socially. Yet, throughout recent history, Sino-Pakistani relations have strengthened rather than declined as would be expected due to their sheer differences. Using course materials and primary and secondary sources, this paper aims to explore how such an unlikely relationship bloomed through the course of the Cold War and beyond.
Political History between China and Pakistan:
To understand the blossoming relationship between these two countries, it is imperative to understand how such a relationship formed in the first place. On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the People’s Republic of China after defeating the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek and routing them to Taiwan, marking the end of the Chinese Civil War. Two years later, Pakistan became the first Muslim country to recognize the communist state. For a while, relations between the two countries remained cordial: Pakistan was hesitant to pursue closer ties with China due to its reliance on U.S. aid and China overlooked tensions between India and Pakistan as India was a socialist state with a greater influence in South Asia. Even after, in 1956, when then-Pakistani Prime Minister Huseyn Suhrawady signed a friendship treaty with then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, China remained largely neutral in the conflict between India and Pakistan.
In 1958, Field Marshal Ayub Khan seized power of the Pakistani government through a military coup and quickly consolidated the country’s relations with the U.S., signing a bilateral security agreement with the U.S. in 1959, which allowed the U.S. to build military bases in Pakistan. President Khan even offered India a defense agreement for a joint defense against any external threat. This action greatly concerned the Chinese government, which feared that the U.S. was planning to surround China with nations under their sphere of influence. Furthermore, in 1959, President Ayub claimed that there were areas in the disputed region of Kashmir that China controlled but belonged to Pakistan. Buoyed by its military and economic ties with the U.S., he even went as far as stating that Pakistan would be willing to go to war for those areas, just as it had engaged in a war with India over the same region. Naturally, relations remained tense and volatile between the two countries until January 16, 1961, when President Ayub replaced his foreign minister with an ambitious 30-year-old man named Zulkifar Ali Bhutto, who would forever change Sino-Pakistani relations, along with the country of Pakistan, for generations yet to come.
Unlike his predecessors, Bhutto advocated for closer ties with China. He saw China as another world power that could counterbalance India’s influence in the region. His views were confirmed when China and India engaged in armed conflict over the Kashmiri region in 1962. After China defeated India in the conflict, President Ayub, who was reluctant to pursue closer ties with the communist state, agreed with Bhutto’s viewpoint. In March 1963, Bhutto visited China and signed a treaty of alliance with the Chinese government, which resolved all border disputes in Kashmir and established economic, military, and political ties between both nations. Bhutto returned home as a diplomatic hero, having gained Pakistan a powerful ally against India. In 1971, he was elected as Pakistan’s first socialist President.
Furthermore, President Bhutto realigned his foreign policy towards China and away from the U.S. During the Mao years, he strengthened ties with China. Despite the Chairman pursuing an isolationist foreign policy, especially after the Sino-Soviet split of 1956, Mao Zedong had a deep respect for President Bhutto, whom he viewed as a Maoist bringing prosperity to his people. As a result, Pakistan was one of the few countries that China opened up to during the Mao years. However, a significant turning point in the relationship was when a newly empowered China, just having received the UN security council’s permanent seat from the Nationalists in Taiwan, used its first veto power to deny Bangladesh’s application for recognition as an independent country. They claimed Bangladesh to be a rebellious province of Pakistan just as Tibet was to China. To show his gratitude to the Chinese government, President Bhutto arranged for U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to take a stealth flight from Islamabad to Beijing. Kissinger mediated the secret discussions between the U.S. and Chinese governments, thus beginning the normalization of the U.S.-China relationship. Additionally, President Bhutto was the last foreign guest Mao Zedong received before his death 105 days later; subsequently, Bhutto issued a period of national mourning. Conversely, after Bhutto was ousted and executed by a right-wing military government, many Maoists in China and worldwide condemned the overthrow and execution as “barbaric and unjust.”
Even after the Cold War, the relationship between Pakistan and China has strengthened considerably. Be it right-wing military governments or left-wing democratically elected governments, Pakistan's ever-changing political leadership has always had one thing in common: to advocate for closer relations with the Chinese government. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which was roundly criticized by the Western world, Pakistan was one of the few nations that supported the Chinese government. Then-Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto went as far as publicly denouncing the protests even though she was a public proponent of Pakistan’s democratization. She based her foreign policy on that of her late father, and she sought to promote economic and military ties with the People’s Republic and away from the U.S. After the September 11th Attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, the Bush and Obama administrations at first favored the Pakistani government due to their close proximity to Afghanistan. However, after receiving reports that Pakistani’s Inter-Services Intelligence provided strategic support and intelligence to the Afghan Taliban, the U.S. government gradually withdrew its support for the Pakistani government and shifted it towards the Indian government.
Consequently, this has led the subsequent Pakistani governments, be it conservative or liberal, to pursue closer ties than ever with the Chinese government, having felt betrayed and used by the U.S. In return, China provides economic and military aid to Pakistan, turns a blind eye towards the ISI supporting the Taliban, and criticizes India whenever there is a border excursion or dispute with Pakistan. Thus, a primary factor for why this unlikely alliance between these two countries exists is the culmination of decades of gradual realignment and diplomatic overtures away from the United States and towards the People’s Republic of China.
Tensions between China and India:
Additionally, to understand China and Pakistan’s relationship, it is imperative to understand the frosty relationship between China and India. At first, relations between the two countries were cordial, with India being the first non-communist country in Asia to recognize the People’s Republic in 1950. Both countries signed a trade agreement in 1954 and, along with Pakistan, attended the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. All three countries, along with twenty-six other countries, signed the Bandung Declaration, which aimed to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation along with opposing colonialism and neocolonialism by any nation, serving as a preamble to the Non-Aligned movement that would later arise in the Cold War. However, relations quickly soured in 1960 as border conflicts erupted in the region of Kashmir, to which both China and India lay claim to and sought to occupy. To rectify this problem, Premier Zhou Enlai visited India in what would later become a landmark event in Indo-Chinese relations. Zhou Enlai’s negotiation with Indian Prime Minister Nehru ended in a deadlock and, when he returned to Beijing, he wrote in a note to Chairman Mao that India’s “economic policy has moved increasingly towards the right [and] the gap between the rich and poor is growing.” The border disputes resulted in a short border war between the two countries in 1962, resulting in a Chinese victory. As a result of this humiliation, anti-Chinese sentiment was prevalent throughout India.
During the 1970s and 1980s, under India’s authoritarian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who also happens to be the daughter of Prime Minister Nehru, the country was steered towards the Soviet Union to counter Chinese and U.S. influence in Pakistan. Under her rule, the Indian Communist Party was accused of being pro-Chinese and illegally funded by the Chinese government and many of their political leaders were jailed during the state of emergency that Prime Minister Gandhi imposed to secure her rule. Naturally, this infuriated the Chinese government who, in turn, provided military aid to Pakistan every time they went to war with India or funded their nuclear program to counter India’s nuclear program.
More recently, there have been a lot of hurdles for India and China to overcome. At present, India faces a trade imbalance that is heavily in favor of China. Unlike Pakistan, the two countries have also failed to resolve their border disputes in Kashmir, and there are reports of Chinese military incursion into Indian territory. Additionally, while Pakistan has been moving closer towards China, India has been moving closer towards the U.S., which signals that both countries are wary of the other’s competing influence. China has also funded separatist groups in Northeast India, known to employ terrorist attacks in the region from time to time.
Therefore, it is impractical to state that the only reason China is allied with Pakistan is to counter India’s influence. All three countries have a complex and unique relationship with one another that would have been impossible to achieve in a standardized world. China’s tensions with India stem all the way back to 1960, and with U.S. influence in India growing by the hour, China’s best bet to counter a U.S.-influenced state on its southern border is to have a Chinese-influenced state on its southern border, and with Pakistan, that influenced state can be achieved.
Economic Ties:
Another primary factor contributing to the alliance between China and Pakistan is the deep economic ties the countries have with one another. Pakistan was one of the few nations that traded with Mao’s China. When the foreign minister of Pakistan gifted a set of mangoes to Chairman Mao in 1968, Mao quickly used the gift as a propaganda tool. Foreign Affairs journalist Evan Osnos describes in his book, Age of Ambition, how the Chinese populace worshipped the mangoes for they received the touch of Mao Zedong, and how the gift was sealed in glass boxes to avoid its decay. Essentially, Maoism became the state religion of China during his rule, and the mangoes that Pakistan gifted were a sign of a blessed economic relationship between the two countries.
Recently, China has sought to influence other countries via economic methods. They fund and provide billions of dollars in aid and grants to developing countries, and in return, they receive economic and political influence in said country. Pakistan is no exception. In 2013, as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the two countries established the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is an economic route stretching from Western China through Pakistan to the Indian Ocean coast, comprising a collection of vast infrastructure projects under construction in Pakistan valued at 47 billion dollars. CPEC’s potential impact on Pakistan has been compared to that of the United States in post-war Europe, with Pakistani officials predicting that CPEC could create 2.3 million jobs between 2015 and 2030 and increase the national GDP by two to three percent. When the Corridor was established, celebrations rang out in Pakistan, with many Pakistani politicians offering gratitude to the Chinese government to help build Pakistan’s inadequate infrastructure and economy.
Additionally, Pakistan has been the largest recipient of foreign aid from the Chinese government. After the devastating 2010 floods that crippled Pakistan, then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao committed to and delivered 250 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the flood-stricken country, its largest-ever humanitarian aid to any foreign country. During the 1990s, Pakistan was vulnerable to economic collapse owing to a combination of severe economic mismanagement and a halt in U.S. economic assistance following the imposition of the sanctions. It narrowly avoided economic collapse due to millions of dollars of Chinese loans and capital aid. Thus, a large amount of foreign aid that China provides has considerably strengthened relations between Pakistan and China and has only moved Pakistan closer to China’s sphere. Many Pakistani citizens often have a favorable view of China, citing their capital aid and their willingness to protect Pakistan’s national pride, especially when it comes to India. In contrast, many Pakistani citizens have a negative view of the United States, blaming their interventionism in Afghanistan for causing the Afghan refugee crisis and for conducting drone strikes in rural Pakistan. Additionally, they criticize the Obama government for not respecting Pakistan’s sovereignty when they sent Seal Team Six to kill Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
However, there are critics of this economic relationship. According to Indian political journalist Harsh Pant, “China has been forced to pump in some more money, and Pakistan has been forced to take on more debt only to sustain the façade of a productive economic engagement between the two nations.” He cites the various corruptions of capital and foreign aid by members of the Pakistani government and the rolling back of special projects, and China’s security concerns of operating within Pakistan. Even in Pakistan, there are critics of Pakistan’s dependence on China, criticizing the CPEC as a debt-trap that will burden Pakistan in the long term. Pakistan has already faced numerous economic crises throughout its history and already has a stifling debt. Many Pakistani economists worry that this economic relationship with China will tie a chain of massive debt to China, forcing the country to be permanently dependent on Chinese aid, unable to dig itself out of this financial hole.
Military Ties:
Unlike their economic relationship, the military relationship between Pakistan and China is of mutual benefit as both countries seek to contain India’s military. Pakistan’s military relationship with China goes as far back as the Mao years. Author Jung Chang revealed this in Wild Swans, written when she visited Zhangjiang to practice her English with foreign sailors. She references how a “Pakistani military attaché came down from Peking…[They] had been to Sichuan.” Her personal experience reinforces that the two countries had a stable military relationship as the Pakistani military traveled throughout China during the isolationist Mao years during the height of the cultural revolution. China has been the major arms supplier of Pakistan since 1990. Most of the weapons that the Pakistani army uses are purchased and created in China. This military relationship is mutually beneficial for both nations as Pakistan receives arms and supplies to bolster their army and protect themselves from an Indian attack. At the same time, China received Western-made arms and military technology through Pakistan after multiple nations imposed an arms embargo on China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Pakistan’s Air Force and Navy include Chinese ships and interceptors, and Pakistan is producing the JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat aircraft jointly with China and the K-8 Karakorum light attack aircraft. The sharing of military technology between the two nations is vital for their national security. Both countries seek to combat Indian influence and intervention in Kashmir. Where both Pakistan and China have claimed Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir as their own, and border conflicts in that region are expected.
Despite their differences in culture, religion, and ideology, one aspect of the relationship that binds the two countries is their history of authoritarianism. Even though Pakistan claims that they are a democracy, the real power lies in the military’s hands, who have exercised a role in Pakistani politics since its founding. The Pakistani Army favors a relationship with China as China provides arms and technology to the Pakistani Army with no strings attached. As a result, the Chinese government can rest easy knowing that their relationship with Pakistan is stable no matter who is elected Prime Minister, as the army favors a closer relationship with China over the U.S. The military has also intervened in the premierships of the Pakistani Prime Ministers’ if they felt the Prime Minister was shifting the country away from closer ties with China, effectively a coup d'etat. They are consolidating the Pakistani-Chinese relationship further to the Chinese government’s delight.
The most powerful military technology that China provided Pakistan with was the blueprint of the nuclear bomb. After its own acquisition of nuclear technology, China championed the rights of all nations to obtain this weapon of mass destruction as it felt the restriction of ownership was a Western imposition on the third world. This sentiment then guided Beijing to provide intelligence on nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan’s chief nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan. Additionally, after India conducted its own successful nuclear test in 1974, the Chinese government accelerated its support of Pakistan’s nuclear program. They viewed a nuclear India as a dangerous threat and believed that a nuclear Pakistan would be an effective deterrent.
Additionally, Chinese security agencies have been accused of knowing and supporting Pakistani transfers of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Therefore, the two countries’ military relationship is one of the leading factors in why there is an unlikely alliance between them. It is a mutually beneficial relationship wherein China receives Western arms and technology via Pakistan, while Pakistan receives arms and nuclear technology from China. The exchange is a source of national pride in both countries.
Criticism of Sino-Pakistani Relations:
Surprisingly, there is little criticism among intellectuals of the relationship between both countries within both Pakistan and China. In China, most intellectuals often follow the State’s policy of promoting ties with Pakistan and self-censor their own thoughts of the Islamic Republic. In Pakistan, where intellectuals are given a little freedom to exercise their views, there have been very few cases of intellectuals criticizing the Sino-Pakistani alliance, more often on economic grounds rather than humanitarian. Especially shocking is the silence among Pakistani intellectuals and Islamic leaders on the internment of the Uyghur populace, a majority of whom are Muslims. Krzysztof Iwanek notes this in his article “The Deafening Silence of Pakistani Jihadists and Radicals on China’s Uyghurs.” He notes how there is little to almost no discussion among Pakistani intellectuals on the matter. He also explains that those firebrand Islamic preachers that publicly condemn the Indian, Burmese, and U.S. governments for their discrimination towards their Muslim populace “turned cold when the issue of Xinjiang camps hit the headlines around the globe.” It is quite remarkable that the country with the world’s second most Muslim population and the world’s first Islamic Republic is voluntarily silent about their fellow Muslims’ plight because of the benefits the Sino-Pakistani alliance brings to them that far outweighs the costs.
What little criticism of the relationship which may be unearthed was not from Pakistani intellectuals but rather from economists, although few in number and opinion, these economists worry that Pakistan is becoming increasingly dependent on China. For example, CPEC, which was widely celebrated among Pakistani economists and government officials, was criticized by a few U.S.-oriented economists that argued the Corridor was a debt-trap for Pakistan and that its benefits were only short-term. It is important to note that these economists favor a trade relationship with the U.S. and if the U.S. were to engage in a similar project with Pakistan, these economists would be silent on the matter.
Furthermore, there is evidence that shows that Chinese foreign aid often does not help the general public, with corruption running rampant among the Pakistani bureaucracy. Despite China providing nearly a hundred million dollars a year to aid Pakistan’s people, critics in the U.S. have pointed out that, although a substantial amount does go to help the Pakistani economy and population in terms of infrastructure or welfare, a good amount of that money does not reach the Pakistani population but rather lines the pockets of Pakistani bureaucrats or politicians, with an estimated twenty million dollars lost in corruption every year. That is another criticism among Pakistani economists about China’s economic relationship, with many arguing that foreign aid from all countries, China included, is doing more harm to Pakistan than good. Therefore, despite there being very few critics, both in Pakistan and China, about the alliance between the two countries, the few that criticize the alliance often do so from an economic perspective, not a humanitarian one, unlike Western nations.
Conclusion:
As this paper has described, the relationship between Pakistan and China is extremely complex. This unlikely alliance is one that has been gradually developed throughout their histories. It encompasses their political, economic, and military alliance that benefits both nations. Critics of their relationship often point to Pakistan’s over-reliance on China, which China can take advantage of, especially with Pakistan’s growing debt. Yet, the Pakistani people seem to ignore all of that along with China’s persecution of their Uyghur Muslim populace; in fact, according to a 2013 Pew Research poll, 81% of Pakistani citizens have a favorable view of China, the highest in the world. International Relations scholars often point to the Chinese-Pakistani relationship as a prime example of the neo-realist school of International Relations theory, pointing out that state power considerations, rather than culture, religion, ideology, can determine foreign policy behavior. When confronted by U.S. officials about China’s uncompromising support for Pakistan, Chinese General Xiong Guangkai famously said, “Pakistan is China’s Israel.” Unless there is a significant change in foreign policy, Pakistan will always be in China’s pocket, with little hope for change in the future.