Imtiaz Gul
During their meeting in Davos (January 21, 2020) President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Imran Khan as a “very good friend of mine”, adding, “…we’ve never been closer with Pakistan than we are right now.” Almost at the same time, Alice Wells, Trump’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, made little secret of the US aversion to China and its globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Between her appearance at Woodrow Wilson Centre in November last year, and her exchanges in Islamabad in January, the content of Wells’ conversation on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has hardly changed – consistently resonating “reservations” about the BRI.
Common elements of her speeches – disguised in “advice” to Pakistan – are geo-political in nature at best, simply because they flow from the challenge posed by the Chinese economic model to the US and the West.
Wherever Wells goes, she complains of a lack of transparency in CPEC projects, warns of the growing Chinese debt burden on Pakistan, and cautions against involving Chinese companies which have been “blacklisted by the World Bank.”
Wells’ harsh assessment – which borders on unqualified prejudicial criticism of the Chinese support to Pakistan – drew unusually strong governmental reactions from both Islamabad and Beijing.
Pakistan’s strongest ever response came from Prime Minister Imran Khan himself during his interview with the CNBC News in Davos. In unambiguous terms, Khan offered a categorical defense of China and the cooperation with it.
As reported by Dawn: “When the Chinese came to help us with this Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and CPEC, we were really at the rock bottom,” he said. “They came and pumped in, not just they gave us loans – and the loans, by the way are barely five or six percent of the total portfolio,” said Mr. Khan, rejecting the suggestion that the CPEC was a debt-trap. “This is nonsense.” He added that the CPEC was “beyond BRI as China was also helping Pakistan in technology transfer. They are especially helping us in agriculture because Chinese technology (can boost) development (in this sector) much better than Pakistan’s as “our productivity is very low”.
The Chinese ministry of foreign affairs snapped back in the same unequivocal terms.
“The comments hold nothing new, but the same cliché in her speech in November, 2019, which has been repeatedly rejected by China and Pakistan. “We must not let the truth be distorted and the lies run wild. The entire process is open and transparent and is in line with international norm… it is agreed that the CPEC is clean… we reject the negative propaganda by the US.”
The US and western officials, driven by their dislike, if not contempt, for the phenomenal economic rise of China, overlook a fundamental reality rooted in the Chinese civilizational norms: never be overbearing to your friends; never forget the good that friends and neighbors bring you – even if decades go by; never project your superiority onto economically disadvantaged friends; and never speak with your friends in two tongues. Both China and Pakistan have rescued each other and collaborated on many fronts umpteen times, and hence PM Khan’s rightful assertion that “this relationship goes beyond BRI (and CPEC).” It stands out as a real friendship anchored in the principle of mutual respect and sincere support for economic development. Had it been a transactional relationship accompanied by deception, bullying, sticks, and gunpowder, it would have long dissipated.
