What is AUKUS?

Haider Mehdi

Trade routes are the Achilles heels of every empire, so is for China, as has happened since the first trader went East or West.

Military campaigns were closely followed by trade campaigns as conquering hordes created opportunities for traders to follow the paths they cleared for caravans to ply on!

And the source of their power was to tax these traders and caravans to fill their coffers, feed and arm their armies and conquer and plunder fresh lands.

Thus the soft underbelly of any empire were its sources of tax revenue and hence their adversaries aimed at capturing these trade routes and the consequential economic capital which accrued.

The AUKUS (Australia United Kingdom USA) alliance of three Anglophone English speaking countries in The Pacific, leaving India out in the cold, is a highly dangerous strategy to encircle and interdict Chinese shipping trade as well as their road and rail outreach.

An attempt loaded with potentially highly inflammable consequences for the Region and the World. 

Hence CPEC is also in their cross hairs which suffers from two major problems. 

The external threat by AUKUS, India, Israel to  disrupt, derail and destroy it.

And the internal threat from Pakistan’s inability to plan and implement CPEC projects effectively. 

Both have serious consequences for Pakistan.

Our inability stems from decades of capacity and capability incompetence and massive corruption in our government machineries! Thanks to Mafiosos Nawaz Sharif and The Bhutto / Zardari combine.

Unfortunately cleaning a gutter of decades of sewage will take time. Perhaps a whole new generation of our dynamic young people who’ve not been infected by this virus of corruption and incompetence as our generation, which has failed Pakistan, has been!

Only time and sustained effort will solve this challenge. Unfortunately there are no shortcuts.

So does this mean that the Chinese will give up CPEC?

In my opinion and to paraphrase our PM “Absolutely Not”.

Remember, Chinese go for incredibly long term plays spanning decades, if not a century. 

They will not and cannot abandon CPEC, being one of their most significant road and bridge economic juggernaut outreach strategies.

On the contrary, in my opinion they will continue to work with us to help us deliver the bare minimum required and take over more and more of the planning and implementation responsibility, eventually perhaps even security, if we are unable to deliver on these fronts. 

This unfortunately also has serious consequences for our independence as well.

But it’s a choice we’ve made.

Either we pull up our socks or the Chinese will pull them up for us or they will pull up their socks! 

This is how I read it. 

But CPEC is here to stay. One way or the other as far as the Chinese intention goes.

But this highly racist partnership called AUKUS is like the coming together of Christian Europe in the CRUSADES against the Muslims.

Only this time it’s the Anglophones against the Chinese with Canada and New Zealand still watching from the sidelines.

AUKUS objective is simple. Stop the Chinese Economic Juggernaut by doing everything to stop their trade. 

Will they succeed? Highly unlikely ( I wish I could say absolutely not) but in the process AUKUS could cause immense damage to the world, start regional military conflicts, trade wars, overthrowing governments, assassinating leaders.

The Ugly American can get very very Ugly

Even if they don’t succeed and are in the dying throes of an aging empire, like the dying throes of an elephant they can be as destructive as the elephant’s headlong maniacal rampage through the forests of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and now the Pacific…

Author is a Toronto-based Analyst and broadcaster