Sino-Pakistan Ties: Trust, Cooperation and Consolidation

1 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVII, No.4, Summer 2014 Sino-Pakistan Ties: Trust, Cooperation and Consolidation Syed Rifaat Hussain* China and Pakistan's "all weather friendship" appears to be somewhat of an enigma to IR theorists. Realists1 argue, that faced with a common enemy, threatened states enter into an alliance and when the threat dissipates, their alliance is more than likely to atrophy. As Stephen M. Walt observes, "Common to the various versions of realist theory is the prediction that weaker states will form alliances to oppose stronger powers." (p. 276). Judged by this realist logic, the Pakistan-China entente cordiale, which was forged in the early 1960s based on their shared hostility towards neighboring India, should have come undone with diminished Indian threat and following steady improvement in Sino-Indian ties since the early 1980s. Contrary to this expectation, rather than showing any visible strains, *Syed Rifaat Hussain is a Professor at National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. He taught at Stanford University in California. He is the author of Afghanistan . He is the author of Afghanistan and 9/11: The Anatomy of a conflict (2002) and From Dependence to Intervention: Soviet-Afghanistan Relations during the Brezhnev Era(1964-1982), 1994. He wish to thank Ms. Sharon Freitas for her helpful editorial comments and Janani Ramachandran for her valuable research inputs. The author is particularly grateful to Dr. Thomas Fingar for providing guidance and specific suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 Realism posits that interstate relations are based on motivations for power. Beyond power, realists stress the analytic centrality of states, their interest in survival, the primacy of material capabilities, and rationality. Realists point to four factors in alliance formation: the level of external threat faced by the allies, the military capabilities of the allied states, and the extent to which policy goals are shared by the allies, and the availability of substitute allies. See Stephen M. Walt, "Testing Theories of Alliance formation: The Case of Southwest Asia", International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Spring, 1980), pp. 275-316 2 Pakistan and China continue to broaden the scope of their bilateral ties and deepen its foundations. Social constructivists explain friendly ties between countries by invoking such commonalities as identity, culture, values and religion.2 None of these fully apply to Pakistan-China strategic cooperation as the two countries belong to distinct cultural and civilization zones.3 Similarly, regime type cannot account for the durability of Sino-Pak ties as the relationship has remained solid across different regime changes in Pakistan and periodic upheavals in domestic politics of China. What then explains the longevity of Sino-Pakistan friendship? I offer two reasons apart from the usual realist explanation couched in the familiar language of balance-of-power theory, namely, that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend." Firstly, a high degree of mutual trustworthiness at the leadership level which in turn has generated good will at the level of the masses; secondly, China's appreciation of and help in mitigating the security dilemmas faced by Pakistan on account of the latter's ongoing strategic competition with India. Taken together these two factors—mutual trust and strategic sympathy for Pakistan's security dilemmas—better explain the longevity of Sino-Pakistan ties captured by such rhetorical phrases as "all weather friendship" which is "time tested" and is "taller than Himalayas" and "deeper than oceans and sweeter than honey." Interestingly, the weak presence and gradual erosion of these two factors caused the demise of Pakistan's formal alliance with the United States. The paper is divided into two broad sections. In the early part of the first section, the role of trust as a factor is explored in promoting strategic cooperation between Pakistan and China. In the latter part of the first section the dynamics of Sino-Pakistan security cooperation are highlighted. The first section offers a detailed historical account of developments in Sino-Pakistan tie and juxtaposes these trends in the ebb and flow of Pak-US ties. The second section of the paper discusses China's rise as a global power and its likely impact on the future trajectory...