The longstanding enmity between Pakistan and India remains a geopolitical flashpoint in South Asia, which has implications for regional peace far greater than the Subcontinent. This animosity, decades old, has been fought through numerous wars, persistent border battles and diplomatic clashes, and is a complicated fight to understand, with few easy metrics of victory or defeat. For Pakistanis, the Indian connection is an asymmetric problem and a dilemma that they have tosteer carefully around.
Pakistan, which lacks the industrial and military superiority of its neighbor, has nonetheless maintained its independence and territorial integrity. Nuclearization has possibly been Pakistan’s greatest achievement in the strategic dimension, which provides for avoidance that disables India from fully reaping the dividends of its conventional military advantage. Now, his cold nuclear peace has upset that balance of terror, and though the occasional provocation or conflict may occur, the cost of full-on war now balances it.
Undoubtedly, the hand of friendship extended by China has made strategic defiance of India by the Pakistanis possible. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative of China, which is worth more than $ 62 billion and will bring investment in infrastructure and energy sectors of Pakistan. And this alliance is much deeper than merely the economic, but geopolitical as well.
Diplomatic victories at international forums, technology transfer indefense and strategic coordination on regional issues have been a tough balancing act to the growing international clout of India. As a strategic partnership between the two countries, China and Pakistan have gone beyond transactional to multi-dimensional cooperation in military-economic and diplomatic disciplines. That has put it in a secure position thanks to both military combined exercises, weapons projects in its favor and intelligence sharing. As part of CPEC, Chinese investment in strategic deep-waterfacilities such as Gwadar has provided Pakistan with access to fresh economic highways, while also providing China access to shipping lanes of the Arabian Sea. This complex bilateral relationship has embraced a history of disadvantage as a junior player in the India-Pakistan competitiveness.
And yet there is little denying the immense price Pakistan has paid in this prolonged war. Continuing needs to uphold military preparedness, the fact that the country has suffered and continues to suffer from extreme economic problems, prevents adequate allocation of scarce resources to the nation’s development needs. The nature of security informed the governance environment of Pakistan; the reality of being a strategy-driven environment has further complexified the surroundings, the coercive institutions in Pakistan having to take the heft of the decision-making, quite correctly so. Terrorism became an issue?of international outlook, which in certain periods was also at the cost to Pakistan’s diplomatic relations, even though it was almost crippled by the demos of terrorism.
India also has succeeded in declaring itself an emerging world power, even as robust growth rates have persisted despite the tensions on the border. Its expanding relationships, particularly with the Western world, have strengthened its global standing. But India is paying a big price for its clash with China in huge security deployments in Kashmir, global focus on human rights worries, and theft of resources needed for more pressing development. The disputed territory is a spanner in the works of India’s aspirations for unchallengeable regional leadership, along with a place at the UN Security Council.
To the future, if and as far as possible, Pakistan’s best strategy would be to monetize the Chinese investment to trap itself in a position that would last, and for once, in peaceful manners with India. The CPEC must be advanced from infrastructure construction to technology transfer, industry cooperation, and industrialization project construction of the digital economy. Pakistan should slot into China’s broader regional tapestry and be free to make sovereign decisions. Chinese diplomatic support for Kashmir, and on other prickly issues, remains important, as well as defense cooperation against new frontiers like cyber and space.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has tomaintain its position on its strength and also encourages long-lasting Chinese relations, while managing relations with India. Economic stability is the building block of foreign policy independence. It would also reduce exposure to external economic shocks if governance reforms were made on taxation, energy efficiency, or export promotion. It will assist in the construction of democratic institutions and the sustainability of policies despite shifting political scenarios that occur off and on in Pakistan and, in the longer view, enhancing the international standing of Pakistan.
The story can be very complicated to manage. Pakistan should not forget to leverage its position as a promoter of regional peace and a partner on counterterrorism and humanitarian actions to alert the world. A handful of Muslim-majority countries, the central Asian republics, Russia, and even some European countries that have courted India could provide a counterbalance to China in terms of diplomatic engagement. As far as India is concerned, we need to develop a coherent policy in which Pakistan retains principled positions on the core disputes, such as Kashmir, but seeks to engage pragmatically, though with risk, on the non-contentious issues on climate change, disaster management, and people-to-people exchanges. Back-channel diplomacy could pave the way for more formal negotiations when political conditions permit.
It is a fight that Pakistan-India-Kashmir so far have not produced a winner for, nor created a loser. Each has accomplished certain strategic objectives at great expense. Pakistan’s only viable option is to get as much as it can from China and focus on internal consolidation and limited engagement with India. It is this two-track strategy of courting foreign powers plus getting its domestic act together that Pakistan would have to pursue to navigate the complex geopolitics of South Asia in the forthcoming years.
