Friday, April 24, 2015

Juan Cole China's new pivot

Pakistan as China's Hong kong West: China's New Silk Road & US Failure:
"Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit, full of pomp and circumstance, to Pakistan on Monday, but its centerpiece was a $46 billion investment in the country, dwarfing the US Congress’s $7.5 bn. program initiated in 2008. Whereas the US likes to sell useless weapons systems that either rust in warehouses or foment wars like that in Yemen, China’s investment is divided between $11 bn. in infrastructure and $35 bn. in energy.....

But the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is less about India and more about regional development for China and stabilization for Pakistan......

Since last June, Pakistan’s army has somewhat inexplicably turned on its former allies among the Pakistani Taliban with a big aerial bombing campaign (“Zarb-e Azb”) aimed at disrupting the Haqqani and other terrorist networks that had been targeting US troops and the Afghanistan National Army across the border. Haqqani leaders are said to have scattered. China appears to have made a defeat of the Pakistani Taliban insurgency a prerequisite for the CPEC, perhaps because of their links to Uygur fundamentalists. And, obviously, Pakistan can’t be Hong Kong West if it is routinely blown up by Taliban."

No comments: