By Khaled Ahmed
November
14, 2020
A highly
regarded senior ex-police officer of Pakistan, Tariq Khosa, writing in Dawn in
July 2018 (‘The Mess We’re In’) stated: “First, Pakistan must stop harbouring a
massive insecurity complex. As a nuclear state with the world’s sixth-largest
army, we should be confident and end our garrison-state mentality and constant
worrying about survival. Rather, we should be a trading nation that takes
advantage of its geographic location for economic prosperity. Second, there is
no doubt in my mind that the relevant stakeholders in the state security
establishment have finally undertaken to end support for erstwhile militant
jihadi groups that was given on account of some strategic compulsions that are
counterproductive in the present milieu.”
Pakistan will soon become a
trade artery for China through the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
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Not long
ago there was talk of India and Pakistan cooperating economically to facilitate
extra-regional connectivity. An Iranian pipeline was poised to cross into
Pakistan for onward connection with India and another gas pipeline from
Tajikistan was also destined to reach India through Pakistan. India had
requested Pakistan to allow it to ply its trade with Afghanistan through a
road-link in Pakistan. But invariably Pakistan’s “strategic” inclination was
negative, based on the fear of domination and its anti-status quo thinking
vis-à-vis Kashmir. Add to that the disturbance in Afghanistan which led to America’s
longest war embroiling Pakistan in international terrorism, and you have the
current scenario of confrontation with an aggressive India asserting itself on
the Line of Control and putting Pakistan under pressure.
Fighting
wars with India, Pakistan has forgotten to look at itself as a
strategically-located state — not for fighting wars, but for conducting trade.
Such is the hostile environment in the region that this advantage has been
converted into disadvantage. India has built a wall separating Pakistan from
itself and Pakistan is currently in the process of wire-fencing its long
western border with Afghanistan and Iran, the Durand Line. When you build walls
instead of roads you can’t progress economically and instead focus on fighting
wars with unrealistic military budgets that affect the well-being of the
population. The military paradigm has been made permanent by the acquisition of
nuclear weapons in competition with India.
But
Pakistan will soon become a trade artery for China through the China Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC). Its status as a connection between China and the Gulf
economies is quite clear but the lateral function of this road — in the east
India and the west Afghanistan — is not clear although India trades with
Afghanistan and Central Asia and would like to use Pakistan’s territory to make
this more viable. China, India’s largest trading partner — $94 billion both
ways — has to use the roundabout route through Southeast Asia to transport its
goods. Yet, Pakistan is on the verge of changing its identity from a
war-fighting nation to a trading one. But if it continues to view India with
fear, the new identity of a trading nation with a prosperous population will
not be achieved.
In October
2008, a World Bank official in Islamabad said the Bank was ready to lend
Pakistan $2.25 billion for a trade and energy corridor. He could have added the
Iranian-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline to the above “projects of peace” but for
the complex tripartite negotiations going on about the IPI. But a much more
important thing happened during President Asif Ali Zardari’s meeting with the
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in New York in 2012. The report said:
“The two met on the side-lines of the 63rd United Nations’ General Assembly
session and announced mutual agreement on a number of vital business-related
issues. On top of everything else came Pakistan’s agreement to allow Indians an
overland access to Afghanistan.”
Pakistan
and India have missed many opportunities to become “normal” neighbours. Unlike
India’s praiseworthy option of trading with China which it considered a rival,
Pakistan never traded with India which led to much smuggling that benefited no
one in Pakistan. Recently, after the Pulwama incident, it stopped even the
border trade with India that caused untold hardship to the Pakistani population
in Sindh. Clearly, India and Pakistan — as nuclear powers — must opt for
normalisation through trade and trade routes to make South Asia a prosperous
region.
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Khaled Ahmed is consulting editor, Newsweek
Pakistan.
Original Headline: Pakistan has not used its geographical
advantage to become a trading nation
Source: The Indian Express