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A Note by Nearpeer’s CSS Current

Affairs Instructor, Mr. Zohaib Anjum
(46th Common, 1st Position AJK, PAS
Group).

Y ear 2019 elapsed with shades of gloom and doom. The year witnessed
many crucial developments at national and global level. As the year end
was coming closer, a new feeling of nausea and uncertainty was
creeping in. An unending streak of conflicts, protests and chaos remained
hovering
over the world. To encapsulate a few, crisis in Venzuella entered a new era
with Juan Guiado declaring himself new president. A fanatic in Christchurch,
Newzeland went on killing spree while live-streaming his attack on a mosque killing 51 people followed by Jacinda
Arden winning the hearts of all Muslims of the world with her overtures. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi
appeared at ICJ denying accusations of genocide of Rohingyas at the hands of Tatmadaw. US Special Forces killed
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of IS in Syria and Iraq. US formally walked away from
Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. Trump's policy of withdrawal continued as he abruptly withdrew
from Afghan peace process with Taliban.

2019 was full of protestations with pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, protests in Algeria, Sudan, Chile,
Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Bolivia, Indian, Russia and Nicaragua. Perhaps the most interesting news of year 2019 was
the impeachment of US President Donald Trump over his pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
to investigate Democratic front-runner Joe Biden. Similarly, Turkey, Malaysia and Iran held Kualalampur Summit
raising eye-brows in Riyadh.

Erdogan, Modi and Putin became more assertive. Modi went on to carry out aerial attacks inside Pakistan
followed by a brief but tense standoff with Pakistan. India unilaterally stripped Kashmir of its special status in
August, 2019 and India further nosedived into lap of Hindu nationalism with CAA, National Register for Citizens
and a Supreme Court verdict against the construction of Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Amazon burned and tensions
remained all at an all-time high in Persian Gulf. In May 2019 four commercial ships were attacked while in the
Strait of Hormuz which US accused Iran of being "directly responsible". Iran restarted its nuclear program. Central
American migrants continued exodus towards greener pastures in the North.

United Kingdom continued to make its folly due to its government's inability and inaction over Brexit. Europe
remained mired in turmoil with war in Eastern Ukraine, Brexit, financial crisis and US pressure on NATO. United
States of America continued its trade war with China. North Korea and United States nuclear talks stalled after a
brief thaw in June 2019.

For 2020, hopes and hurdles are walking besides each other. Kashmir and economic crisis would dominate
Pakistan's internal and regional politics. Global affairs are going to remain as turbulent as ever but still let's hope
against hope that it would change anything.

Dates for competitive examination 2020 are out. Time is ripe for formulating an effective strategy for revising
everything that CSS aspirants have read in the past 6 to 8 months. It is time to keep nerves calm and spirits high.
Competitive examination is going to test you like you were never tested before. But one who would be able to
keep a hold on his meanderings would be in a much better position to come out triumphant and victorious. I
wish you all the best for your attempt. - Zohaib Anjum

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How to use this document?

T his document was compiled by the CSS wing of Nearpeer to help CSS aspirants by
providing them with all the important articles of last month from local as well as
international newspapers.

This will serve as an important guide in preparation as well as revision of not only current
affairs but many other compulsory and optional subjects such as Islamic Studies, Pakistan
Affairs, Sociology, Gender Studies, International Relations and Political Science.

This issue is designed to help the you in the following ways:

1- It will help you with catching up with all the happenings of the last month
2- It contains analyses of various issues of importance. Analyses is as important as knowing
the content of news
3- A diverse range of articles are selected from among local as well as international
newspapers and journals, so now you know you do not have to go through old archives of old
newspapers
4- This will also serve as a quick revision guide for aspirants just before the exams
5- Candidates can use this issue in order to brush up their analytical as well as comprehension
skills
6- Additionally, they can also use it to improve their vocabulary and its usage

All the Best!

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Contents
India and Pakistan Are Edging Closer to War in 2020 By: Michael Kugleman (Foreign Policy) ...................... 3
2020 Hindsight By: Mahir Ali (Dawn) ........................................................................................................... 6
Creation Myths (December 15, 2019) By: Asad Rahim Khan (Dawn) ............................................................ 8
Time For Action (December 15, 2019) By: Aisha Khan (Dawn) ................................................................... 10
The Americans Are Coming? Washington’s China Pushback and Its Uncertainties By: Jin Kai (The
Diplomat) .................................................................................................................................................. 11
COP25, the UN climate talks in Madrid, ends in a sad splutter .................................................................. 14
How Trump Lost His Trade War? ............................................................................................................... 16
Extension Verdict (Dawn Editorial) December 18, 2019 ............................................................................. 18
The Uncertain Future of Pakistan's National Action Plan By: Sehar Kamran .............................................. 19
Saffronia (December 19, 2019) By: F.S. Aijazuddin (Dawn) ........................................................................ 20
Modi Makes His Bigotry Even Clearer (The New York Times, Editorial) ...................................................... 22
The United Kingdom Has Voted. Will It Remain United? ........................................................................... 24
Mind The Gap (December 20, 2019) (Dawn, Editorial) ............................................................................... 26
Violent Capitals (December 20, 2019) By: Afiya S. Zia ................................................................................ 26
KL Summit Fallout (December 23, 2019) (Dawn Editorial) .......................................................................... 28
Pakistan’s High Stake CPEC Reboot (Foreign Policy) .................................................................................. 29
Clipping NAB’s Wings (December 29, 2019) (Dawn , Editorial) ................................................................... 32
Amendments to NAB Ordinance (December 31 st, 2019) By: Hassan Khawar (Tribune) .............................. 33
The Perfect Storm (December 14, 2019) By: Irfan Hussain (Dawn)............................................................. 34
Pakistan-Russia Relations are Steadily Warming Up .................................................................................. 36
How to Fix Pakistan’s Crashing Economy ................................................................................................... 37
By: Atif Mian (The New York Times) .......................................................................................................... 37
Implementing Tariff Policy (December 9, 2019) By: Abbas Raza (The Nation) ............................................ 40
The World Solved the Ozone Problem. It Can Solve Climate Change (The New York Times, Editorial) ....... 42
Season of Revolts (December 4, 2019) By: Mahir Ali (Dawn) ..................................................................... 44
From Red to Green – Pakistan Aims for Climate Resilient Cities By: Adnan Rehmat .................................. 46
Current State of Civil-Military Relationship and Future Trends By: Umer Karim ........................................ 47
Globalisation is the New Colonisation (December 2, 2019) By: Muhammad Ahmad Saad (The Nation) .... 49
India, Kashmir and Deterrence (December 9, 2019) By: Riaz M. Khan (Dawn) ........................................... 51
Alarming Number (December 9, 2019) By: Aisha Khan (Dawn) .................................................................. 53
New Troubolemakers Emerge (The Economist) ......................................................................................... 54

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India and Pakistan Are Edging
Closer to War in 2020
By: Michael Kugleman
(Foreign Policy)
T urmoil is never far away in South
Asia, between disputed borders,
acute resource shortages, and threats
ranging from extremist violence to
earthquakes. But in 2019, two crises stood
out: an intensifying war in Afghanistan and
deep tensions between India and Pakistan.
And as serious as both were in 2019, expect
them to get even worse in the coming year.
Afghanistan has already seen several grim
milestones in the last 12 months that
attested to the ferocity of the Taliban
insurgency. Casualty figures for Afghan
security forces and civilians set new
records. It was also the deadliest year for
U.S. forces since 2014.
Ironically, violence soared even as there
was unprecedented momentum toward
launching a peace process. U.S. President
Donald Trump, eager to exit Afghanistan,
stepped up efforts to secure a deal with the
Taliban that would give him the political
cover for a troop withdrawal. U.S.
negotiators and senior Taliban
representatives held multiple rounds of
talks, and by September the two sides were
finalizing a deal that centered on a
withdrawal of U.S. troops coupled with a
commitment by the Taliban to renounce ties
to international terror groups.
However, in September, Trump abruptly
called off talks, giving a recent Taliban
attack on a U.S. soldier as the reason. The
likelier explanation, as I wrote for Foreign
Policy back then, was the administration’s
recognition that the emerging accord with
the Taliban—which didn’t call for any type
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of cease-fire—was a lousy deal for
Washington and Kabul.
The suspension of talks didn’t last long.
Trump announced plans to scale up
offensives against the Taliban, but this was
more of a bargaining tactic than a
battlefield redirection. Washington wanted
to increase military pressure on the Taliban
so that the insurgents would make more
concessions at the negotiating table—such
as the cease-fire they had refused to agree
to earlier. Indeed, several days after Trump
made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to
Afghanistan, talks resumed—and this time
with U.S. negotiators aiming to get a
Taliban commitment to reduce violence
against U.S. troops.During the last few days
of December, media reports revealed that
the Taliban had agreed to a temporary
ceasefire to clear the way for a deal with the
United States. The Taliban, however,
rejected these reports.
Meanwhile, 2019 was a dangerously tense
year for India and Pakistan—two rivals that
are both neighbors and nuclear states. In
February, a young Kashmiri man in the
town of Pulwama staged a suicide bombing
that killed more than three dozen Indian
security forces—the deadliest such attack
in Kashmir in three decades. Jaish-e-
Mohammad—a Pakistan-based terror
group with close ties to Pakistan’s security
establishment—claimed responsibility.
India retaliated by sending jets across
Pakistan-administered Kashmir and
launching limited strikes, for the first time
since a war in 1971. Soon thereafter,
Pakistan claimed it had carried out six air
strikes in Kashmir to showcase its might,
and it also shot down an Indian fighter jet
and captured the pilot. The confrontation,
which de-escalated when Islamabad
announced the pilot’s release several days
later, represented the most serious
exchange of hostilities in years.
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Then, in August, India revoked the
autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, the
India-administered part of Kashmir, and
declared it a new territory of India. New
Delhi also imposed a security lockdown in
Kashmir that included the detention of
hundreds of people and a communication
blackout. For Islamabad, which claims
Jammu and Kashmir as its own, the move
amounted to a serious provocation, if not a
hostile act. Pakistan retaliated by expelling
India’s envoy from Islamabad and
suspending trade with New Delhi.
Undaunted, in the weeks that followed,
senior Indian officials—including the
defense and foreign ministers—turned their
attention to Pakistan-administered
Kashmir, which New Delhi has long
claimed, and suggested they eventually
planned to reclaim it.
Bilateral relations remained fraught over
the last few months of the year. Islamabad
issued constant broadsides against New
Delhi for its continued security lockdown in
Kashmir. By year’s end, an internet
blackout was still in effect. Then, in
December, India’s parliament passed a
controversial new citizenship law that
affords fast-track paths to Indian
citizenship for religious minorities—but
not Muslims—fleeing persecution in
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
The new law angered Islamabad not just for
excluding Muslims, but because of the
implication—accurate but not something
Islamabad likes to admit—that Pakistan
persecutes its Hindu and Christian
communities.
These prolonged tensions often
overshadowed what was arguably the
biggest story in both countries in 2019:
economic struggle. India suffered its
biggest economic slowdown in six years,
and Pakistan confronted a serious debt
crisis. The two weren’t unconnected: Given
the inability of New Delhi and Islamabad to
fix their economies, both governments
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January 2020
arguably sought political advantages from
the distractions of saber rattling.
Against this tense backdrop, the opening in
November of a new border corridor that
enables Indian Sikhs to enter Pakistan visa-
free to worship at a holy shrine, which in
better times could have been a bridge to an
improved relationship, amounted to little
more than a one-off humanitarian gesture.
Bad as these crises are, they are poised to
get worse next year.
The good news for Americans is that a
U.S.-Taliban deal likely isn’t far off; both
sides are fully invested in a troop
withdrawal. For Trump, the importance of
troop departures will grow as the U.S.
presidential election draws closer, and
especially because the Washington Post’s
release in December of the “Afghanistan
Papers”—documents that feature senior
U.S. officials admitting failure in the war—
will likely solidify U.S. public opinion in
favor of winding down America’s role in
the 18-year war.
However, any U.S.-Taliban deal will do
little to reduce violence, other than halting
attacks on U.S. troops. In other words, the
war will continue.
A U.S.-Taliban accord would clear the path
for an intra-Afghan dialogue between the
Afghan government, other political
stakeholders, and the Taliban that aims to
produce a cease-fire and an eventual
political settlement that ends the war.
The path to intra-Afghan dialogue,
however, is fraught with obstacles.
Afghanistan held a presidential election in
September. The preliminary results—
released in December—showed President
Ashraf Ghani in the lead, but with barely
the 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a
second round of voting with the second-
place finisher, his bitter rival Abdullah
Abdullah (who rejected the results). The
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close margin suggests that when final easy on Islamabad. Pakistan, not wanting to
results are announced, the loser won’t show weakness, will not give in easily.
accept them.
The doomsday clock for the next India-
This means Afghanistan is unlikely to have Pakistan war is at a minute to midnight.
a new government in place for at least Diplomatic intervention from Washington
another few months, and even longer if the and other third parties, and cooler heads on
final results are different from the initial both sides, may keep it from ticking further
ones and require a second vote. Due to forward. But it’s hard to see a path to
winter weather in Afghanistan, a runoff unraveling such tightly knotted tensions—
likely wouldn’t occur until the spring. or to solving Afghanistan’s unending
Without a new government in place, it conflict.
beggars belief that Afghanistan could
launch a process to establish an intra-
Afghan dialogue, much less negotiate an
end to the war. And even if and when an
intra-Afghan dialogue is launched, the
hardest of sells will be required to convince
the Taliban to lay down arms and agree to
share power within a political system that it
has long rejected and vowed to overthrow
by force.

Consequently, Afghanistan in 2020 is likely

to see a withdrawal of U.S. forces before a
peace agreement is in place—a
demoralizing outcome for already
struggling Afghan forces that would deliver
another boost to the Taliban and further
increase violence.

Meanwhile, the underlying tensions

between India and Pakistan remain sharp. 2020 Hindsight
Pakistan arrested dozens of Islamist By: Mahir Ali (Dawn)
militants this past year, but New Delhi
wasn’t convinced Islamabad was taking
strong and “irreversible” steps against
India-focused terrorists and their networks.
And New Delhi’s actions in Kashmir in
2019 represented worst-case scenarios for
Islamabad.
E ighty years ago, at the beginning of
World War II, W.H. Auden
famously condemned the 1930s as a
“low dishonest decade”. In some ways that
description fits the 2010s, yet it feels
inadequate. While the past 10 years have
In either scenario, escalation would be provided numerous occasions for despair,
swift. Bilateral relations are much worse they were peppered throughout with signs
than they were during last February’s of hope. Inevitably, much of the good, the
confrontation. Ever since its resounding bad and the ugly will carry over into the
reelection victory last spring, India’s ruling 2020s.
party has pursued its Hindu nationalist
agenda in increasingly aggressive
fashion—which gives it no incentive to go

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Large parts of the world erupted in protests
in the early years of the last decade,
following the shock of the global financial
crisis and the subsequent use of public
funds by all too many Western
governments to rescue private enterprises.
The Occupy Wall Street movement
inspired copycat protests in several
countries.
The US was also the breeding ground for
various other manifestations of rage against
the established order, from Black Lives
Matter to the pussyhat protests, Me Too and
the articulate anger of the Parkland
students, who challenged the right to bear
arms after a devastating mass shooting at
their school. But the US also threw up the
Tea Party. And Donald Trump.
Halfway across the world, mass youth
unemployment and WikiLeaks revelations
about corruption combined with a self-
immolation of a desperate Tunisian street
vendor sparked an Arab Spring that was
largely nipped in the bud. A few tyrants fell,
only to be replaced in short order by others
— or by anarchy. The occupation of Iraq
earlier in the century and then the
unrestrained brutality of the Syrian regime
led to the terrorist Islamic State’s
‘caliphate’.
More recently, a half-hearted reshuffle on
the top deck has failed to placate Lebanese
protesters. A desperate, brutal response to
protests in Iraq and Iran has sowed the
seeds of future rebellions. The war in
Yemen drags on, with the Saudi-led
coalition facilitated by the US and Britain.
Israel, meanwhile, goes into its third
election within a year with absolutely no
hope of relief from the pattern of
occupational hazards reinforced by
Benjamin Netanyahu, again bolstered by
the West.
The previous decade began with broadly
left-wing revolts against the established
order in various parts of the world, and a
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January 2020
few instances of popularly propelled
regime change, but ended with the widest
panoply in living memory of far right or
authoritarian (and often both) regimes,
from Egypt and Turkey to India, Sri Lanka,
China, Russia, the Philippines, Britain,
Poland, Hungary, the US, Brazil and
Bolivia. If, borrowing last century’s
popular nomenclature, the decade ahead is
dubbed the Roaring 20s, the reference will
probably be to the incessant yelling of
demagogues and the terminal gasps of
dinosaurs.
The counterpoints are not irrelevant.
Ethiopia may yet succeed in establishing a
model of reconciliation in strife-torn
Africa. New Zealand under Jacinda Ardern
puts Australia to shame. Finland lately
boasts not only the world’s youngest prime
minister in 34-year-old Sanna Marin, but
her coalition partners are also all women. In
Britain, had the vote been restricted to
under-40s, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party
would have won a landslide. Likewise in
the US, Bernie Sanders’ popularity is
highest among the youth.
Young women, in particular, have been
sparkling repositories of hope in recent
years — from Malala Yousafzai and Ahed
Tamimi to Emma Gonzalez, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Greta
Thunberg, among so many others.
Thunberg’s cause is overwhelmingly
significant in the decade ahead; unless man-
made climate change is ameliorated in the
next 10 years, most other nightmares (and
dreams) are pretty much academic.
The 2010s are likely to be remembered as
the decade of smartphones and dumb re-
gimes, the proliferation of social media
alongside anti-social attitudes, seismic
rebellions and ruthless repression, working-
class indignados and ruling-class
insouciance, monumental technological
advances and their misanthropic misuse,
profoundly damaging austerity combined
with a disregard for posterity, insidious
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inequality and erroneous ethno-
nationalism, a resurgence in religious
fanaticism and racist fantasies, rude
awakenings and sleepwalking into
catastrophe.
Notwithstanding all the warnings about its
potential abuse, perhaps artificial
intelligence ought to be welcomed, given
that the natural variety seems to have been
devastatingly depleted in the past 30 years,
during what was half-wittedly hailed as ‘the
end of history’.
Thunberg recently summed up in five
words the times we live: “Our house is on
fire”. It’s particularly easy to appreciate
that sentiment in Sydney, where the sun
seldom blazes yellow but instead casts a red
glow. That, in turn, serves as a reminder of
the choice Rosa Luxemburg pinpointed a
century ago between a regression into
barbarism and a transition to socialism.
A better world remains implausible but not
impossible. There is, as Leonard Cohen put
it, a crack in everything — that’s how the
light gets in. Here’s wishing all readers, and
everyone else, a cracking new year.
Creation Myths (December 15, 2019)
By: Asad Rahim Khan (Dawn)
T started as a murmur. “Amit Shah’s
I
insinuation, that Muslims shall not and
cannot be safe and secure in India, will
be widely acclaimed in one country:
Pakistan,” wrote Indian historian
Ramachandra Guha.
This was some months before Kashmir and
Ayodhya, and days before India re-elected
Narendra Modi in the largest turnout in its
history. But as the Fourth Reich began to
take hold, the murmur became a mantra: ‘a
Hindutva version of Pakistan’.
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With this latest legislation, it rose to fever
pitch. For context, India’s citizenship bill is
part of a one-two punch: it offers amnesty
to non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan,
Bangladesh, and Afghanistan; India’s
National Register of Citizens will then
swoop in on the Muslim illegals left over.
Anticipating Hindutva heaven, the lotus
boys are already setting up concentration
camps all over Assam.
This is important for other reasons. Like
anything else, fascism runs on rules.
Despite the visuals coming out of New
India — lynchings and evil yogis and
Shahrukh Khan’s hostage videos —
actually setting up a Nazi apparatus takes
time. Armed with a second term, Modi is
now remaking India’s institutions.
But instead of a crisis of the spirit, the
Indian response has been to drag in their
neighbour. “India has just cast itself in
Pakistan’s image,” wrote journalist Barkha
Dutt. “It will reduce us to a Hindutva
version of Pakistan,” said MP Shashi
Tharoor.
It’s almost as if the rumours were true: the
Indian left might not be intellectually robust
enough to take on the goblins at home.
But amid the deepest denial, this is a worthy
coping mechanism. And it flows from a
story that Indian pundits never tire telling
themselves: long ago, the genius of the
people shone through secular heroes like
Gandhi and Nehru, while Jinnah and
Savarkar were on the fringe — two sides of
the same communal coin. But hate won
over hope; a combo of Congress
complacency, Muslim resentment, and
canny chess moves saw Jinnah win
Pakistan. With the rise of Modi, Savarkar’s
sons will now do away with India’s secular
antidote too, and turn it into an extremist
republic. Hence the ‘Hindutva version of
Pakistan’.
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It’s a good story, but like most good stories,
it gets everything backwards: though easy
to forget now, India’s pre-eminent young
nationalist in the 1910s was not the
Mahatma; it was the Quaid (to say nothing
of comparing a man like Jinnah to a mutant
like Savarkar). By injecting religion into
the freedom movement for the first time,
Gandhi managed to wrest the stage away
from Jinnah, and root it in religious tropes:
‘satya’, ‘ahimsa’, ‘dharma’, and the
majoritarian flood that came with it.
Jinnah’s calls for sanity were shouted down
by a populist beast he could no longer
recognise. He realised that there was no
other way but a separate state.
This ties in with the second story: that
Prime Minister Modi upended secular
India. For anyone who was listening to the
screams in the distance, Sanjay Gandhi was
busy sterilising Muslims (euphemised as
‘the poor’) during the Emergency,
minorities were being massacred in Assam
and Bihar, state-sponsored pogroms wiped
out thousands of Sikhs in Delhi, and then
nearly a thousand Muslims in Gujarat.
obliterates Muslim representation, not that
they vote en bloc anyway. Finally, it’s a
what-if counterfactual, which means
there’s zero evidence to support it.
At long last, India cannot externalise its
monsters. In Pakistan’s own battle with
militancy, the tide turned when it was
diagnosed — that these demons were our
own. But India has chosen to elect its
demons. It’s time for a better diagnosis.
And as for Pakistan, proving better than the
Fourth Reich is hardly cause to smirk.
Lahore, Ghotki, Gojra, Joseph Colony,
Hazara Town, All Saints — from terror
attacks to criminal conversions, these
names have faded from memory. Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s promise to grant
citizenship to Pakistan’s children remains
unkept; Justice Jillani’s judgement
safeguarding minorities remains
unimplemented.
India has vindicated Jinnah. It’s high time
that Pakistan stop failing him.

Unique to India after Indira, the electorate

rewarded mass murder with thumping re-
election victories both times — for Rajiv in
1984 and Modi in 2002. India was always a
majoritarian project. Now it’s a Hindutva
one.

That leaves us with the third and last

creation myth. “If Pakistan had not been
created,” asked Shashi Tharoor, “could
India become what it is today?” This
fantasy also prevails among Pakistan’s far-
left and far-right: that an undivided India
would mean strength in numbers for the
Muslims and prevent their marginalisation.
But today’s India is home to the most
Muslims in the world after Indonesia, and
may top that list in 40 years. Its only
Muslim-majority (occupied) ‘territory’ is
an open prison called Kashmir — courtesy
the secular Nehru — where the people face
extermination. Its first-past-the-post system

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Time For Action (December 15, 2019)
By: Aisha Khan (Dawn)
I t has taken the world 25 years of
negotiations to reach the point where
countries are now required to put words
into actions. The Conference of Parties
(COP) provides an international platform
for bringing states together to build
consensus on global climate agreements
that would otherwise remain intractable.
The Paris Agreement was a feat of
diplomatic success that brought 196 nations
to agree on the Agenda of Solutions and
became operational with the finalisation of
the Rule Book. However, each COP is
criticised for not finding solutions that are
fair and equitable for carbon-neutral targets
for all.
The three parallel activities at the COPs
include negotiations by party delegates,
side events for knowledge sharing and civil
society marches. COP25 in Madrid was no
exception to this standard format and
response. The main outstanding agenda at
COP25 was to reach agreement on the
unresolved Article 6 that split nations into
vanguard and laggard.
As part of the Paris Agreement countries
had agreed to set up new global carbon
market systems to de-carbonise economies.
However, since the Paris Agreement fails to
describe how systems will work or what
rules will ensure real emission cuts,
reaching an agreement continued to pose
the biggest challenge at COP25.
The discussions on Article 6 centre on
bilateral and voluntary agreement to trade
carbon units, creating the Sustainable
Development Mechanism to replace the
Clean Development Mechanism through a
centralised governance system for countries
and the private sector to trade emissions
reduction anywhere in the world, and a
framework for cooperation between
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countries to reduce emissions outside
market mechanisms such as aid. Although
these negotiations are technical they do
tend to become politicised, making
disagreements more pronounced and
positions more entrenched. At best, a partial
resolution will be cobbled to show progress
narrowing down the agenda for discussion
at COP26 in 2020. However, reaching an
agreement on a common set of rules to
govern transactions is critical to the
integrity and success of the Paris
Agreement as weak rules can camouflage
emissions and, in fact, result in increased
global emissions.
The other important item on the agenda at
COP25 was on long-term finance.
Developed countries opposed LTF
discussions under UNFCCC post 2020.
This effectively means that the
commitment of $100 billion per annum by
developed countries will no longer be
mandated after 2020. As of now it is
difficult to say what the new terms and
conditions will be, but should there be a
scaling down on commitments it will
translate into less money available to
developing states for adaptation and
mitigation.
The emerging global scenario after years of
negotiations doesn’t appear to be of ‘one
humanity and shared responsibility’.
Negotiations have produced commitments
that are not legally binding and science has
not been successful in making countries
reduce emissions to keep pace with need. It
is time to reconcile with some harsh
realities.
As the resource base shrinks and
populations grow, each country will put
itself first, and exclusive agendas will find
more traction with governments and
citizens. Moreover, no one is ready to shift
from capitalism and make the changes that
are necessary to reduce production patterns
and challenge corporate interests.
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Civil society marches/strikes would be
more effective if the thousands that
congregate make a personal commitment to
reduce demand. If enough people become
vegetarians the emissions from livestock
will go down. Similarly, if people refuse to
buy products and commodities
manufactured from carbon-intensive
technologies, emissions will go down.
Industry responds to demand, and if
demand goes down market forces will
adjust accordingly. For Pakistan, the
highlight at COP25 was the launching of
the Ecosystem Restoration Fund by the
adviser on climate change. This is the first
such initiative by Pakistan at a COP.
Housed in the National Disaster Risk Man-
agement Fund and financed by the World
Bank, the programme has five thematic
areas that will build the ecological integrity
through sustainable strategies. The
secretary of the climate change ministry,
CEO, NDRMF, Nadeem Ahmed and
Ambassador Khayyam Akbar also attended
the event.
All eyes are now on 2020 but the pathway
to emissions reduction is through people
and not the governments. The answers lie in
action not words. If we want to save the
planet, then we must reduce our individual
carbon footprint and the rest will follow. It
is also time for South Asia to view climate
change from a regional lens and work on
collaborative strategies to build resilience.
A regional COP before December 2020 will
set the stage for a stronger ask for climate
justice at COP26.
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January 2020
The Americans Are Coming?
Washington’s China Pushback
and Its Uncertainties
By: Jin Kai (The Diplomat)
I
n 2011, the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) showed a two-
episode series on China’s rise, which
was titled “The Chinese Are Coming.” In
this documentary, China’s economic
expansion throughout the world was
described in a vivid but largely questioning
narrative. Besides China’s unprecedented
economic acquisitions in continents like
Africa and South America, abandoned
factories in Youngstown, Ohio were
particularly cited as an example to show
how China’s economic expansion, with the
help of globalization, cast shadows over the
economy in some parts of the United States.
For the United States, the “shadows” cast
by China’s ambitious growth are spreading
almost everywhere, and Washington is
taking actions on a wide range of political,
economic, cultural, social, and ideological
issues. That seems to suggest that it’s the
Americans that are coming this time, with a
so-called “whole-of-government”
pushback on China.
The concept of a “whole-of-government”
approach, however, is not new at all. Back
in 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense
released its Quadrennial Roles and
Missions Review Report, which “supports
institutionalizing whole-of-government
approaches to addressing national security
challenges.” Then-Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton also claimed in an address at the
Brookings Institution on May 27, 2010, that
the administration’s goal is “to begin to
make the case that defense, diplomacy and
development were not separate entities,
either in substance or process, but that
indeed they had to be viewed as part of an
integrated whole and that the whole of
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government then had to be enlisted in their
pursuit.”
As U.S.-China relationship became stuck in
a chilly period and a protracted trade war,
similar statements and policies were
restated in waves of media campaigns and
political propaganda. This time, Congress
seemed to have taken a more proactive role.
The National Defense Authorization Act
passed in August 2018 by Congress
stressed “whole of government” American
counter-efforts targeting China.
Meanwhile, important figures in Trump’s
administration like FBI Director
Christopher Wray, Assistant Secretary
Christopher Ashley Ford, and Vice
President Mike Pence as well all made
similar remarks on different occasions
when talking about the U.S. response to
China’s comprehensive challenges or even
aggression toward the West and especially
the United States.
Obviously, Washington’s resolution goes
well beyond political rhetoric and critiques.
Since mid- 2018, a “whole-of-government”
(if not a “whole-of-society”) pushback has
been implemented in almost all directions,
with all possible means, and at all levels.
For example, the full-tension trade war
policy has been a core part of Washington’s
comprehensively firm stand in its
confrontation with Beijing. The Trump
administration not only implemented
punitive tariffs and blacklisted a growing
number of Chinese entities for high-
technology export restrictions, but also
used the long-arm jurisdiction of U.S.
domestic law to target and punish Huawei.
In addition to these trade-related moves,
Washington also initiated a full clampdown
on civic communication between the
United States and China on the grounds of
suspected espionage activities. Moreover,
the U.S. Navy recently stepped up its
reconnaissance in the South China Sea,
notably joined by the U.S. Coast Guard –
obviously a “gray zone” tactic to
demonstrate Washington’s political
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January 2020
resolution and military capability to
maintain its absolute predominance in the
region.
Meanwhile, when rioting protesters
brought extreme chaos to Hong Kong, a
media campaign and political propaganda
in the West, and especially in the United
States, swiftly and habitually blamed
Beijing and the local government of Hong
Kong Special Administration Region. On
the other hand, dissidents in Hong Kong
were met by political leaders in Washington
and a bill on Hong Kong was passed to
demonstrate Washington’s political values.
The same pattern repeated with respect to
recent U.S. policies on Xinjiang, one of
China’s five autonomous regions.
Given the current tension, the incremental
interactions between Washington and
Taipei, though less bold and publicized, can
be seen as another “gray zone” arena of this
ongoing “whole-of-government” pushback,
which may lead to an unwanted escalation
should Beijing’s red line be crossed.
Nevertheless, a preliminary study of all the
above policies, means, and measures
applied by Washington indicates that
although U.S. policy instruments have been
intensifying since the beginning of this
trade war, there seems to be an unspoken
limit to prevent an instant and total
decoupling – at least so far. At the end of
the day, decoupling with China is not the
only option for Washington.
Meanwhile, the so-called “whole-of-
government” pushback against China is
facing some uncertainties. For example,
U.S. domestic public opinion and support is
an important variable. As the U.S.-China
trade war dragged on and China’s
retaliation hit back, the U.S. public (and
farmers, in particular) had to bear the
consequences. As an article in August 2019
by Sophie Quinton at PewTrusts points out,
economists believe that the trade war has
reshaped international markets in ways that
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could hurt U.S. farmers for years to come.
Meanwhile, a public opinion survey
conducted by the New York Times through
the online research platform SurveyMonkey
in September 2019 shows that 58 percent of
Americans say the conflict with China will
be bad for the United States, an increase
from 53 percent the last time the same
question was asked in June 2019.
Collaboration with U.S. allies will be
another important external variable.
Although U.S. allies such as Japan and
Australia in the Asia-Pacific and the U.K.,
Germany, and France in Europe may have
all joined with the United States to confront
China over issues like the South China Sea
disputes in one way or another, these
countries may take different position and
attitude when it comes to the
“comprehensive” and “whole-of-
government” pushback the U.S. intends.
One notable point of friction would be
Trump’s use of punitive tariffs against
almost all major countries, including U.S.
allies. For example, the Trump’
administration just threatened to impose
100 percent tariffs on French cheese,
champagne, and wines on December 2,
shortly before the 2019 NATO summit held
in London. Washington’s relationships
with its Asian allies are not in harmony
either. Last month, U.S.-South Korea talks
over cost-sharing for their military alliance
broke up in dispute, even leading to
speculation that Seoul may seek a closer
relationship with Beijing over not only
economic but also political and even
security issues in the long term.
In big picture of the world trade and
economy, in which the U.S.-China trade
war and the U.S. “whole-of-government”
pushback must stand, the Trump
administration’s go-it-alone stance doesn’t
win Washington much popularity.
European countries disagree with the
United States regarding Washington’s
recent unliteral offensive targeting the
world’s multilateral economic and financial
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January 2020
system, which coincides with China’s
position.
Washington’s yearlong obstruction of
WTO reform and new judge nominations is
a good example to demonstrate the discord
between the U.S. and Europe. Keith
Johnson at Foreign Policy recently made
the prediction that Trump “may finally kill
the WTO.” World trade is veering
dangerously close to operating under “the
law of the jungle,” and as The Associated
Press commented, the United States under
Trump appears to prefer it that way. But the
EU emphatically disagrees. The statement
by E.U. Ambassador João Aguiar Machado
at the WTO General Council meeting
precisely pointed out that “the very idea of
a rules based multilateral trading system is
at stake. The European Union firmly
believes in a multilateral trading system
where rules can be enforced, where
disputes can be submitted to adjudicators,
and where rulings of ad hoc panels can be
appealed before a standing appeal instance
that gives guarantees of quality and
independence.”
Other uncertainties facing the U.S. “whole-
of-government” approach include China’s
comprehensive counter-pushback, which
may be painful for both sides, and the
inherent uncertainty that defines U.S.
President Donald Trump as well. If a “great
deal” with China can finally be made in
future trade talks, it remains an open
question as to how far this “whole-of-
government” pushback might go, although
it would not come to an immediate stop for
political or even ideological reasons.
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COP25, the UN climate talks in
Madrid, ends in a sad splutter
(The Economist)
HE TAGLINE for this year’s United
T Nations climate talks, known as
COP25, held in Madrid, was
“Tiempo de actuar”: time for action. Its
logo was a clock, showing a quarter to 12.
Midnight duly passed on Friday, scheduled
as the summit’s last day, and then again on
Saturday. Yet, despite running nearly two
days into overtime, finishing only on
Sunday December 15th, the talks failed to
produce real action to tackle climate
change. A final set of documents fell short
on both of the meeting’s main goals. They
agreed on only weak and watered down
commitments to the drastic cuts in
emissions of greenhouse gases that had
been promised. And a decision on
regulations for new international carbon
markets was deferred until next year.
Frustrated, angry demonstrations
punctuated the summit, as they have
disrupted cities and schools around the
world for the past 12 months, decrying
political inaction in the face of a global
climate emergency. But in Madrid, the
politics were still gridlocked.
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January 2020
Since the Paris agreement was made in
2015, emissions and global temperatures
have continued to rise, and the
consequences have been felt around the
globe in devastating storms, heatwaves and
fires, to name but a few effects. The latest
assessment of global emissions, published
on December 4th, shows that if emissions
continue at current rates, the atmosphere
will hold enough greenhouse gases to warm
the planet by 1.5°C within just ten years.
Under the Paris agreement, nearly 200
nations promised to stop global warming
before average temperatures rise by more
than 1.5-2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Privately, most climate scientists admit
they hold little hope that temperature rises
can be kept below the 1.5°C target. Yet the
consequences of missing the target are
devastating, particularly for arid regions
like the Mediterranean, and low-lying ones
like Bangladesh and the Eastern seaboard in
America, where shorelines are being
gnawed by rising seas. For this reason, a
coalition of governments including the
European Union came to Madrid
demanding a strongly-worded text urging
all nations to make promises in 2020 that
they would cut their emissions more and
faster than promised so far.
So on Saturday morning, when it appeared
the conference would do no such thing,
there was outrage. The final text was
scarcely an improvement, though a few
observers took comfort in its mention of the
gap between the reductions promised in
national pledges and what the science says
is necessary to avoid more than 1.5-2°C of
warming.
The real effort on this front came from the
EU back in Brussels, where its leaders, after
some wrangling, committed to reducing
emissions to net zero by 2050. The
European Commission’s presidency has
published a comprehensive and ambitious,
if sometimes vague, proposal for a suite of
measures that would achieve that goal.
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A second sticking-point in Madrid was over
what is known as “loss and damage”—a
concept particularly important to the least-
developed nations already suffering some
of the worst impacts of climate change,
despite having barely contributed to the
pile-up of greenhouse-gas emissions that is
warming the planet. They would like to see
the UN make provision for money to help
them cope with the real, immediate impact
of climate change, for instance in the
aftermath of an extreme hurricane. That is a
red line for many of those very rich
emitters. They contend, among other
things, that other disaster funds already
exist; and they do not want to open a
conversation about liability.
The third sticking-point was the one for
which COP25 will be remembered. It
concerned an arcane and highly technical
clause of the Paris agreement known as
Article 6, which offers a broad framework
for international carbon markets. One
analysis, by the Environmental Defence
Fund (EDF), an advocacy group, found that
such markets could theoretically reduce the
cost of meeting climate targets by between
59% and 79%.
If those financial gains were reinvested in
further efforts to mitigate emissions,
cumulative reductions in global emissions
between 2020 and 2035 could potentially
be double what is currently on the table in
national pledges under the Paris agreement.
(These estimates are at the upper end and
assume global participation, but EDF found
that even more limited, regional trading
schemes had the potential to increase cuts
in emissions by 20%-30%.)
The task in Madrid was to establish the
regulations that would make such markets
work for the environment, by both offering
financial incentives for green projects and
generating real, measurable emissions
reductions. That would depend on two
conditions being met. First, that green
projects—a solar power-station, say, or a
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January 2020
facility to flare methane from landfills—
demonstrably reduce emissions above what
the host country has already promised
under its commitments in the Paris
agreement. And second, that “emissions
credits” granted for green projects are not
double-counted.
Delegates in Madrid wrangled over how a
new carbon market, operated by the UN
under the Paris agreement, would link up
with a similar one created under the Kyoto
Protocol, a treaty signed in 1992, without
compromising the whole system. Known as
the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM), the Kyoto market allowed rich
countries to buy carbon credits from green
projects in poorer ones in order to offset the
emissions they were producing at home.
Thousands of CDM projects were
registered but their credits left unclaimed
after their value crashed in 2012 because
demand dried up. Some countries, chiefly
Brazil, India and China, the main
participants in the CDM, would like those
credits transferred into the new Paris
trading scheme. Others contend that doing
so would flood the Paris scheme with past
carbon credits that no longer correspond to
real, future emissions reductions.
For a sense of the scale involved, various
groups have tried to estimate the volume of
carbon credits languishing in the CDM. The
task is devilishly complicated, as dormant
projects could still be reactivated for
credits. But the upper estimates are in the
range from 1.5bn tonnes to several billions
of tonnes of CO2. That is of the same order
as one year’s worth of Brazilian or
European emissions.
This could be reduced to hundreds of
millions of tonnes if limits were set on
which credits can be transferred from the
CDM to the Paris mechanism, for instance
based on when they were registered. Even
so, the credits would free as much in
emissions as the reductions achieved by the
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first three years of a new carbon market to
be launched in 2021 with the explicit aim of
tackling airline emissions.
These same disagreements plagued
discussions at last year’s summit in
Katowice. Around noon on December 15th,
the Chilean environment minister, Carolina
Schmidt, announced that the question
would not be resolved in Madrid, either. A
decision was postponed until next year’s
summit in Glasgow.
Not since 1999 have COP climate summits
ended on a Friday, as scheduled. In Durban
in 2011, they ran until 6.30am on Sunday.
Yet even by those standards, COP25 was
shambolic. The text was at last approved at
about 1pm on Sunday. A few hundred
metres away, an ice circus entertained its
visitors with acrobats on skates. Another
circus, a dispiriting one, was packing up.
How Trump Lost His Trade War?
(New York Times, December 16)
T rade wars rarely have victors. They
do, however, sometimes have losers.
And Donald Trump has definitely
turned out to be a loser.
Of course, that’s not the way he and his
team are portraying the tentative deal
they’ve struck with China, which they’re
claiming as a triumph. The reality is that the
Trump administration achieved almost
none of its goals; it has basically declared
victory while going into headlong retreat.
And the Chinese know it. As The Times
reports, Chinese officials are “jubilant and
even incredulous” at the success of their
hard-line negotiating strategy.
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January 2020
To understand what just went down, you
need to ask what Trump and company were
trying to accomplish with their tariffs, and
how that compares with what really
happened.
First and foremost, Trump wanted to slash
the U.S. trade deficit. Economists more or
less unanimously consider this the wrong
objective, but in Trump’s mind countries
win when they sell more than they buy, and
nobody is going to convince him otherwise.
So it’s remarkable to note that the trade
deficit has risen, not fallen, on Trump’s
watch, from $544 billion in 2016 to $691
billion in the 12 months ending in October.
And what Trump wanted in particular was
to close the trade deficit in manufactured
goods; despite giving lip service to “great
Patriot Farmers,” it’s clear that he actually
has contempt for agricultural exports. Last
summer, complaining about the U.S. trade
relationship with Japan, he sneered: “We
send them wheat. Wheat. That’s not a good
deal.”
So now we appear to have a trade deal with
China whose main substantive element is
… a promise to buy more U.S. farm goods.
Trump’s team also wanted to put the brakes
on China’s drive to establish itself as the
world’s economic superpower. “China is
basically trying to steal the future,”
declared Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser,
a year ago. But the new deal, while it
includes some promises to protect
intellectual property, leaves the core of
China’s industrial strategy — what’s been
called the “vast web of subsidies that has
fueled the global rise of many Chinese
companies” — untouched.
So why did Trump wimp out on trade?
At a broad level, the answer is that he was
suffering from delusions of grandeur.
America was never going to succeed in
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bullying a huge, proud nation whose
economy is already, by some measures,
larger than ours — especially while
simultaneously alienating other advanced
economies that might have joined us in
pressuring China to change some of its
economic policies.
At a more granular level, none of the pieces
of Trump trade strategy have worked as
promised.
Although Trump has repeatedly insisted
that China is paying his tariffs, the facts say
otherwise: Chinese export prices haven’t
gone down, which means that the tariffs are
falling on U.S. consumers and companies.
And the bite on consumers would have
gone up substantially if Trump hadn’t
called off the round of further tariff
increases that had been scheduled for this
past Sunday.
At the same time, Chinese retaliation has hit
some U.S. exporters, farmers in particular,
hard. And while Trump may quietly hold
farm exports in contempt, he needs those
rural votes — votes that were being put at
risk despite a farm bailout that has already
cost more than twice as much as Barack
Obama’s bailout of the auto industry.
Finally, uncertainty over tariff policy was
clearly hurting manufacturing and business
investment, even as overall economic
growth remained solid.
So Trump, as I said, basically declared
victory and retreated.
Will Trump’s trade defeat hurt him
politically? Probably not. Many Americans
will surely buy the spin, and the trade war
was never popular anyway.
Furthermore, voting mostly reflects the
economy’s direction, not its level — not
whether things are good, but whether
they’ve been getting better recently. It may
actually be good political strategy to do
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January 2020
stupid things for a while, then stop doing
them around a year before the election,
which is a fair summary of Trump’s trade
actions.
There will, however, be longer-term costs
to the trade war. For one thing, the business
uncertainty created by Trump’s
capriciousness won’t go away; he is, after
all, a master of the art of the broken deal.
Beyond that, Trump’s trade antics have
damaged America’s reputation.
On one side, our allies have learned not to
trust us. We have, after all, become the kind
of country that suddenly slaps tariffs on
Canada — Canada! — on obviously
spurious claims that we’re protecting
national security.
On the other side, our rivals have learned
not to fear us. Like the North Koreans, who
flattered Trump but kept on building nukes,
the Chinese have taken Trump’s measure.
They now know that he talks loudly but
carries a small stick, and backs down when
confronted in ways that might hurt him
politically.
These things matter. Having a leader who is
neither trusted by our erstwhile friends nor
feared by our foreign rivals reduces our
global influence in ways we’re just starting
to see. Trump’s trade war didn’t achieve
any of its goals, but it did succeed in
making America weak again.
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supremacy, but for the military itself.

Tenure extensions sanctioned by
parliament would acquire a legitimacy that
could upend a promotion process that
should be marked by transparency and
predictability. The Supreme Court has in its
verdict sagaciously observed that “…in
strengthening institutions, nations prosper”.
Indeed, Imran Khan had himself taken the
same position when it came to the extension
of then COAS Gen Ashfaq Kayani during
the PPP government. And yet, a few weeks
ago, Mr Khan remarked during an
interview that he had decided to give Gen
Bajwa an extension soon after assuming
office. That gave the unfortunate
impression that factors other than the
Extension Verdict (Dawn “regional security environment” — the
official reason given for the extension —
Editorial) accounted for the prime minister having
December 18, 2019 made up his mind so prematurely. Perhaps
Mr Khan should consider the views of the
other principal character in this saga, the

T HE 42-page detailed Supreme Court

verdict has provided further clarity
in the imbroglio surrounding the
extension of the army chief’s tenure. Its
short order on Nov 28 had granted Gen
army chief himself — or at least, his views
as articulated by the military’s public
relations arm. The ISPR has more than once
asserted that the COAS was reluctant to
Qamar Bajwa a six-month extension and accept an extension. Even after the
directed parliament to enact within that spectacle that the government made of itself
time necessary legislation regulating the in its handling of the issue, the ISPR
terms and conditions of the office of COAS. assured the public that it was not Gen
The judgement announced on Monday Bajwa but the government that was hell-
holds that failure to comply will mean the bent on having him continue to head the
incumbent army chief would stand retired army. That may well be the case: one would
from the time his tenure ended in hope that every military official considers
November. Once again, the court expressed the interests of his country and his
incredulity that there exists no provision in institution above those of his own.
the law for extending the army’s chief
tenure. In his additional note, Chief Justice
of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa pointed out
that the office of the COAS is “powerful …
in ways more than one” and that “unbridled
power or position, like unstructured
discretion, is dangerous”.

The PTI government and parliament must

consider the situation carefully. After all,
the outcome will have profound
implications, not only for civilian

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The Uncertain Future of
Pakistan's National Action Plan
By: Sehar Kamran
D ecember 16, 2019 marks five years
since the heinous attack on the
Army Public School Peshawar
which claimed the lives of 149 people,
mostly schoolchildren. The national
tragedy shook up the entire country.
In the aftermath of the attack, a number of
steps and a multilayered approach was
taken by the state, to not only bring the
perpetrators to justice, but to prevent such
incidents from occurring again, by
identifying and eliminating root causes.
Today, the physical wounds from that day
may have healed, but the inflictions on the
soul and psyche of the entire nation remain
alive and unhealed.
Immediately after the incident, a National
Action Plan (NAP) constituting 20 points
was adopted, which included uplifting the
moratorium on capital punishments through
a constitutional amendment, strengthening
counter-terrorism, banning hate speech,
eliminating terror financing, registering and
regulating religious seminaries,
mainstreaming the restive Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),
restoring peace in Karachi, eliminating
militancy in Punjab, empowering the
people of Balochistan and registering
Afghan refugees to name a few.
Over the years, there has been much hue
and cry about the implementation and
results of the NAP, but it cannot be denied
that important strides have been made by
the state in this regard. However, this
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January 2020
progress can be described as sporadic, at
best.
Undeniably, terrorist incidents in the
country have been reduced. The biggest
achievements have been mainstreaming the
once lawless FATA which now officially
falls under the ambit of Pakistan’s law and
constitution. It is a big accomplishment
because this area was once deemed
ungovernable. The other notable step has
been restoring peace to the economic
capital of the country – Karachi.
Considerable success has also been
achieved at registering and regulating
religious seminaries.
However, the attainment of other objectives
still remains unclear. Targets such as the
status of Afghan refugees and the
empowerment of the Balochistan
government and its people seem to have
fallen through the cracks, and their status
remains unclear. The continuous
rebranding and emergence of terrorist
organizations are some of the biggest
impediments in the effective
implementation of NAP.
Another aspect which has not been given
much attention under NAP has been the
continuing and unchallenged rise of
radicalism and extremism in the country.
These phenomena constitute a major threat
to the country and continue to make
themselves evident in various forms and
behaviors. The Faizabad sit-in of 2017 by a
couple of hardliner religious organizations
is still fresh in the national memory, where
the state was besieged by a group of armed
protestors.
In addition, radicalism and extremism are
not limited to religious organizations and
their activities, but spread over to shape up
societal behavior and ethos as well. This
complex and intricate phenomenon has
encompassed almost all social groups in
Pakistan, and often rears its ugly head in
incidents such as the recent storming of the
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Lahore Institute of Cardiology by a group
of lawyers.
These prevailing and violent tendencies are
a manifestation of decades of unchecked
undemocratic attitudes and mindsets. A
concrete effort is required to address the
rising challenge of violent behaviors in
everyday life, and to increase de-
radicalization efforts at the grass roots
level, which will require time, energy,
resources, and firm political will. A multi-
pronged approach is necessary for the
future and well-being of the country.
When the government of Pakistan Tehreek-
i-Insaf (PTI) came into power last year, the
Ministry of Interior issued a booklet in
December 2018, highlighting its 100 days’
performance, and stated that the party
would review, revisit and unveil NAP 2.0
to ‘serve as a roadmap for the next five
years.’ It also highlighted that the launch
was expected in March 2019. However, as
of December 2019, nothing has happened
on this front.
It cannot be denied that the freedom of
independent thought, expression, and
opinion is shrinking, which is not only
dangerous for the democratic process, but
also harms the due process of
accountability and results in decreasing
levels of tolerance and peace in society.
Pakistan cannot afford this.
NAP or NAP 2.0 can only be successfully
implemented, if there is firm political will
behind it. The time is now to capitalize on
the gains made by the armed forces, and to
set a path for a future which promotes the
values of tolerance and tranquility for a
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January 2020
better tomorrow.
Saffronia (December 19, 2019)
By: F.S. Aijazuddin (Dawn)
O
UR subcontinent has fallen victim
to a condition called ‘saffronoia’. It
began in India and has spread
unchecked. No country in the region is
immune to its side effects — neither
Pakistan nor Bangladesh, not even
Afghanistan.
Developed in the petri dish of the RSS’s
sectarianism and tested on the BJP, its
formula has been now patented by law in
Prime Minister Modi’s government as the
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
This latest piece of legislation burrows a
tunnel into India for persecuted minorities,
specifically Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists,
Jains, Parsis, and Christians. Under it, had
Guru Nanak and Zoroaster been alive, they
would be eligible for Indian nationality.
Muslims are specifically excluded. They
have not been forgiven by the RSS for the
‘heresy’ of conversion.
This latest constitutional amendment sho-
uld not come as a surprise, no more than the
revocation of Article 370 abrogating the
status of India-held Jammu & Kashmir
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ought to have been. (In 1963, as an
afterthought, Nehru admitted that Article
370 was a “temporary provision”, subject to
“gradual erosion”.)
Both constitutional changes were foretold
in the BJP election manifesto of 2014. Mr
Modi knew then that majorities are not
secured by pandering to minorities. His
Hindutva agenda aimed at making
nationalism synonymous with nationality.
But are they in fact interchangeable?
The Dalit leader Dr B. Ambedkar who
helped frame the original Indian
constitution did not think so: “One can have
nationalism without nationality.” Punjabiat
is one example, Jewry another. Nationalism
without territorial nationality, though, (in
Lord Acton’s words) is like “a soul in
search of a body”.
India found that body in the independence
movement. Ambedkar felt that the pre-1947
Hindu politician “knew that if he was to
succeed in his demand for self-government
for India, he must maintain, even if he could
not prove it, that India was a nation”.
Therefore, ipso facto, if the Muslims in
India were a separate nation, then, of
course, India was not a nation. To Hindu
politicians, the prospect of Jinnah’s
Pakistan was like ‘a stab in the back’.
Who will be the beneficiaries of Modi’s
accommodating largesse? Pakistani
Hindus, for sure. For them, migration to
India has always been a magnetic option.
Not many exercised it. In 2014, a Pakistani
Hindu parliamentarian gave a figure of
5,000 Hindu migrants annually from
Pakistan to India. There are 3.6 million or
so left.
Who will be the victims of Prime Minister
Modi’s saffronoia? Every Indian Muslim,
from Punjab to Bengal, from Kanyakumari
to Kashmir. Those who chose — like the
97-year-old Yusuf Khan saffronised into
Dilip Kumar — to remain in India can
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January 2020
expect to be punished for their lack of
foresight. More fragile icons will have their
nationalism tested every day. The violent
demonstrations in Muslim universities are
an indication of the combustible resentment
against the CAA.
Will the Indian government’s latest
legislation tempt Indian Muslims to
consider migrating westwards? Certainly,
but to anywhere except Pakistan. They may
prefer to stay in their saffron hell than
migrate to our greener purgatory.
They have good reason. We are developing
our own home-grown strain of
discrimination. We are suffering again the
lash of authoritarianism. We are being
cowed by unbridled violence, such as the
unconscionable, inhuman attack on doctors
and medical staff in the Punjab Institute of
Cardiology in Lahore by a mob of lawyers.
In an afternoon of infamy, black coats
bludgeoned white coats. Oxygen masks
were allegedly torn off patients. Intolerance
overpowered sanity. “He that will not
reason is a bigot;” someone once wrote, “he
that cannot reason is a fool; he that dare not
reason is a slave.”
We are free of Hindu India, but are we in
our own state free from each other? Ask
anyone who feels the claws of censorship.
Ask anyone who bears the manacles of
discriminatory laws. Ask anyone fettered
by injustice.
The other day, this newspaper you read was
delivered at my doorstep. Today, the news
vendor has had all his copies confiscated,
and if he is caught delivering even one, all
his stock of other dailies will be
confiscated. Tomorrow, a sponsored mob
will prevent publication at all.
Many years ago, Indira Gandhi’s son
Sanjay (encouraged by the IMF and World
Bank) launched a mandatory sterilisation
programme to control India’s population. It
faltered, then collapsed when it was
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discovered that those sterilised were
primarily Muslims.
Every free thinker or free speaker today
runs the risk of emasculation. Their words
will never be permitted to procreate.
Discrimination is a state of mind;
censorship is slavery of the mind. But even
slaves have been known to sing, if you
would only listen. Wasn’t it the great
liberationist William Wilberforce who
cautioned: “You may choose to look the
other way but you can never say again that
you did not know.”
Modi Makes His Bigotry Even
Clearer
(The New York Times, Editorial)
n the face of it, India’s new
O citizenship law might seem quite
reasonable in its offer of expedited
citizenship for migrants of minority
religions from neighboring countries.
What’s not to like in offering refuge to
minority groups facing repression in
predominantly Muslim states?
A lot, as India’s Muslims, about 14 percent
of the population, have proclaimed in the
eruption of protests across India after the
law was passed by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party last week.
The devil is in the missing details.
Accelerated citizenship is offered to
members of the Hindu, Christian, Buddhist,
Sikh, Parsee and Jain religions — but not to
Muslims. And the only neighboring
countries named in the law are Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan, all majority
Muslim. Other neighbors, from Sri Lanka
to China, where Muslims do not
predominate, are not mentioned.
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The not-so-hidden message is that the
Muslim-majority countries abutting India
persecute Hindus and other minorities, and
that Muslims from such countries cannot be
refugees — even people like the Rohingya,
some of whom have reached India after
fleeing to Bangladesh from brutal
repression in Myanmar.
The law, as India’s 200 million Muslims
have correctly surmised, has nothing to do
with helping migrants and everything to do
with the campaign by Mr. Modi and his
home minister, Amit Shah, to marginalize
Muslims and turn India into a homeland for
Hindus, who comprise about 80 percent of
the population of 1.3 billion.
Last summer, Mr. Modi’s government
abruptly stripped statehood and autonomy
from India’s only Muslim-majority state,
Kashmir, arresting many of its leaders and
shutting down the internet. Also in August,
Mr. Modi aggressively escalated a program
of citizenship tests in the northeastern state
of Assam, leaving nearly two million
people, many of them Muslims, potentially
stateless. Mr. Modi has vowed to extend the
process, which requires Indians to prove
they’re Indian, to the entire country and is
building large new detention centers for
those who can’t.
In common with other governments around
the world that have turned undocumented
immigrants into a nationalist issue,
including President Trump’s, Mr. Shah has
taken to demonizing the primary target of
the dragnets, Muslim migrants from
Bangladesh, whom he refers to as
“termites.”
Those initial moves met little resistance.
The citizenship bill, by contrast, has
provoked furious protests across India,
some of which have been viciously
repressed by police and the army. The
government has also shut down the internet
in several regions, a tactic against dissent
used by India more than any other
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authoritarian-leaning government in the
world, claiming it is necessary to prevent
violence and false rumors. Kashmir has
been offline since August, and India is by
far the world’s leader in the number of
internet shutdowns.
Still, the reaction to the citizenship law has
apparently surprised Mr. Modi, who was re-
elected by a comfortable margin last May,
but he has shown no signs of backing down.
He rose to power by vilifying Muslims, a
core tenet of Hindu nationalists. When Mr.
Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state,
thousands of people were killed and tens of
thousands were driven from their home in
sectarian violence; most victims were
Muslims.
This is not the way India was meant to be.
The vision of Mohandas Gandhi (who was
murdered by a Hindu nationalist) and
Jawaharlal Nehru after the partition of
British-ruled India into a Muslim-majority
Pakistan and a Hindu-majority India was to
build the latter into a secular and
democratic republic, with civil liberties for
citizens of all faiths.
Since he took office in 2014, Mr. Modi has
actively worked to change that, even
rewriting history books to exclude Muslim
rulers — who, among other things, built the
Taj Mahal — and changing official place
names to Hindu from Muslim. Hindu mobs
that lynch Muslims are rarely punished.
The citizenship bill was the first action that
linked religion to citizenship, undermining
a fundamental tenet of India’s democracy.
Some non-Muslim Indian liberals,
including members of the once-dominant
Congress Party, have joined in the protests.
The law has also drawn sharp criticism
from human rights groups and
governments. The Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights called the citizenship bill
“fundamentally discriminatory,” and the
United States State Department issued a
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January 2020
statement urging India to “protect the rights
of its religious minorities in keeping with
India’s Constitution and democratic
values.” Alas, that would be far more
credible if the Trump administration was
treating undocumented immigrants in
keeping with America’s democratic values.
Mr. Modi’s hold on power remains firm,
but the protests at home and abroad have
demonstrated limits to how far Indians will
allow him to go in pursuit of his Hindu-
nationalist agenda. The citizenship bill
might still be blocked in the Indian
Supreme Court, which begins hearings on it
in January. But if it is not, all democratic
nations need to speak out against a law, and
a national policy, that is patently
discriminatory and a threat to India’s
democracy.
The United Kingdom Has Voted.
Will It Remain United?
(The New York Times, Editorial)
O
f all the agonizing twists and turns
of British politics since the narrow
vote on June 23, 2016, in favor of
leaving the European Union, the landslide
victory of Boris Johnson in Thursday’s
election may be the most stunning. It also
should have been the most predictable.
After three and a half years of debilitating
debate, the British had simply had enough
and rallied to Mr. Johnson’s unvarnished
slogan, “Get Brexit Done.” They are likely
to get a very different Britain in the bargain.
The scale of the Conservative victory, and
the extent of its conquests in traditional
Labour strongholds, may not have been
anticipated. But the bullish reaction from
the markets, and, somewhat more
counterintuitively, the celebration in
Brussels, were further reflections of a
widespread sense that “If it were done when
’tis done, then ’twere well it were done
quickly.”
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Brexit is now a fact, and that is the first and
most concrete takeaway from the election.
Without any viable opposition in his own
Tory ranks, whose dissidents he had purged
before the election and whose deputies all
vowed to support him on Brexit, Mr.
Johnson is likely to get his Brexit bill
through Parliament within days or weeks,
and Britain to formally leave the union by
the end-of-January deadline. For many
Britons and for many leaders of the
Continent, ending the endless bickering and
the threat of a chaotic deal-less Brexit was
a source of great relief.
But that does not mean Brexit is “done,” or
that it will be done quickly. It only opens
the next, and arguably more difficult, stage
of disentangling Britain from the vast and
complex economic relationships that form
the customs links and single market of the
European Union, a task that is supposed to
be done within a year but probably won’t
be. Throughout the campaign, in which Mr.
Johnson was successfully shielded from too
much exposure to too many difficult
questions, he gave little sense of how he
would proceed.
That is only one of many areas in which Mr.
Johnson has given little indication of how
he intends to use the enormous political
power the election handed him for the next
five years. It is worth recalling that during
most of the referendum campaign he was
still the mayor of London, pondering
whether he was for or against Brexit, and
that most of his energies since were focused
on getting into 10 Downing Street.
He eventually settled on a hard pro-Brexit
stance, combining that with shameless
populism; a smattering of lies; a way with
words; and what turned out to be a winning
strategy to capitalize on the weakness of
Labour under its unpopular left-wing
leader, Jeremy Corbyn. (“You voted to be
Corbyn-neutral by Christmas,” was Mr.
Johnson’s typical quip, playing off his
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January 2020
pledge for Britain to be carbon-neutral by
2050.)
But the first wave of commentaries in the
immediate aftermath of the election results
were already wondering what new world
was being ushered in. The survival of the
“United” in United Kingdom itself was in
question after a strong showing by the
nationalist party in Scotland and its certain
demand for a new referendum on
independence, as well as the uncertain fate
of Northern Ireland under Mr. Johnson’s
Brexit plan.
Then there was the uncertainty over
whether Mr. Johnson would or could live
up to his pledges of enormous spending on
the national health service, schools and the
environment, pledges that helped him pry
working-class voters away from Labour.
It is inevitable that Americans will search
for parallels between Mr. Johnson and
President Trump, and between the
humiliation of Labour and the Democratic
Party’s search for a standard-bearer. From
the time he became prime minister, the
disheveled, populist and often untruthful
Mr. Johnson has often been compared to
Mr. Trump, who has made no bones about
his affinity for Mr. Johnson and was among
the first to tweet congratulations on “his
great WIN!” and to promise a “far bigger
and more lucrative” trade deal than any
Britain had with the European Union. In
many ways, Mr. Johnson’s success in
tapping into the discontent of working-class
workers resembles Mr. Trump’s route to
power.
And there are bound to be suggestions that
Democrats should learn from the
weaknesses of Mr. Corbyn’s Labour, which
remained mired in left-wing promises of
nationalizations and huge spending while
failing to appreciate that its followers were
becoming more nationalistic and socially
conservative. Mr. Corbyn himself became
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entangled trying to deny the anti-Semitism
in Labour’s anti-Israel stance, and his
speech after the election typically blamed
the media for the party’s loss.
There are lessons to be learned, no doubt,
but it is also important to underscore the
differences. Whatever his clownish quirks
and failings, Mr. Johnson is a seasoned
politician who knows and understands the
workings of British politics and is familiar
with the continent from which he is
separating his country. That may be of little
solace to liberal voters in Britain who see
Brexit as a disaster and Mr. Johnson as an
opportunist, but at least Mr. Johnson is not
likely to succumb to the turnstile
dysfunction or rule by tweet of Mr.
Trump’s White House.
And while Mr. Corbyn’s dogmatic ideology
did harm Labour’s chances, his unclear
position on Brexit, which had strong
support among workers, and his personal
lack of popularity were probably a greater
factor in his defeat than his socialist
platform.
One certainty is that Britain faces an
intense, broad and prolonged debate on its
identity and its future. Whether Mr.
Johnson can lead his country through the
challenges that lie ahead is far from clear
from his history or his record. But he is full
of surprises, not least of which was
Thursday’s victory. Let us hope that a
newfound sense of responsibility is among
them.
Mind The Gap (December 20,
2019)(Dawn, Editorial)
T HE founder of this nation once said:
“No nation can ever be worthy of its
existence that cannot take its women
along with the men. No struggle can ever
succeed without women participating side
by side with men.” Seventy-two years later,
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January 2020
Pakistan still has a long way to go when it
comes to ensuring equal rights and
opportunities for half its population.
According to the World Economic Forum’s
Global Gender Gap Report 2020, the
country is one of the most inequitable
societies for women to live in. Ranking 151
out of 153 countries, just above war-torn
Yemen and Iraq, the country also had the
lowest ranking in the entire South Asian
region. In comparison, Bangladesh
performed significantly better at 50; Nepal
stood at 101; followed by Sri Lanka at 102;
and neighbouring India at 112. While many
of the countries listed improved with time
when it came to ensuring women’s equal
status — the authors of the report link this
welcome progress to the higher
participation of women in politics —
Pakistan did not. In 2006, it was placed at
112 out of 115 countries. And last year, it
was ranked 148 out of 149 countries.
To measure inequality, the survey examines
the difference between men and women in
their participation and access to health,
education, the economy and politics. When
it comes to economic participation,
Pakistan is all the way down at 150. For
health and survival indicators, it is just as
poor at 149; for education, the country is
placed at 143; and finally, when it comes to
political empowerment, Pakistan performs
slightly better at 93. Some of the findings
are a bit surprising, given Pakistani
women’s role in the running of a largely
agrarian economy, but this may be due to
the informal status of the sector and the fact
that a lot of women’s labour goes
unrecognised. What cuts through and links
all these disparate fields is the perpetuation
of a patriarchal culture and the lower status
of women in society. It seems that despite
more awareness and mobilisation for
women’s rights — and despite the passage
of many progressive laws, thanks to the
efforts of women parliamentarians over the
years — the large majority of women do not
see the change in their lives. As rightfully
noted in the report, and by the nation’s
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founder all those years ago, the equal status
of women is inseparable from a country’s
economic and social progress.
Violent Capitals (December 20, 2019)
By: Afiya S. Zia
P ROMPTED by the escalation of
brutal rape cases, Rahul Gandhi
described India as ‘the rape capital of
the world’. This may not be statistically
accurate but as a political observation, he
could not be more precise. His comment
reveals how the BJP’s political script is
underwritten by pathologising women and
Muslims, encouraging communalism and
sexual violence.
Feminists distinguish between two broad
categories of rape; as forcible sexual
gratification, and as a political weapon.
Rape is not motivated by sexual need,
poverty, or due to lack of education or
harsher punishments. These are common
challenges in all societies and do not
explain why rapes are recorded highest in
South Africa and America. It is not a
coincidence, however, that apartheid and
slavery have been the foundational
principles of these leading ‘rape capitals’ of
the world.
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January 2020
Political violence becomes a collective
norm when a state, government, and its
officials use gang or mass rape/murders as
a deliberate policy to subjugate minorities,
working classes or a gender group. The
more defiant these bodies, the harsher the
violence.
If too vulnerable, they risk total elimination
— the gutting of women’s wombs,
lynching, incinerating violated bodies,
muting Kashmiris, denying Muslims
citizenship. In Pakistan, a puritanical drive
to erase perceived infidels has led to the
mass murder of minority sects and even,
innocent schoolchildren.
Vulnerable bodies serve as a battleground
for men’s wars.
When leadership connives, colludes and
covers up violent crimes, it creates an
enabling environment. The BJP’s political
history is a malignant combination of
communalism and casteism in a broader
cultural context where female foeticide and
honour crimes persist. Each time a woman
in India is doused with kerosene and burned
alive, it recalls the primal Hindu practice of
sati.
The engineered attack on the Babri Masjid
in 1992 was a performative act followed by
gang rape of Muslim women in the Surat
riots which were filmed as part of the BJP’s
orchestration. In Bangladesh in 1971 and in
Gujrat in 2002, mass rapes of Muslim
women were defended as patriotic duty not
a deviant act. The glorification of male
guardians claiming to preserve the
religious, cultural and gendered order and
the stigma linked with woman’s sexual
subjugation by outsiders become excuses
for controlling women’s sexuality under the
pretext of protection. Outside violence
brings dishonour; domestic violence
maintains order.
Vulnerable bodies serve as the battleground
for men’s wars/disputes. Women are
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bartered for peace settlements. In
peacetime, this agreement is sustained
through the institution of marriage. Its
political economy is based on contractual
exchange of women’s productive and
reproductive labour, for male financial and
physical protection. Women often use
ownership of assets to negotiate protection
from domestic violence. There is minimum
penalty for men’s sexual transgressions; for
women, it’s a deadly risk.
Intertwined sexual and political violence
prevails in all majoritarian countries,
including Pakistan, where patriarchy and
religious supremacy conjoin. Being
defensive about deficient human rights
serves no pragmatic purpose for women or
the vulnerable.
Some intellectuals mock the failure of a
secular India but reject any appeal for
secular resistance against Muslim
majoritarianism in Pakistan. They
showcase outrage in select blasphemy cases
but do not campaign for the law’s repeal,
pretending the accused they support is
innocent of the offence.
On both sides, the high priests of
postcolonial angst observe liberal, secular
lifestyles and freedom of dress and sexual
practice but preach how modernity,
Western feminism and freedoms are the
cause of all ills. They deny indigenised
forms of religious politics and patriarchy
that squash freedoms of sexual and
intellectual expression. They refute how
these combine into resources curated and
then muscularly used by our theocratised
states and religious groups.
Our countries can reform laws, appoint
women judges and raise awareness but
these are not substitutes for rights of free
speech or sexual relations. Religious, pietist
and conservative politics prohibits
freedoms of sexualities and accepts forced
marriages/conversions, and place premium
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January 2020
on women’s virginity, docility, domesticity
and unequal rights for minorities.
India and Pakistan compete as inhospitable
capitals for women and in branding
dissenters as traitors. Disconcerting is the
lack of clarity from those radicals of the left
who flirt with alliances with a minority-
hating, misogynist political right. But India
is winning because its progressive
intelligentsia has been so preoccupied with
protesting Western liberalism and
tolerating Hinduvta’s indigenous
democratic ‘agency’, that the alarming
majoritarian violence against women and
minorities has turned full-on fascist. It is
now left to the enraged youth of the
subcontinent to reclaim our capitals from
despotic futures.
KL Summit Fallout (December 23, 2019)
(Dawn Editorial)
T
HE dangers of lack of proper
planning and foresight at the state
level, especially in sensitive matters
of foreign affairs, have become apparent in
the fiasco that resulted when Pakistan
absented itself from the Kuala Lumpur
Summit, which wrapped up on Saturday.
The moot was touted as a forum to discuss
the “state of affairs of the Muslim Ummah”
and Dr Mahathir Mohamad, one of the
architects of the summit, explicitly said the
conclave was not a replacement for the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
This is the fifth edition of the summit and
the 2019 meeting was given an additional
boost as Dr Mahathir, Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister
Imran Khan had sought to make the forum
a proactive one, along with other Muslim
leaders, to discuss the state of affairs in the
lands of Islam.
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However, Pakistan’s abrupt withdrawal has been known for paralysis and
from the summit caused diplomatic grandiose, hollow statements more than for
embarrassment. taking action.

This was compounded by revelations by Mr
Erdogan on Friday that the Saudis asked
Pakistan to withdraw or else face the
expulsion of Pakistani expatriates from the
kingdom as well as the withdrawal of Saudi
funds deposited in this country. The Saudi
embassy in Islamabad has termed these
comments “fake news”.
As we have stated previously in these
columns, proper homework should have
been done before committing Pakistan to
the summit.
The fact is Riyadh was wary of the KL moot
where its geopolitical rivals — Turkey,
Iran, Qatar — participated as equals.
If the OIC is incapable of addressing the
issues of the world’s Muslims, from
terrorism to disease to illiteracy, then other
forums are bound to arise to tackle these
problems.

Withdrawing from the moot at the last

minute, after Prime Minister Imran Khan
made a dash to Saudi Arabia, did little to lift
our international image. This reflects bad
form and a lack of planning at the top.

Surely, there are experienced hands at the

Foreign Office as well as retired veteran
diplomats and other experts in international
relations who could have been consulted to
weigh the pros and cons of attending the
summit before making a policy decision.
Pakistan at one time enjoyed great prestige Pakistan’s High Stake CPEC
in the Islamic bloc; today, this reputation
risks being tarnished if thoughtless actions
Reboot
such as the KL Summit debacle are (Foreign Policy)
repeated. Perhaps some damage control can
be done by organising a conclave in

Pakistan to discuss the Muslim world’s
problems.
As for the OIC secretary general’s
contention that events such as the KL
Summit “are not in the interest of [the]
Islamic nation”, this position is highly
debatable.
It can be asked what — over the decades —
has the OIC done to alleviate the sufferings
of the Palestinians, the Kashmiris, the
Rohingya and other persecuted Muslim
groups suffering from oppression. The bloc
O
n Nov. 20, Pakistani Foreign
Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi
boldly declared that the China-
Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—the
Pakistani component of China’s broader
Belt and Road Initiative—was the
country’s “top priority.”
Qureshi’s proclamation came just weeks
after Yao Jing, China’s ambassador to
Pakistan, announced that the first phase of
CPEC—an infrastructure and connectivity
project valued at $62 billion—was coming

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to a close, and that a second phase would
soon begin.
Over the last month, Chinese and Pakistani
officials have been strikingly specific about
what this second phase will entail for
CPEC, a project that is as opaque as it is
expensive. While the first phase
emphasized energy and roads, the second
phase will focus on industrialization,
agriculture, and socioeconomic
development, with a particular emphasis on
special economic zones. Chinese media
reports have claimed that groundbreaking
for one such zone, based in Pakistan’s
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, will take
place this month and “directly employ
150,000 people” in industries that include
light engineering and food processing.
There’s an irony here. Back in 2017, the
influential Pakistani newspaper Dawn
published a document laying out a long-
term plan for CPEC. The document,
according to Dawn, proposed a far-reaching
and unprecedented scope of future
investments—such as agricultural projects,
a national fiber optic “backbone,” and a
new monitoring and surveillance system
meant to oversee law and order in Pakistani
cities. The plan, said the newspaper,
“envisages a deep and broad-based
penetration of most sectors of Pakistan’s
economy as well as its society by Chinese
enterprises and culture.” The Pakistani
government rejected Dawn’s report, calling
the documents aspirational and the article
inaccurate. And yet, some of the very
objectives identified in that master plan—
specifically agriculture investments and
special economic zones—have been
identified in recent days as second-phase
CPEC priorities.
Clearly, both capitals have long had big
plans for CPEC. However, the launch of
CPEC’s second phase comes at a moment
when it faces growing challenges,
particularly for a government that has
appeared less enthusiastic than its
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January 2020
predecessor about the project. Imran Khan,
elected Pakistan’s prime minister last year,
inherited the project from a government he
had often criticized for corruption.
Islamabad must now walk a tightrope:
corralling CPEC to ensure benefits—rather
than damage—to the Pakistani economy,
while reasserting its commitment to a
project critical to both its own interests and
its indispensable allies in Beijing.
Concerns abound about CPEC. They
include a lack of transparency, high costs, a
heavy dependence on Chinese labor, and
major debt risks for Pakistan. These
worries—frequently highlighted in
research studies and even acknowledged in
conversations with CPEC backers in
Pakistan—formed the crux of a recent rare
U.S. government rebuke of the project,
issued by Ambassador Alice Wells, the top
South Asia official at the State Department,
in a speech at the Wilson Center on Nov.
21—coincidentally the very day after
Qureshi declared CPEC to be Pakistan’s top
priority.
Within the constellation of CPEC concerns,
debt risk looms largest. To be sure, many
CPEC loan repayment deadlines aren’t due
for at least another decade, and a Chinese
official recently stated that CPEC debt now
amounts to less than a 10th of Pakistan’s
total debt. Still, Islamabad risks a future
fiscal train wreck by taking on so many
Chinese loans at a moment when it’s
already so deeply debt-ridden. Beijing has
been trying hard to alleviate worries about
Belt and Road-linked debt—but cases such
as the seizure of a Sri Lankan port have
unnerved many.
In Pakistan, public debt has already reached
alarming levels. In mid-2019, it stood at a
whopping a percent of GDP—a 13.5
percentage point increase from the previous
year. This problem can be attributed in part
to the domestic debt of Pakistan’s
floundering public companies—including
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the national airline and railway—which
increased by nearly 250 percent between
2013 and 2018. These companies continued
to borrow heavily in 2019, and Islamabad
has made little headway in pursuing their
privatization.
More broadly, Pakistan—which saw GDP
growth fall to 3.3 percent in fiscal year
2019, a drop of 2.2 percentage points from
the previous year—is in full-on austerity
mode. Current and fiscal account deficits
coupled with a new International Monetary
Fund bailout package are obliging
Islamabad to make major cost-cutting
moves.
The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party
has telegraphed some unease about CPEC.
Soon after taking office in August 2018, it
announced a review of all CPEC
agreements, in an effort to address
allegations about special perks for Chinese
companies and other corruption-related
concerns. The next month, in an interview
with the Financial Times, Commerce
Minister Abdul Razak Dawood even
suggested that Pakistan would suspend
CPEC while Islamabad undertook its
review: “I think we should put everything
on hold for a year so we can get our act
together. … Perhaps we can stretch CPEC
out over another five years or so.” Dawood
later said his comments were taken out of
context, but the message was clear:
Islamabad had very real worries about
CPEC.
Subsequent months brought more
indications of Islamabad’s desire to be
cautious with CPEC. In March, the
government reallocated about $170 million
in funds meant for joint infrastructure
projects with China to other types of
construction projects. And in June, its new
federal budget revealed a $645 million
reduction in Belt and Road-related projects
from the previous year.
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January 2020
The current government’s worries about
CPEC shouldn’t be surprising. Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf is a populist party that has
long expressed a preference for investments
in people over infrastructure, and for a
cleaner and more transparent form of
governance. Khan has long claimed to be an
anti-corruption crusader with dreams of
weaning Pakistan off international support
and transforming the country into a self-
sustaining Islamic welfare state. CPEC
goes against all of these principles and
objectives.
Then there are the broader implications of
Islamabad’s intensifying dependence on
Chinese largesse and the leverage this
confers on Beijing. Khan is an unabashed
nationalist who made a name for himself as
a fierce opponent of drone strikes and of
foreign influence more broadly. He once
declared that “Westoxified Pakistanis have
been selling their souls … for a few million
dollars.”
Khan hasn’t railed against China’s deep
footprint in Pakistan—no senior Pakistani
official would dare upbraid Beijing—but he
can’t be pleased about the impunity enjoyed
by its nationals there. Last year, just a few
months before his government took power,
a group of Chinese engineers in the city of
Khanewal, furious they couldn’t leave their
housing facility to visit a red-light district
without a security detail, went on a rampage
and attacked the police posted there to
protect them. No action was taken against
the men, who also cut off the electricity
supply being used by the police at the
facility.
Meanwhile, ever since Khan became
premier, he has had to awkwardly feign
ignorance when asked in television
interviews about China’s abhorrent
treatment of the Uighur Muslim people, and
his government has had to pressure
authorities to stop an investigation of
Chinese nationals in Pakistan accused of
selling more than 600 Pakistani women as
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brides and sending them to China. and Islamabad, despite its misgivings, must
Antagonizing Beijing simply isn’t an find a way to keep it on course.
option for the Pakistani government, and
this can often make Islamabad look
heartless.

Nevertheless, Pakistan has renewed its

commitment to CPEC. Not only is it
building out the project’s second phase,
but—reportedly at the behest of Beijing—it
has also formed a new CPEC authority
meant to make the project’s decision-
making process more efficient. This new
body is led by retired Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa,
a former military spokesperson. This
appointment is no small matter in a nation
where the Army’s political power is
unmatched.

For Islamabad, going wobbly on CPEC

isn’t an option—not just because of Clipping NAB’s Wings (December
Beijing’s determination to move forward
and the development benefits that
29, 2019)
Islamabad hopes will emerge, but also (Dawn , Editorial)
because of Wells’s harsh criticism of the
project (which prompted denunciations
from Pakistani leaders and a unanimous
Senate resolution condemning the U.S.
diplomat’s speech). There can be no worse
optics for Pakistan than defying its Chinese
T HE latest attempt to try and redefine
the powers of the National
Accountability Bureau, and the
manner in which it was done, shows that the
aggressive ‘accountability drive’ the PTI
ally and caving in to pressure from launched when it came to power is now in
Washington to rein in the project. its dying throes.

Fortunately, there is an opportunity here. The redefinition is actually an attempt at a

Pakistan knows the IMF is expecting more
transparency with CPEC. Islamabad can
argue to Beijing that opening the books on
the project’s finances can create an opening
for the two sides to renegotiate problematic
loans—thereby making them more
financially viable for Pakistan, but also
more desirable for China. Beijing doesn’t
want prohibitive borrower debt to
jeopardize the future of CPEC, the most
operationalized element of the Belt and
Road Initiative to date.
The stakes are high. A troubled but too-big-
to-fail project has moved into high gear—
surgical clipping away of the bureau’s
powers to even begin an inquiry — let alone
investigate, detain and prosecute —
wealthy businessmen in particular. The
change is being made through a presidential
ordinance, as the government does not
seem to be able to muster the numbers in
parliament to pass legislation — not least
because of this very same ‘accountability
drive’.
The approval and announcement of the
ordinance itself was marred by confusion as
whole clauses asked for by the powerful
secretaries’ group of the bureaucracy were

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jettisoned from the final text before
promulgation, but communicated to the
media nonetheless.
What will emerge from the confusion once
the dust settles is a compromise within a
compromise. NAB’s powers had to be
clipped because the bureau’s monumental
incompetence and overweening ambition
had caused it to cast its net far wider than it
could manage.
But the ordinance has created a double
standard, and may well have let the cat out
of the bag in the process. All matters related
to taxes as well as transactions that do not
involve holders of public office will no
longer be within NAB’s remit; instead, they
will be dealt with by the numerous
institutions that already exist for the
purpose, such as the FBR, FIA and the
accountability courts.
Also, when pursuing cases where the
allegation is ‘misuse of authority’ by a
public office holder, the bureau will need to
prove that there was some material benefit
that the accused gained from this alleged
‘misuse of authority’, rather than turning
the allegation into the crime itself.
A number of critical questions arise. For
one, why can’t there be one across-the-
board standard by which to activate the
powers of NAB, whether for private or
public individuals and transactions?
Second, what will the fallout be of these
changes on the countless NAB cases
already under way, or in appeal, including
those in which public office holders are
implicated?
Clearly, the ‘aggressive accountability
drive’ launched by the government last year
has hit its limits and is now being rolled
back, leaving behind lacunae and
unanswered questions. What this episode
teaches us is that, ultimately, accountability
is about the writ of the state. If its writ is
weak, the weakness will be exploited by all
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January 2020
manner of people, whether public or
private, for personal gain, and no effort to
create new authorities and carve out special
laws will fill that void. Perhaps it is time to
shut down NAB and focus on strengthening
the writ of the state across the board.
Amendments to NAB Ordinance
(December 31st, 2019)
By: Hassan Khawar (Tribune)
T he PTI government has finally
introduced the much-awaited
changes to the NAB Ordinance.
Why did the NAB law need to change? The
critique on the law has centred around three
key issues: undue harassment of the
business community leading to loss of
market confidence, bureaucracy coming to
a standstill due to fears of accountability
and some structural weaknesses in the law.
The businessmen have long complained
about NAB’s interference in business
activities, even on tax-related matters. The
recent amendments, however, have
excluded all tax-related cases from the
purview of NAB, with all respective
inquiries, investigations and trials
transferred to the relevant agencies and
courts. Similarly, all cases that have no
connection with a public office holder,
barring a few valid exceptions, no more fall
within NAB’s jurisdiction. These changes
will indeed provide a sigh of relief to the
business community.
For civil servants also, the NAB law has
been a sore point. Since the PTI
government took over, the bureaucracy has
been complaining about the blurred line
between corruption and financial or
administrative irregularities. Such
irregularities do not necessarily constitute
corruption unless they are deliberate and
have been carried out for some material
benefit. But the lack of clarity has been
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putting even well-meaning bureaucrats at citizens oversight mechanisms to ensure

the whims of NAB officials. Moreover, the
media trials, even before the inquiries were
complete, led to an overnight loss of
reputation of bureaucrats.
The recent round of amendments has at
least partially addressed these issues. The
cases of procedural lapses, advice or
opinion rendered, misuse of authority and
acts of good faith can no more be
questioned by NAB unless there is direct or
corroborative evidence of material benefit
accrued by the accused. The burden of
proof also lies on NAB to produce that
evidence. However, the revised Ordinance
did not create space for the proposed
Scrutiny Committee to filter out any
frivolous inquiries against bureaucrats.
Similarly, no provisions were made to
prevent the re-opening of previously closed
inquiries or to stop NAB officials from
making pre-mature public statements
before a reference is filed.
impartiality of the anti-corruption agencies,
but no such mechanism exists in Pakistan.
Notwithstanding these omissions, the
revised Ordinance is a step in the right
direction. Going forward it will be
important for the PTI government to stand
behind these changes and even consider
further improvement to enhance the
impartiality and credibility of the statute.
Moreover, the amended law is still an
ordinance and will have to pass through the
legislative approval very soon, and
therefore it is important for the government
to take the opposition on board with these
amendments. But most importantly, more
than the law, it’s the practice that matters.
The ultimate litmus test of these
amendments would therefore be their
unbiased application on existing political
cases.

Lastly, the structural weaknesses in the

NAB law that have been highlighted time
and again were not touched at all. For
instance, the role of NAB Chairman in the
appointment of Prosecutor General very
much stands; the remand duration of 90
days has not been reduced; the financial
limit of 50 million rupees for conducting
NAB inquiries has not been revised
upwards; and even the plea bargain
provisions remain, providing a backdoor
exit to the corrupt.

An independent and powerful anti-

corruption watchdog is central to control of
corruption, but not without due controls or
oversight. In the UK for instance, the
independent Director of Public
Prosecutions acts as a gatekeeper and no
proceeding for an offence under the Bribery
Act 2010 can be instituted without his
consent. In case of NAB, the Prosecutor
General continues to operate under the
Chairman’s shadow. Similarly, many
countries have put in place parliament and

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The Perfect Storm (December
14, 2019)
By: Irfan Hussain (Dawn)
O
VER the last year, protesters have
taken over streets from Hong Kong
to Iraq, and from Barcelona to Iran.
The reasons are diverse, as is the
composition of the chanting, stone-
throwing groups confronting the state. But
a few familiar threads run through the
fabric of dissent. One is the relative youth
of the protesters; next is the frustration with
a corrupt and exploitative status quo that is
boiling over; and finally there is the failure
of systems that have provoked dissidents to
risk their lives, limbs and liberty while
facing the might of state.
In Pakistan, we have a special case where
mobs are usually associated with religious
movements or parties. Clerics are favoured
by the establishment that often needs their
support in the shape of votes, or street
power. They are thus often given a free pass
for their violent rampages.
The recent dharna, or street protest, by
Maulana Fazlur Rahman and his extremist
followers is a case in point. Large swathes
of Islamabad were blocked off by the
protest that had no clear purpose, but the
state handled the situation with kid gloves.
Had a secular party staged a similar protest,
its members would have been thrashed, and
jailed quicker than they could have yelled:
“Go, Imran Khan, go!”
In Iran and Iraq, the state has been much
tougher in facing any challenge to its
power. But the reality is that no modern
state is going to allow protesters to take
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January 2020
power. Nevertheless, the streets in many
countries are now contested spaces where
the struggle for power is increasingly being
waged.
The ballot is being replaced with the bullet
and the baton because young people no
longer view conventional politics as a
vehicle of change. The youth now view
elections as a cunning way for the
establishment to shift power from one party
to another without effecting any real
change.
In the post-Second World War scenario,
those who inherited power from their
colonial masters have done little to improve
the lives of their people. Corrupt
princelings, generals, dictators and
bureaucrats have shovelled their snouts in
the same troughs. Meanwhile, the poor
have got poorer, with education, healthcare
and employment being neglected as a
matter of course.
Some populists have staged revolutions in
the name of equality and social justice, but
have then failed to deliver. Whatever your
views about socialism, the reality is that
most socialist countries have invested in
their citizens. China is a prime example of
what an educated, healthy workforce can
achieve. India, on the other hand, shows us
how difficult it is to maintain growth, with
poverty and caste divisions slowing down
progress.
Apart from purely economic reasons,
people are on the streets because they want
to win back the dignity they think they have
lost. A new generation that has more
aspirations than their parents is now
pushing for political power, as for most of
them, the process of change is too slow.
Many of us with a Western education
consider our clerical parties a retrogressive
force that wants to push Pakistan back to
the mediaeval era. But placing our
prejudices aside, the fact is that desire for
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change can be revolutionary, whether it is
secular or religious. So when we sneer at
mullahs for their backwardness, we are
being intellectually lazy, and making no
effort to understand their motivation.
This struggle for power between the people
and the state is intensifying at a time when
the contradictions built into capitalism are
becoming sharper. The inequality between
workers and bosses has never been higher.
Phenomena like Brexit and Trump are just
the tip of the iceberg. Expect more of the
same.
So how do we break out of the circle in
which we are trapped? Clearly, the elite will
not hand over money or power to the
deprived. Is revolution the only answer?
Obviously, the situation will vary from one
society to another: some leaders will make
the adjustments necessary to defuse the
situation. Others will try and use force to
put down protest. In Iran and Iraq, for
example, brutal repression has already
taken hundreds of young lives.
In a world where one per cent of adults own
47pc of household wealth, it is no surprise
when the working class pour out into the
streets. To a great extent, it is the excesses
of the 1pc that is driving popular anger.
Add to income inequality the collapse in
governance and the lack of jobs, education
and opportunities, and you have the factors
for the perfect storm. To save itself, the
system will need to reinvent itself and
accept higher taxes to pay for
redistribution.
However, the 1pc will fight tooth and nail
to preserve its grip on wealth and power.
For them, any concession is the thin end of
the wedge. But unless they accept some
form of compromise, the present system is
doomed to go the way of the dinosaur.
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January 2020
Pakistan-Russia Relations are
Steadily Warming Up
By: Abdul Basit
A
s Additional Foreign Secretary in
charge of Pakistan’s relations with
European countries, I accompanied
President Asif Ali Zardari on his official
visit to Russia in May 2011. We were
upbeat, because we found the Kremlin
receptive to almost all our suggestions
aimed at putting the bilateral relationship
on a substantive trajectory against the
backdrop of new geo-strategic and geo-
economic considerations. Indeed, it was a
new beginning.
Since then, bilateral relations have come a
long way. However, Islamabad is still
waiting to welcome President Vladimir
Putin in Pakistan. He was scheduled to visit
in 2012 but the trip was cancelled at the last
minute for unknown reasons. In what was
seen as a damage-control exercise,
President Putin immediately dispatched
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to
Islamabad, reassuring the latter that the
President was looking forward to visiting
Pakistan as soon as possible.
Interestingly, there has been no summit
level visit from Moscow, except one and
that too, in 2007 by
then Prime Minster Mikhail Fradkov.
Another important visit that took place
from Moscow was by Russian Defence
Minister Sergei Shoigu in 2014.
On the other hand, almost all Pakistani
leaders have visited Moscow post-Cold
War, including Nawaz Sharif in 1999 and
President Pervez Musharraf in 2003. Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s visit is yet to be
scheduled though he met President Putin in
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on the sidelines of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
summit (SCO).
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Be that as it may, the two countries have
still been able to warm up to each other.
Many bilateral frameworks, including the
Inter-Governmental Commission (ICG)
which is currently holding its sixth meeting
in Islamabad and Foreign Secretary-level
consultations have been established to
expand the relationship in all areas. Russia
has also agreed to invest $1.7 billion in the
Karachi-Lahore gas pipeline. Though the
bilateral trade figures are still not very
impressive (around $400 million), a mutual
desire exists to attain the target of $1billion
as soon as possible.
All said and done, Russia is still careful not
to upset its historical and substantive
relations with India. Hence, every step is
taken with the utmost circumspection.
Needless to say, Russia continues to be the
biggest arms supplier to India and has
recently signed an agreement worth $5.5
billion for the supply of five S-400 air
defense systems. India went ahead and
signed this deal despite a demurral from the
US and this goes to show how much India
values its relations with Russia.
On the other hand, Russia also realizes fast
changing ground realities and the evolving
Indian strategic partnership with the US.
This gives it considerable diplomatic space
to reach out to Pakistan, breaking from
Cold War dynamics. Russia’s decision to
supply four combat Mi-35 helicopters to
Pakistan in 2017 while ignoring India’s
objections was a huge leap of faith.
Similarly, instituting bilateral military
exercises under the rubric of ‘Druzhba’
(Friendship) is another important
breakthrough. Russia also eventually
supported Pakistan’s membership of the
SCO along with India.
It is also interesting to see how Russia
reached out to the Taliban and its attempts
to positively contribute towards promoting
reconciliation in Afghanistan. It was an
unprecedented act, when in Dec. 2016, the
Russian representative at the Heart of Asia
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January 2020
Conference in Amritsar (India) took the
floor and defended Pakistan following
President Ashraf Ghani’s gratuitous tirade
against the country. I was present at the
conference and personally thanked Mr.
Zamir Kaboulov for his crisp and fair
intervention.
Whereas both Pakistan and Russia have
now decided to gradually improve
relations, some other limitations also affect
the pace. For instance, Pakistan’s economy
is still struggling and not in a position to pay
hard cash for possible purchases of Russian
defense equipment. It also cannot ignore
US and EU sanctions against Russia. As for
Russia, it is also struggling economically
and thus is not in a very comfortable
position to offer long-term soft loans.
These limitations aside, Russia is still
willing to upgrade the Pakistan Steel Mills
and Guddu and Muzaffargarh power plants.
It is also ready to spend in CASA 1000 and
TAPI projects. In short, Russian policy has
undergone a tremendous change in the
region. Importantly, it has been able to
engage with Pakistan without estranging
India.
Inter-state relations are not a zero-sum
game. Pakistan must be patient and
persistent. To begin with, ICG should be
held regularly. Annual political
consultations should also be upgraded to
the Foreign Minister level. As things
progress, Islamabad may eventually win
Russian support for its Nuclear Suppliers
Group membership, and be able to persuade
the Kremlin to mediate on Kashmir. Why
not have another Tashkent-type meeting of
1966 that the Soviet leadership had
organized between Pakistan and India
following their 1965 war?
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan is
expected to visit Moscow at the earliest,
and it is high time for President Putin to
experience Pakistan’s unparalleled
hospitality.
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How to Fix Pakistan’s Crashing
Economy?
By: Atif Mian (The New York
Times)
I f an airplane took off a dozen times only
to come crashing down each time, the
only logical conclusion would be that
the aircraft requires a fundamental
redesign. Pakistan’s economy, like the
airplane, has crashed 13 times in the last 60
years, each time requiring an International
Monetary Fund bailout.
It wasn’t always so. During the 1980s, in
per capita terms Pakistan was richer than
India, China and Bangladesh by 15, 38 and
46 percent. Today Pakistan is the poorest.
Its most recent gross domestic product
growth estimate was only 3.3 percent,
barely sufficient to keep pace with
population growth.
Pakistan’s federal government is
effectively bankrupt. Last year, the sum of
interest payment due on the government’s
debt obligations and pension payments
owed to retired employees was more than
the federal government’s net revenue. The
entire government machinery, including the
military, is running on borrowed money.
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January 2020
The consequences of Pakistan’s crashing
economy have been devastating for its over
200 million people. They are instinctively
aware of how far they have fallen behind
and there is a clamor for change for a future
where their children can live in dignity and
comfort.
It was this public desire for change that
propelled Pakistan’s most famous cricketer,
Imran Khan, and his relatively new party,
the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, into power in
2018. Prime Minister Khan promised
change and a “naya” or new Pakistan to his
people, but change is proving far more
difficult than imagined.
The fundamental challenge in bringing
change is that those who are benefiting the
most from the dysfunctional economy and
stand to lose the most from change would
fight every attempt at reform and attack the
people trying to ensure reform.
Pakistan’s leadership must muster the
courage to take on two primary forces of the
status quo that hold the country back. First,
the moneyed elite who tip the scales of
markets in their favor through unfair
business practices, tax evasion and
preferential access to power. They use their
privilege to grab the fruits of other people’s
labor rather than create something of value
through their own enterprise.
The second force inhibiting Pakistan’s
progress is religious extremism. Decades of
patronage by successive military and
civilian governments for promoters of
religious hate has created a culture of
institutionalized intolerance. The result has
been devastating for society. Thousands
have been killed, communities have been
ripped apart and hundreds of thousands of
people have been displaced or forced to flee
the country altogether. It is no wonder then
that few want to invest in an environment
afflicted with violence and intolerance.
Many whose talents are sorely needed in
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Pakistan are forced to flee the country
because of extremism.
The combined effect of extremism and an
unproductive rent-seeking elite is that
Pakistan has one of the lowest investment
rates in the world. Pakistan invests only 15
percent of its output compared with 30
percent for the rest of South Asia. This has
led to diminished productivity. Pakistan’s
total volume of exports has not risen since
2005. It has become a nation of consumers
with limited capacity to produce and
innovate. Last year, the country imported
more than two times as much as it exported.
Reversing those trends requires a
courageous commitment to fight the
entrenched elements and extremists.
Consider the unproductive moneyed class
which instead of investing in real
businesses buys urban land and sits on it.
This is an idle activity that adds nothing to
the country’s output and contributes
directly to Pakistan’s low investment rate.
The value of land keeps rising, not because
of any effort by the landowners but because
of an urbanizing population.
The correct policy response to discourage
such activity would be to tax the value of
land appropriately. This would dissuade the
rich from hoarding land and instead
incentivize them to invest in real
businesses. Land would then be available
for more productive uses and at cheaper
prices. Moreover, the revenue generated
from land taxes could fund much-needed
urban infrastructure.
While instituting a land tax addresses
multiple problems in a single strike,
carrying through with the policy requires
courage as a large percentage of urban land
is held by the powerful elite. Pakistan’s
leadership must develop the courage to put
the interests of the collective above those of
the privileged few.
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January 2020
Similar challenges exist in other parts of the
economy. For instance, sugar cane, which
is one of the most water-intensive crops, is
grown on nearly 2.5 million acres in
Pakistan. This makes no economic sense
for a country with a very serious water
shortage. Rationalizing agriculture toward
more efficient farming choices requires that
the government take on the landed
aristocracy by removing subsidies and
charging for excessive water use.
The government also continues to dole out
large export subsidies without an iota of
proof that these subsidies have helped
increase exports. Will the government
develop courage to say no to special
interests and devise a performance-based
assistance mechanism? The auto sector is
another example that has not innovated in
decades but continues to be protected
heavily by the government. And the power
sector is dominated by private producers
who enjoy high government-guaranteed
returns in dollars only to run grossly
inefficient plants.
It is even harder to find courageous
leadership when it comes to dealing with
religious extremists. One would have hoped
that decades of suffering at the hands of
religious extremism would convince at
least one government or major political
party to roll back the purveyors of hate. But
no one seems interested. Or perhaps no one
has enough courage.
All major political parties continue to
fraternize with the merchants of hate
whenever it politically suits them, thus
empowering the extremists further. Last
month, a cleric who specializes in spewing
hate against minorities marched on
Islamabad with his followers to put
pressure on the government. As he rallied
his crowd with dog whistles and extremist
rhetoric, the leadership of Pakistan’s two
main opposition parties, the Pakistan
People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz, stood next to him in
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solidarity. The ruling political party,
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, was no different
when it was in the opposition.
This is Pakistan’s ultimate dilemma. It
takes courage to put principles above petty
political advantages, to stand firm against
vested interests and to openly call out
religious bigotry when you see it.
Prime Minister Khan was known for his
fearless play on the cricket field as if he
were a “cornered tiger.” Pakistan needs
similar spirit in the political field today as
its politicians have unfortunately developed
a habit of conniving with vested interests
and those who trade in religious hatred.
Pakistan will change only when its
leadership develops the courage to act
otherwise. For the sake of Pakistan’s
children, may that day come soon.
Implementing Tariff Policy
(December 9, 2019)
By: Abbas Raza (The Nation)
T he Tariff Policy envisages invoking
the Federal Government Rules of
Business, 1973, which states that the
“Tariff policy and protection regime” is the
function of the Commerce Division. This
aspect has been raised many a time in the
past also, but no tangible action was taken.
So, tariff setting remained with the FBR,
except in cases where individual references
were made to the FBR in cases of tariff
protection/removal of tariff and fiscal
anomalies.
Since the policy now envisages to invoke
the Rules of Business 1973 which would
involve tax measures to the extent of
customs duties and other indirect taxes for
grant of tariff protection and removal tariff
and fiscal anomalies, would require the
approval of the National Assembly. As the
function once invoked would fall under the
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January 2020
purview of a money bill as per the Article
73(2)(a) of the Constitution.
Moreover, modification in taxes and duties
by the M/o Commerce (MOC) would
require an enabling act without which the
role of MOC will again be confined to
advisory and not mandatory. Besides,
policies without legal and statutory strength
only remain guidelines and cannot be
implemented as such to achieve the desired
objectives. Same is evident from the
outcomes of the Strategic Trade Policy
Frameworks announced by the ministry.
Only those measures are operationalised,
which are implemented through trade
policy orders. The Tariff Policy needs to
enacted under some legal frame
work/statute to make it practical and
implementable. Without that, it will
continue to a mere policy with no enabling
legal force.
The policy very naively and briefly, inter
alia, describes the objectives, principles and
policy guidelines for its implementation.
However, the policy is silent on the benefits
and targets to be achieved by it and how
would it incorporate the objectives of other
policies viz. industrial, fiscal, agricultural
etc. For, tariff policy is not merely about
tariff protection to the indigenous industry
but has to reflect the government’s overall
economic and fiscal policies as well. The
instant tariff policy seems to have taken a
very narrow view of the affairs. Setting up
of the Tariff Policy Board (TPB) to be
chaired by the Commerce Minister/Advisor
with representatives of other ministries and
divisions tantamount to creating another
high-level bureaucratic hurdle in the
process undermining the policy itself. The
TPB should also include members from
Pakistan Business Council and concerned
business associations.
A careful analysis of Pakistan Customs
Tariff reveals that there are certain raw
materials and inputs that are used in the
manufacturing of competitive and
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sophisticated/high value-added products.
However, they are still subject to statutory
customs duty rates, as they have never been
used in the production of sophisticated/high
value-added products, so far in the country.
Neither the industrial nor the trade policy
has prioritised such industrial
sectors/products. In other words, there
exists an anti-export bias in the tariffs for
such sophisticated/high value-added and
internationally competitive products.
Generating employment opportunities by
attracting efficiency-seeking investment in
the manufacturing sector by making tariff
regime transparent and predictable is a
good step. However, it is compromised,
inter alia, due to poorly negotiated Free
Trade Agreements, ineffective exchange
rate management, arbitrary and irrational
fixation energy tariffs and POL prices and
under-invoicing. Tariffs are not only a tool
for tariff policy measures, but they also
play a very significant role in resource
allocation, especially in a country with
scarce resources. As stated above the tariff
policy should not be considered in
isolation; it has to be in line with the other
macro policies with prioritised objectives
considering the current economic situation.
As regards the simplification of tariff
structure by reducing exemptions and
concessions, the same was effectively
undertaken by the Tax Reforms Committee
in the FBR in 2016-17. A large number of
SRO were withdrawn, translating them into
the First and Fifth Tariff Schedules
Customs Act, 1969. The policy also lays
emphasis on timebound protection to the
industry, which will not be possible without
stabilising the factors other than tariffs
which impact the level of effective tariff
protection to the industry. The recent
depreciation of Pak Rupee has already
reduced the protection levels of some
industries to below peril points and for
some has granted unintentional windfall
profits. For realistic protection measures,
the policy has to be flexible. Section 8(3) of
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January 2020
the National Tariff Commission Act, 2015
requires it to periodically review the effects
of its recommendations on tariff protection
and trade remedy measures.
The Pakistan Customs Tariff already stands
cascaded in an extensive exercise on the
Rationalisation of the Tariff Structure
conducted in the NTC with participation of
FBR and experts from AERC (Applied
Economic Research Center), Karachi in
1992. It was reconsidered by the NTC again
in 2015-16 updating the cascading
according to the economic classification of
goods viz. primary, secondary,
intermediate and finished goods with
further classification as locally and not-
locally available category. It just needs to
be made public and implemented.
The concept of strategic protection in
infancy stage to the industry is already
covered under the Article XVIII of GATT
1994. Pakistan has to invoke the provisions
of the said article. The article provides
special dispensation for the developing
countries under the Special and Differential
Treatment for developing countries, to
which emphasis was also laid in the mini
ministerial WTO conference held in
Shanghai on November 5, 2109.
The concept of regulatory duty (RD)
administered by the FBR is an ad hoc
measure. The RD imposed under section 18
of the Customs Act, 1969 requires an
analysis considering the implications of the
levy. However, FBR levies RD, as per its
charter for, revenue purposes only. Besides,
it does not possess institutional expertise to
undertake economic and protection
analysis. Pakistan has already enacted the
Safeguard Measures (Amendment) Act,
2015, which amends the Safeguard
Measures Ordinance, 2002, in line with
WTO Agreement on Safeguards, read with
GATT 1994 Article XIX on Emergency
Action on Imports on Particular Products.
The levy of RD under Section 18 of the
Customs Act, 1969 should be restricted, as
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also advised by the IMF and the World
Bank. Moreover, for the balance of
payments and revenue issues, Article XVIII
on Governmental Assistance for Economic
Development also provide unique and
differential treatment for developing
countries. The government should e the
said article.
The overall assessment of the policy reveals
that most of the measures proposed in it are
either have already been taken are in place.
The policy is thus an old vine in the new
bottle. Moreover, why the government had
to wait so long implement various measures
and that too through the budget for 2020-
21. There is either dearth of governance or
lack of information at the operational level.
However, the trade and industry should
actively participate and aggressively pursue
resolution of their issues about tariffs and
competitiveness based on economic,
financial, and legal analysis through the
tariff policy.
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The World Solved the Ozone
Problem. It Can Solve Climate
Change
(The New York Times, Editorial)
N
early 50 years ago, three chemists
named Mario Molina, Sherwood
Rowland and Paul Crutzen found
evidence that chlorofluorocarbons,
chemicals known as CFCs and released
from aerosol sprays, were weakening the
ozone layer that functions as the earth’s
natural sunscreen protecting humans,
animals and plants from harmful radiation.
The discovery made big news and rattled
the public. Aerosol sales dropped
dramatically, and, despite pushback from
the chemical companies that made CFCs,
Congress in 1977 added protecting the
ozone layer to the Environmental
Protection Agency’s duties under the Clean
Air Act. Not long afterward, the agency
determined that the compounds, then
widely used in refrigerators, air-
conditioners and some industrial processes,
posed an even graver threat to the
atmosphere than first thought. Soon after,
pressure began to build for a phaseout of
CFCs in the United States as well as for an
international treaty to find alternatives.
The case for global action became ever
more urgent in 1985 when a British team
discovered a hole in the ozone layer above
Antarctica, followed by confirmation by
NASA scientists of a connection between
the hole and CFCs. With the rest of the
world and even industry on board, the result
was the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a
landmark agreement banning
chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-
depleting chemicals. End of story? Not
quite. As it happened, the ozone-friendly
replacements for the CFCs, known as
hydrofluorocarbons, turned out to be
distinctly unfriendly to the climate. So in
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2016, the Montreal signatories reconvened
in Kigali, Rwanda, and agreed to amend the
original protocol to phase out HFCs and
find substitutes more friendly to the
atmosphere.
The bottom line is that the world,
confronted with two dire threats to the
earth’s fragile atmosphere, found two
planetary responses with positive
outcomes. The ozone layer is healing.
That’s worth remembering as we struggle,
often despairingly, to find common ground
in the battle against climate change.
Compared with the manifold complexities
of global warming, dealing with ozone
depletion was, in fact, relatively simple.
But the key point is that it happened, and
it’s worth asking why the world has not
responded with similar resolve in dealing
with the main global warming gases like
carbon dioxide, about which we have
known a lot for a long time.
In 1965, following a report from his
Science Advisory Committee, President
Lyndon Johnson asked Congress to pass a
law curbing carbon dioxide emissions. Four
years later, in a memo to John Ehrlichman,
President Nixon’s domestic affairs chief,
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then a
presidential assistant, warned that “man has
begun to introduce instability” in the
atmosphere “through the burning of fossil
fuels.” Atmospheric warming, Mr.
Moynihan said, “very clearly is a problem,
and perhaps most particularly, is one that
can seize the imagination of persons
normally indifferent to projects of
apocalyptic change.” Indeed, he offered, it
was not out of the question to imagine
“mammoth man-made efforts to
countervail the CO2 rise (e.g., stop burning
fossil fuels).”
Later came the dramatic congressional
testimony of James Hansen, a NASA
scientist, before Congress in June 1988,
linking global warming to human activities
with 99 percent certainty, an assertion that
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landed the issue on the front page of The
New York Times; also the strenuous efforts
of advocates like Al Gore to demonstrate
the link between warming and the increase
in manufacturing and the use of fossil fuels
since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution.
Yet scientific knowledge has not produced
action equal to the challenge. One reason
has been the absence, until fairly recently,
of obvious environmental damage
threatening individual well-being and the
sense of urgency that inspires the public to
demand regulatory responses. The prospect
of thousands and even millions of cancer
deaths led to the Montreal Protocol. The
Cuyahoga River catching on fire, giant
algae blooms in lakes and rivers, and
widespread contamination of municipal
water supplies led to the Clean Water Act
of 1972. Oppressive inner-city smog — so
bad you could nearly taste it — as well as
mounting respiratory illnesses, and dead
and dying trees, streams and lakes, helped
overcome political and industry foot-
dragging and created the landmark 1990
amendments to the Clean Air Act and its
innovative cap-and-trade system for
controlling ground-level pollutants.
Climate change, by contrast, has for a long
time been seen as remote, something for
future generations to worry about, and in
polls has appeared far down on the list of
voters’ concerns.
In addition, there were no relatively
expeditious technological fixes for carbon
emissions, as there were for fluorocarbons,
and as there were for the pollutants
addressed in the 1990 Clean Air Act
Amendments, like scrubbers for power
plants, and catalytic converters and cleaner
fuels for cars and light trucks. The global
warming problem requires a whole suite of
fixes, some of them mammoth, as Mr.
Moynihan intuited a half-century ago —
carbon-free alternatives to produce
electricity; an all-electric vehicle fleet; an
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end to deforestation; climate-friendly
agricultural practices; large-scale dietary
changes; and, quite possibly, advanced
technologies to draw carbon dioxide out of
the atmosphere. Reimagining the world
economy means turning around a very big
ship. Not to mention global buy-in.
Finally, despite predictable industry
warnings of economic ruin, the efforts to
protect the ozone layer and clean up the
nation’s waters and air faced nowhere near
the campaign of denial and disinformation
mounted by Exxon Mobil and other big
fossil fuel companies — companies that
knew perfectly well what their products
were doing to the atmosphere — to confuse
the public about climate change and to
derail serious attempts to address them.
This cascade of phony science was not the
only reason legislation aimed at reducing
carbon pollution foundered in Congress. As
Bill Clinton and Mr. Gore discovered after
signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, there
was little enthusiasm in either party for a
treaty that essentially required America and
other industrial nations to do most of the
heavy lifting while giving other big
emitters, among them China and India, a far
easier path. Still, industry’s relentless
obfuscation played a big role, especially
among Tea Party Republicans.
Are there reasons now to hope for serious
action? Yes: a trifecta of frightening reports
in the last year from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change on the need to act
before things spin out of control, on
deforestation and other damaging land-use
practices, on dying reefs and rising sea
levels. Plus: a cascade of natural disasters,
including catastrophic wildfires and
hurricanes. Plus: the dramatic drop in the
cost of producing carbon-free energy like
wind and solar power. Plus: well-publicized
concerns on the part of every contender for
the Democratic presidential nomination,
and equally well-publicized efforts by state
and local officials, to fill the global
leadership vacuum left by President Trump.
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What David Doniger, a climate expert at the
Natural Resources Defense Council, calls a
“one-two punch of irrefutable science and
irrefutable experience” has clearly raised
public awareness and, perforce, the
political temperature. To all this should be
added the experience of Montreal and
Kigali, and the catastrophe that did not
happen.
Season of Revolts (December 4,
2019)
By: Mahir Ali (Dawn)
F there’s a common theme that runs
I through the plethora of mostly
spontaneous popular mobilisations that
have rocked several continents in recent
months, it’s corruption.
It takes multiple forms, and tends to inspire
revolts when it reaches some kind of critical
mass. The triggers vary from one country to
the next. In Lebanon, for instance, it was a
proposed charge on WhatsApp calls, in
Chile it was a small increase in metro fares,
in Iran it was an unexpected spike in
petroleum prices, in Hong Kong it was the
prospect of suspects being extradited to
mainland China.
In Iraq, it was a more general sense of ennui
propelled by relentless administrative
incompetence that prompted initially
peaceful protests, which have led to the
most horrific death toll in any of the recent
revolts.
Malta stands out insofar as the promised
resignation of its prime minister is the
consequence of a criminal inquiry into the
assassination of a journalist two years ago.
Even there, though, the murder of Daphne
Caruana Galizia was prompted by her
fearless determination to delve into deep-
seated corruption at the highest levels of
government.
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She named and shamed, among others, a
senior minister as well as the prime
minister’s chief of staff in the wake of the
Panama Papers revelations. Both have
finally resigned, Malta’s richest
businessman has been charged with
complicity in the murder, and Prime
Minister Joseph Muscat — himself a
former journalist, ironically — has agreed
to step down once his party picks a
replacement.
That scenario, too, is frequently replicated.
In Lebanon, for instance, the protesters
succeeded where the Saudi crown prince
had failed in securing Saad Hariri’s
resignation, but he remains ensconced as
prime minister in a caretaker capacity, and
for the time being it seems that a change of
face will eventually be engineered within
the discredited power structure that the
street marchers have been militating
against.
A similar scenario appears to be unfolding
in Iraq, where parliament has approved
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s
resignation, but the prospect of a
replacement could play out for months —
and it anyhow defeats the purpose of the
revolting masses, whose chief gripe is
against the post-Saddam political system
put in place by the US and, inevitably, co-
opted by Iran.
Iranian symbols have come under attack,
and the myth of Tehran’s mystical hold
over Iraqi Shias has demonstrably been
shattered. But the systemic deliverance
being demanded by often fearless
demonstrators does not automatically
follow.
Of course, the prospects for meaningful
change are even more remote in Iran itself,
where the unrest has been described as the
most potent rebellion against the
established order since one form of tyranny
effectively replaced another 40 years ago.
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The regime in Tehran clamped down on the
internet — matching the Modi modus
operandi in relation to India-held Kashmir
— almost as soon as its hegemony was
challenged, but plenty of evidence has
emerged that the spontaneous protests were
put down with brute force, and that the
death toll runs into hundreds. It is
interesting that the rebellion appears to
have focused more on the rule of the
unelected Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
than on the administration of Hassan
Rouhani.
The divide in Iran between the civilian
administration and the Revolutionary
Guard is relatively well documented, and
the ayatollah is logically seen as a symbol
element of that part of the ruling elite that
cannot be dislodged through popular vote.
The US sanctions against Iran, which a
handful of European nations are gradually
finding ways to dodge, no doubt account to
a considerable extent for the faltering
economy. But unemployed young Iranians
— who are legion — are also impressed by
their government’s tendency to devote
substantial resources to throwing its weight
about in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, at the
expense of domestic investment that could
conceivably revive the economy.
Iran may be one of the only countries,
perhaps alongside Egypt, where recent
protests have prompted outright repression
without recompense or accommodations.
Even elsewhere, although concessions have
been made, the kind of change that the
angry populace desires seems remote.
Arguably, the sole exception has been
Bolivia, where regime change has been
effected through a right-wing coup,
following allegations of electoral
malpractices that largely remain
unsubstantiated. Even there, fresh elections
have been promised, but no one can
guarantee that they will be fair or free.
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In Chile, there is finally the prospect of a
post-Pinochet constitution. But how that
process will play out under the ruthless
presidency of Sebastian Pinera remains to
be seen.
Overall, in the wake of almost universally
inadequate to the popular impetus for
systemic change, it seems likely that the
lately witnessed season of revolt will not
only slip into 2020 but substantially widen
its remit.
From Red to Green – Pakistan
Aims for Climate Resilient Cities
By: Adnan Rehmat
B eing acutely disaster prone, says the
UN, Pakistan is among the top 10
countries most affected by climate
change. This century alone, it has endured
major climate-induced natural disasters that
have included devastating floods,
debilitating droughts, earthquakes of epic
proportions, steep fall in food production
and loss of environment-related jobs and
internal migration by millions. Hundreds of
thousands have died. The cost to the
economy has been astronomical. The social
cost is higher.
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The often-blundering government of Imran
Khan can be faulted for many of its
shortcomings and governance policy and
practise constraints but not for making the
tackling of existentialist climate crisis one
of its better priorities on which it has taken
positive actions. It started off with its
globally recognized, award-winning
‘billion tree tsunami’ program in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province which it has
ruled since 2013.
The program launched with the aim of
tripling Pakistan’s paltry four percent forest
cover area in five years. The recommended
minimum green cover for a country is 25%
of its landmass. While the jury is still out on
its full results – Khan insists one billion
trees have been planted in KP – there is a
discernible rise in green coverage in the
province. One of the first things Khan did
after becoming prime minister in 2018 was
to upgrade the Federal Ministry of Climate
Change, expand the ‘billion tree tsunami’
project to the rest of the country with the
aim of attaining minimum green cover by
the time his tenure ends in 2023, impose a
ban on single-use plastic and a clampdown
on the use of plastic bags for shopping.
Known for being outdoorsy before he came
to power and his green thumb, a few days
ago the prime minister launched his most
ambitious official environment initiative
yet – the Clean, Green Pakistan Index
(CGPI). It is a scheme aimed at fostering an
open competition among some of
Pakistan’s largest cities to improve their
internal climate and make themselves more
green and more livable. Pakistan has 10
cities with a population of a million or
more.
CGPI has five pillars – improving liquid
waste management, promoting tree
plantation, improving and modernizing
solid waste management, enhancing
integrated sanitation capacities and
providing safe drinking water to all
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residents. Performance on these
deliverables will be measured based on 35
performance indicators. Baseline data on
these pillars will first be collected in three
months followed by a six-month pilot phase
of performance enhancement using special
urban environmental development
resources and technical assistance, and then
a total of 19 cities ranked based on their
performance measurements.
On paper the initiative is brilliant not just in
terms of basic needs – administrations of
Pakistani cities are under-resourced and
overwhelmed – but also in building a spirit
of competition that will improve
sustainability. The best performers will get
additional resources. The management
capacities of Pakistani cities have eroded
over the past two decades catalyzed by not
investing in modern technologies and
professional competencies. The cities are
exhausted under population explosion
coupled with poor urban management.
They have surrendered their green cover to
an unplanned urban sprawl, increasing
pollution and causing over 135,000 deaths
annually on account of poor air quality
alone. Water-borne diseases kill ten times
as many.
As always, the catch will be how to manage
the program itself. Pakistan is not known
for its governance quality. The Khan
government is especially gaffe prone and
does not inspire confidence in managing
complex governance challenges. It has
fared poorly in managing infrastructure
projects under its jurisdiction in Punjab and
KP where it rules and where CGPI will be
implemented. It has also struggled to stem
the slide in national economic indicators
under its brief federal rule so far.
The CGPI initiative is currently short of
details in terms of which communities it
will involve and how. When involving
cities in a complex and ambitious plan like
this, it will be imperative to engage homes
(families), the market (merchants),
educational institutions (youth), the pulpit
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January 2020
(prayer leaders who run mosques in every
locality), environmental groups and
wholescale local communities. They will
need to be educated about the program and
provided basic literacy on changing their
poor environmental habits and given targets
to aspire to and meet.
Also, by keeping some of the significant
regions like Sindh and Balochistan
provinces as well as Gilgit-Baltistan and
Islamabad out of its ambit, the program
risks political alienation affecting its
branding. Initially the program looks too
bureaucratic and divorced of direct civic
involvement of its end beneficiaries to
optimize on its potential. With CGPI,
Pakistan can either become greener or it can
continue staying in the red with the climate
crisis slowly devouring it. The climate issue
needs to be fused into everyday political
and social narratives for Pakistan to slide
out of the list of worst victims of global
climate crisis.
Current State of Civil-Military
Relationship and Future Trends
By: Umer Karim
akistan’s unique political history has
P made the relationship between the
executive and military one of the
defining features of the nation’s political
spectrum. The civil-military relationship at
times has been centered around a
negotiation of roles and responsibilities
between the two institutional structures,
while at other occasions it has been
manifest by a power contest between the
two institutional rivals ending not only with
submission, but also a formal expulsion
from the power domain of one of the
contestants.
The political setup that emerged after the
departure of President Gen. Musharraf was
one where the military after its overarching
political presence of the last 10 years had
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decided to take a step back and allowed the
democratically elected government to
exercise political powers. Yet owing to the
deteriorating security situation within the
country, the military’s special vestiges
within the policy making domain remained
intact.
Meanwhile, in this reshuffling of the
political cards, Pakistan’s supreme court in
general and its Chief Justice Iftikhar
Chaudhry in particular emerged and
asserted himself as a powerful player by
means of judicial activism — From a civil perspective, Prime Minister
instrumentalized through the use of suo
motu notices on matters of public interest.
It was the Supreme Court that eventually
removed Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gillani in a contempt of court case.
The military was back into political
grapevine as it was allegedly behind the rise
of the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-
Insaaf (PTI) that posed a significant
political challenge to the Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N). PMLN
eventually won the 2013 elections
convincingly, yet Nawaz Sharif never
forgot his past with the military. The civil-
military ties started on a positive note but
gradually became bitter, first owing to a
PTI-led sit-in in Islamabad and later on due
to incidents like the Dawn leaks. The
Sharif-military uneasiness was never
resolved and ended only when the Supreme
Court, while investigating the Panama
Papers case, sent the prime minister
packing. Essentially, Sharif was knocked
out of the political fray but this time not by
the military but by the courts, again
establishing themselves as an independent
institutional entity.
With the elections of July 2018, finally the
political dichotomy of the Pakistan Peoples
Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League
that had dominated the country's political
fold for the last thirty years was over and it
was the turn of the Khan-led PTI to form a
government. This development had
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January 2020
tremendous implications for the state of
civil-military relationships. As the new
government took charge, it was visible that
both the executive and military essentially
had developed a symbiotic relationship,
with trust on both sides. This new political
order was one where the two powerful
components of the state rather than
negotiating or contesting each other’s
power domain, often at the cost of mutual
damage, were actually happy in
coordinating and helping each other.
Khan had no previous beef with the military
and therefore no accounts to settle. His sole
focus happens to be on recovering the
country’s wealth primarily embezzled by
politicians which is a point of no objection
for the military. For its part, the military has
been largely able to maintain its say in the
national security and foreign policy-making
domains.
This new dynamic in the civil military
affairs still revolves around the personal
relationship between two men – Khan and
Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa – and
their mutual trust. This has factored into the
government’s decision to award General
Bajwa a full-term extension. However, this
personal connectivity must not be
considered a hybrid regime as has been
apparent from the recent saga involving
Sharif and his departure from the country.
It was understandable that any deterioration
in Sharif’s health would have negative
implications for the current political
balance within the country. Yet Khan
enacted significant hurdles to obstruct
Sharif’s exit and without a court
intervention the latter would not have been
able to travel abroad.
This shows that even despite all symbiosis
and the government’s decision to award an
extension to Gen. Bajwa, there remains a
level of disparity between the political
goals of Khan’s government and what the
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security circles consider best for the
country.
As the Supreme Court took up the petition
regarding the extension of the army chief
and suspended the government's extension
order, a new crisis emerged. Eventually the
court gave an interim extension to the army
chief for six months while instructing the
government to draft a legal bill.
It won't be wrong to say that this judicial
intervention has not gone down well in
certain quarters and has been considered an
institutional challenge mounted by the
Supreme Court at the very last moment.
This inadvertently has brought both the
civil and military leadership even closer.
Depending on how the country's political
spectrum now evolves, there are signs that
the current state of affairs within civil-
military ties will be sustained until leaders
on both sides bid farewell to their positions.
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January 2020
Globalisation is the New
Colonisation (December 2, 2019)
By: Muhammad Ahmad Saad
(The Nation)
T
he world is getting smaller with
every passing day as powerful
forces of technology and innovation
have expedited the globalisation of trade,
commerce and industry. On the economic
side, technology is the main driver. The
relative cost of ocean, air and road
transportation continues to decrease,
removing an obstacle to cross-border
merchandise transactions. The fast
revolution in information and
communication technologies has numerous
dramatic impacts on trade in services. The
improved availability of information
technology and declining transaction costs
have further stimulated international flows
of capital, labour and technology. None of
this would have been possible, of course, in
the absence of required international
support to pursue policies consistent with
the globalised world order.
Different countries have removed, open or
hidden, trade barriers to develop and grow
collectively. For this purpose, the
globalised economic cooperation order was
evolved in 1947 in shape of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
and then the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) was created in 1995 to help develop
a worldwide economic order led by the US
and European countries. It is the main
global agreement to pave the way for a
globalised world. However, China has
emerged as a major global player in recent
years to pose a serious threat to the
technological colonialism of the West.
Global trade partners should abolish strict
exchange controls and liberalise the capital
accounts transactions to help the poor and
under-developed countries to reap the
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benefits of such international agreements.
Otherwise, the phenomenon of digitalised
globalisation, in the wake of international
trade agreements, would further widen the
divide between developed and poor
countries.
Globalisation will further grow in a
globalised world where the probability of
purchasing goods and services, from
domestic and foreign suppliers is the same
and a country’s trade is the main source of
its income. Pakistan is clearly some way
away from this benchmark of globalisation;
the people of a developed country place a
much higher proportion of their savings in
domestic assets rather than investing in
under-developed countries. Real interest
rates and capital/labour ratios continue to
diverge across countries; despite the
incentive for capital to flow from where it
is abundant, to where it is cheap, and from
where real rates are low to where they are
high.
The globalisation phenomenon is unlikely
to be rolled back despite China’s ever-
growing role in international affairs. It will
considerably expand and grow due to IT-
based technological revolution in the
world. In fact, ICT has colonised the whole
world due to intellectual/technological
hegemony of multinational companies.
Global powers now use their technology
instead of armies to conquer poor countries.
It is the big fact that technology marches in
only one direction and that is forward.
Further technological progress and
development have delivered a reduction in
the cost of acquiring information/data and
communication technologies have ensured
a safe and sound process of speedy
financial transactions across the globe.
This electronic revolution has, altogether,
changed the way people live, think and
move in this ever-changing world. The way
people live and work is both a cause of and
a response to a series of converging and
unstoppable trends. The trend now is to
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develop new technologies which are faster
and lighter, to help in the more powerful
flow of information including rising
customers’ expectations and, finally, the
business change encompassing a more
competitive climate. This e-revolution is
already radically changing daily life, trade
and business irrevocably. Experts are
consistently warning that any company
which thinks that it can wait until new
concepts or applications are more
developed, runs a great risk of being left far
behind. It is quite likely that organisations
that fail to keep up with the opportunities of
new technology will almost certainly see
their market position surpassed by faster-
moving competitors. The fall of global
cellular giants like Nokia and Blackberry
and the rise of iPhone, Samsung and other
Chinese phone companies is an apt
example. The decision to move into new
technology is a strategic one. One has to be
satisfied that it falls into with overall
business objectives and strategy and it will
also work as an integrated part of business
objectives.
Similarly, research is an integral part of the
technology-based globalised world. It is
often said that the foundation of the US
might is not its armed forces but
universities, having a strong culture of
research and innovation, which produce the
best men and women to lead the nation.
Pakistan also needs to understand how
information technology works and how the
citizens can take full benefit from it.
Getting up to speed on all this and
beginning to implement new systems might
seem like a daunting task but acceleration
is the main source of promoting
globalisation and strong economic growth.
The world was divided into Russian and
American blocs in cold war era but, today,
the whole world has been divided into
developed and technologically poor
countries, called the fourth world.
Meanwhile, the mantra of the Islamic bloc
has proved useless for Pakistan, especially,
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in the wake of recent developments in
Indian Occupied Kashmir. Pakistan should,
therefore, work for forging an economic
bloc of third world countries to counter the
hegemony of globalised world order led by
the US. This idea was first propagated by
late ZA Bhutto in 1976 after the success of
Islamic Summit of 1974. However, he
could not further it due to elections in 1977
and the rest is history.
In order to reap the economic gains from
international trade, the government of
Pakistan should accelerate domestic
capacity to produce goods and services for
foreign markets and to make its economy
an attractive destination for foreign trade
and investment. It goes without saying that
the multibillion dollar CPEC is ‘the real
chance of the century’ to develop Pakistan
as an inevitable global player in the restive
South Asian and Gulf regions. But Pakistan
will have to develop and strengthen its
relevant educational and state institutions to
reap the benefits.
India, Kashmir and Deterrence
(December 9, 2019)
By: Riaz M. Khan (Dawn)
K ASHMIR is generally described as
a nuclear flashpoint. Reference to
Pakistan and India being nuclear-
armed neighbours is often cited in times of
heightened tension between the two
countries and as a reminder that they must
avoid an all-out conflict. The Aug 5 Indian
move to annex India-held Kashmir (IHK),
the draconian lockdown in the Valley since
that date, and reckless Indian claims to
Azad Kashmir have created a radically new
and dangerous situation which has been the
subject of extensive comment.
In a recent Dawn article, my respected
senior colleague ambassador Ashraf
Jehangir Qazi pointed to an impending
genocide in the Valley and suggested that
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“if the people of the Valley are threatened
with genocide, as indeed they are,
Pakistan’s [nuclear] deterrent must cover
them”. The concept of nuclear deterrence
has an inbuilt ambiguity, but given the
gravity of the subject matter, it needs
further scrutiny.
Two questions readily come to mind. Will
the post-Aug 5 conditions in IHK morph
into a genocidal crisis and how should
Pakistan respond to such a situation?
Second, what broadly underpins Pakistan’s
thinking on resort to its nuclear deterrent
and how will it apply to Kashmir?
Arguably, the lockdown of eight million
Kashmiris represents a most reprehensible
human rights violation that deserves the
severest international condemnation, but
despite the danger, in the general
perception, genocide is tied to large-scale
massacres, mass exodus and international
outrage. The Indians appear to be avoiding
that tipping point and are attempting to
pursue calculated repression to tire the
Kashmiris out and entice pliable Kashmiri
individuals to acquiesce in the new diktat.
They are embarked on a long haul.
Pakistan, on the other hand, is waiting to
see how Kashmiris react to repression when
they find some breathing space. This policy
dilemma is at play in Prime Minister Imran
Khan’s warning to those intending to cross
the Line of Control. The current impasse is
fraught and nothing is clear about its
denouement. If, however, the situation
deteriorates and there is bloodshed and
people start fleeing the Valley, Pakistan’s
restraint will come under great stress and
become untenable. A stage may come when
beyond exhausting diplomatic options,
Pakistan would be unable to withhold
material assistance to the Kashmiri
struggle.
That scenario can precipitate a conflict for
which Pakistan must be fully prepared.
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In all probability, conflict would draw
international intervention and activate the
United Nations Security Council to call for
a ceasefire and dialogue for a political
settlement of Kashmir. This could become
a new basis for dialogue, since the heart of
a meaningful dialogue on Kashmir
provided by the Shimla Accords, the
Lahore Summit Declaration and subsequent
bilateral pronouncements has been knocked
out by the Aug 5 move of the Modi
government. This could usher in a period of
tenuous peace and another status quo over
Kashmir. But conflicts can have
unpredictable trajectories and far worse,
and disastrous consequences cannot be
ruled out, which makes the talk of nuclear
deterrent relevant.
Pakistan developing a nuclear deterrent was
a necessary and understandable response to
rectify the qualitative force imbalance
created by India’s 1974 nuclear test.
Pakistan obviously had no outside nuclear
umbrella available and had to rely on its
own capacity. Since 1998, Pakistan’s
nuclear doctrine has maintained that its
deterrent is entirely defensive and meant to
be a shield against any intended aggression
to destroy its territorial integrity.
India’s Cold Start Doctrine forced further
fine-tuning of Pakistan’s thinking as to the
practical applicability of its deterrent.
Because the Cold Start Doctrine
contemplated incursion and lopping off a
vulnerable part of Pakistani territory,
Pakistan responded by developing tactical
nuclear weapons to be deployed against an
invading force inside Pakistan. India has
reacted by declaring that use of a nuclear
weapon, however limited, anywhere
(including inside Pakistan) would draw a
massive nuclear retaliation. Regardless of
the debates swirling around these scenarios,
they provide the clearest indication of
Pakistan’s determination to go to any extent
to defend its territorial integrity.
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How does all this apply to Kashmir? In
practical terms, Pakistan’s deterrent cannot
protect people in the Valley or prevent
mayhem in IHK. But a genocide can lead to
a conflict between Pakistan and India with
its own dynamic and risks, thus Kashmir
becoming a nuclear flashpoint. Pakistan’s
nuclear deterrent must however cover Azad
Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to thwart any
Indian designs to capture any part of that
territory. Many among the current BJP
leadership mince no words about their
covetous intentions and claims over the
territory. It is imperative that we leave no
one in doubt that we will defend Azad
Kashmir and GB as we will defend any part
of Pakistan. We cannot tolerate a repeat of
Siachen.
Islamabad must also brace itself for Indian-
sponsored subversion and disaffection in
Azad Kashmir and GB, and, recognising
their special status, ensure well-being,
development, rights and opportunities for
the people of these areas.
The Aug 5 move by the Modi government
has so poisoned the well that it is difficult
see a path to normal relations with India.
Imran Khan’s Kartarpur initiative and his
call to curb any jihadist impulse along the
LoC are laudable. These measures, or any
other similar gestures or initiatives, are
unlikely to compel India to change course
to some form of a policy reversal that
respects Kashmiri sentiment and restores an
environment for purposeful interaction with
Pakistan. Much will depend on the
Kashmiris and sensitivity of the
international community to their
predicament and to sane voices within
India. Meanwhile, barring further
deterioration, Pakistan has little choice but
to maintain only a circumspect functional
relationship with its eastern neighbour
without expectations of normalisation any
time soon.
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Alarming Number (December 9, 2019)
By: Aisha Khan (Dawn)
‘F
OOD, water and energy’ is a
regular theme at conferences.
The nexus is very important and
needs to be highlighted but it is time now to
also start talking about the nexus between
climate change, population and
vulnerability.
It is easy to make the connection between
climate change and vulnerability but as
population growth rate is not a direct cause
or consequence of climate change, it is
often overlooked.
However the crux of the matter rests on the
population growth rate. We had a very good
family planning programme in Pakistan in
the 1960s and 1970s but somewhere along
the line the focus was lost and the
population exploded beyond the bearing
capacity of the state and the concomitant
services needed for the burgeoning
numbers.
Population and particularly the youth bulge
in Pakistanis is projected as a dividend. But
the Human Development Index does not
reflect a very a promising picture. Women
are half the population but have only 22 per
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cent participation in the work force and that
too in the lower tiers of employment, 38pc
of the population is stunted, in other words
suffering from cognitive impairment, 29pc
live below the poverty line, 64pc don’t have
access to safe drinking water and 52pc lack
hygiene and sanitation services in rural
areas.
Twenty-five million children are out of
school with a poor transition rate for the girl
child from primary to middle and high
school. Pakistan was unable to meet the
MDGs and is not positioned well to achieve
the SDGs.
In the gender parity index, Pakistan ranks at
the bottom of the list and in the
vulnerability index it consistently ranks
among the top 10 countries. This should be
a subject of serious discussion at the policy
level on managing the emerging number
crisis. The world is talking about a climate
emergency but we should be talking about
a population emergency because our
growing numbers will become our biggest
nemesis.
Climate change will just be a catalyst that
will exacerbate existing conditions. If we
were a country of 100m instead of 208m,
we would have no water scarcity, no energy
crisis, jobs for everyone, less emissions
from vehicles (clean air) less expenditure
on road infrastructure, more and better
equipped health and education services,
balance between built and natural
environment and a healthy combination of
rural and urban populations working for a
prosperous Pakistan.
As things stand, with the present rate of
growth, we are projecting our population to
increase to 400m by 2040. In this scenario,
we will have double the population, half the
land for agriculture and half the water that
is available to us today for irrigation and
domestic use. With more disasters and mass
migrations of populations from areas where
heat will make survivability impossible
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along with increase in disease and shortage
of food and jobs, we are looking at a
humanitarian crisis in the making.
The main difference between developed
countries and us is that developed countries
have kept a balance between population and
resource utilization and invested in quality
of human resource, not considering mere
numbers as dividends.
We have increased our numbers
mindlessly, not invested in human resource,
kept women out of the decision-making
loop and created an elitist society at the
expense of the ordinary citizen. The
numbers of the have-nots by far exceed
those who are privileged; the time is not far
when the impacts of climate change will
push the vulnerable against the wall,
forcing them to react and retaliate through
actions that will create a law-and-order
situation resulting in strife and violent
conflict.
The most urgent need is to launch a
campaign to control our population growth
rate. The average family size in rural areas
is eight which means those who have less
are producing more and adding to the
numbers living on the margins. Reducing
the population growth rate should be our
first priority as no other programme, policy
or initiative will produce results without
managing the numbers. The greater our
numbers, the higher our vulnerability and
risk of violence and disruption in society.
Bangladesh has emerged as an example of
how a country can improve its social and
economic indicators by controlling its
population growth rate and empowering
women. We often like to cite China as a
country that has risen as an economic giant
or give the examples of prosperity in
Singapore and South Korea.
But the reason for their upward trajectory
becomes evident with one look at their
population growth rate and the status of
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women in society. Without controlling our
population and empowering women we
will not have the capacity to meet the
formidable challenges of climate change
and all its attendant social and economic
woes.
New Troubolemakers Emerge
(The Economist)
S O MUCH TALK of “crisis” has
surrounded NATO’s 70th-birthday year that
it has been easy to forget there are reasons
to celebrate. Not only has the alliance
proved remarkably durable by historical
standards, but since 2014 it has responded
aptly to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine,
refocusing on its core mission of collective
defence. It has deployed multinational
battlegroups into the three Baltic states and
Poland and committed to improved
readiness. Goaded by criticism from
President Donald Trump, its members have
raised their spending on defence. Though
many countries, notably Germany, still fall
short of their promises, NATO now
estimates that between 2016 and 2020 its
European members and Canada will shell
out an extra $130bn.
This new money helps explain one
welcome development at the meeting of
NATO leaders in Britain this week. Mr
Trump, previously the disrupter-in-chief,
who used to call the organisation “obsolete”
and caused consternation at a summit in
Brussels in 2018 by threatening to
withdraw if Europeans failed to take on a
fairer share of the burden, has—however
briefly—become a defender. In London this
week he blasted President Emmanuel
Macron’s criticism of the alliance as
“nasty” and “disrespectful”. He made no
sign of blocking stern words on Russia or
the reiteration of Article Five of NATO’s
treaty, the cornerstone of the alliance.
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America’s commitment will be on display members’ commitment to Article Five and

next year, when some 20,000 of its troops
are to practise reinforcing Europe in an
exercise called Defender 2020.
The bad news is that other disrupters have
emerged. The viscerally anti-NATO Jeremy
Corbyn could conceivably become prime
minister of one of its leading members after
next week’s British general election.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
has caused consternation by buying a
Russian anti-aircraft system, obstructing
NATO’s decisions on eastern Europe and
invading northern Syria without regard for
his allies’ interests. He responded with
personal insults to a suggestion by Mr
Macron that, given Turkey’s actions in
Syria, it might not be able to count on the
mutual defence enshrined in Article Five.
proclaimed that “Russia’s aggressive
actions constitute a threat to Euro-Atlantic
security”. That is welcome, but the alliance
needs to find a new strategic coherence.
Even if Mr Trump remains in favour,
America’s focus is shifting ineluctably to
its rivalry with China in Asia and beyond.
Exercises and increasing readiness will
cement the alliance at a military level—and
this will endure while the politicians come
and go. Work on newish areas such as space
and cyberwarfare will help, too. Eventually,
a strategic dialogue with Russia might
make sense. But to thrive NATO also needs
a greater common purpose. Once the
impetus came from America. Mr Macron
was right to point out that in future Europe
will have to play a larger part.

The most surprising troublemaker, and the

reason relations have turned ugly, is Mr
Macron himself. In a recent interview with
The Economist he said that NATO was
experiencing “brain-death”. He champions
a stronger European defence, which Europe
needs, and on December 4th insisted that
this would “not be an alternative to NATO
but one of its pillars”. But there is lingering
suspicion of his intentions among other
allies. That is partly because of his
enthusiasm for a “strategic dialogue” with
Russia. He has emphasised the threat of
terrorism over the task of defending against
Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Mr Macron is
taking a long view and is seeking to
stimulate fresh thinking, but most of his
allies understandably hear his words as a
threat to the progress of the past five years.
Russia’s actions, not just in Ukraine but
also on NATO territory (including by
sending assassins to Salisbury in Britain
and, possibly, Berlin’s Tiergarten), call for
a strong response. Any desire for
concessions will be seen in Moscow as
weakness.

In Britain NATO papered over the cracks.

The summit’s declaration affirmed its

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