China-Pakistan Relations

• Introduction
• The India Question
• A Deepening Military Bond
• Bolstering Ties
• The Balancing Act
• Regional Cooperation

Introduction

Since establishing diplomatic ties in 1951, China and Pakistan have enjoyed a close and mutually
beneficial relationship. Pakistan was one of the first countries to recognize the People's Republic
of China in 1950 and remained a steadfast ally during Beijing's period of international isolation
in the 1960s and early 1970s. China has long provided Pakistan with major military, technical,
and economic assistance, including the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology and equipment.
Some experts predict growing relations between the United States and rival India will ultimately
prompt Pakistan to push for even closer ties with its longtime strategic security partner, China.
Others say China's increased concern about Pakistan-based insurgency groups may cause Beijing
to proceed with the relationship in a more cautious manner.

The India Question

China and Pakistan have traditionally valued one another as a strategic hedge against India. "For
China, Pakistan is a low-cost secondary deterrent to India," current Pakistani ambassador to the
United States Husain Haqqani told CFR.org in 2006, when he was a visiting scholar at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "For Pakistan," he said, "China is a high-value
guarantor of security against India." Mutual enmity between India and Pakistan dates to partition
in August 1947, when Britain relinquished its claim over the Indian subcontinent and divided its
former colony into two states. Since then Pakistan and India have fought three wars and a
number of low-level conflicts. Tensions remain high over the disputed territory of Kashmir with
periodic military posturing on both sides of the border.

India has long been perturbed by China's military aid to Pakistan. K. Alan Kronstadt, a specialist
in South Asian affairs at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, writes (PDF) that
observers in India see Chinese support for Pakistan as "a key aspect of Beijing's perceived policy
of 'encirclement' or constraint of India as a means of preventing or delaying New Delhi's ability
to challenge Beijing's region-wide influence." China and India fought a border war in 1962, and
both still claim the other is occupying large portions of their territory. "The 1962 Sino-Indian
border conflict was a watershed moment for the region," says John W. Garver, professor of
international relations at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Both China and India incurred
heavy costs on their economic development, and both sides shifted their policy over time to
become more accommodating to growth."

A Deepening Military Bond

China's role as a major arms supplier for Pakistan began in the 1960s and included assistance in
building a number of arms factories in Pakistan and supplying complete weapons systems. "Until
about 1990," write South Asia experts Elizabeth G. M. Parker and Teresita C. Schaffer in a July
2008 CSIS newsletter (PDF), "Beijing clearly sought to build up Pakistan to keep India off
balance." After the 1990 imposition of U.S. sanctions on Pakistan, China became the country's
leading arms supplier. Collaboration now includes personnel training, joint military exercises,
intelligence sharing, and counterterrorism efforts. While the relationship is not quite balanced, it
has been critically important to Pakistan. "Pakistan needs China more than China needs
Pakistan," says Huang Jing, a China expert at the National University of Singapore. Pakistan has
benefited from China's assistance with the following defense capabilities:

• Missile: Pakistan's army has both short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, such as the
Shaheen missile series, that experts say are modifications of Chinese imports.
• Aircraft: The current fleet of the Pakistani Air Force includes Chinese interceptor and
advanced trainer aircraft, as well as an Airborne Early Warning and Control radar system
used to detect aircraft. Pakistan is producing the JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat aircraft
jointly with China. The K-8 Karakorum light attack aircraft was also coproduced.
• Nuclear Program: China supplies Pakistan with nuclear technology and assistance,
including what many experts suspect was the blueprint for Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
Some news reports suggest Chinese security agencies knew about Pakistani transfers of
nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. China was also accused of having
long-standing ties with Abdul Qadeer Khan (A.Q. Khan), known as the father of the
Pakistani nuclear program and head of an international black market nuclear network.

Bolstering Ties

Since the late 1990s, economic concerns have gained prominence alongside the military-strategic
aspect of the relationship; specifically, trade and energy have taken precedence. Over the years,
frequent exchanges of high-level visits and contacts between the two countries have resulted in a
number of bilateral trade agreements and investment commitments. Trade relations began shortly
after the establishment of diplomatic ties in the early 1950s, and the two countries signed their
first formal trade agreement in 1963. A comprehensive free trade agreement was signed in 2008,
giving each country unprecedented market access to the other. Trade between Islamabad and
Beijing now hovers around $7 billion a year, and both sides are set on raising the figure to $15
billion by 2010.

The two countries have cooperated on a variety

of large-scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including highways, gold and copper mines,
major electricity complexes and power plants, and numerous nuclear power projects. With
roughly ten thousand Chinese workers engaged in 120 projects in Pakistan, total Chinese
investment--which includes heavy engineering, power generation, mining, and
telecommunications--was valued at $4 billion in 2007 and is expected to rise to $15 billion by
2010. One of the most significant joint development projects of recent years is the major port
complex at the naval base of Gwadar, located in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. The
complex, inaugurated in December 2008 and now fully operational, provides a deep-sea port,
warehouses, and industrial facilities for more than twenty countries. China provided much of the
technical assistance and 80 percent of the funds for the construction of the port. In return for
providing most of the labor and capital for the project, China gains strategic access to the Persian
Gulf: the port is just 180 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of
all globally traded oil is shipped. This enables China to diversify and secure its crude oil import
routes and provides the landlocked and oil and natural gas-rich Xinjiang Province with access to
the Arabian Sea.

As Pakistan continues to face economic woes with falling foreign investment, a weakening
currency, and an underperforming stock market, securing closer economic cooperation with
Beijing is seen as vital. Pakistan currently faces a growing balance of payments deficit, and
China's capacity as a creditor may be able to correct Islamabad's urgent predicament. "China's
huge foreign-exchange reserves," writes Kronstadt, "are a potential source of a major cash
infusion."

The Balancing Act

Despite increased cooperation between the United States and Pakistan since 2001, Islamabad
places greater value on its relationship with Beijing than vice versa, say analysts. "Pakistan
thinks that both China and the United States are crucial for it," said Haqqani. "If push comes to
shove, it would probably choose China--but for this moment, it doesn't look like there has to be a
choice." Pakistan considers China a more reliable ally than the United States, citing years of
diplomatic manipulation and neglect on the part of Washington. As this interactive timeline
explains, Pakistan and China grew closer in the 1960s as Washington and Islamabad began to
part ways over the handling of regional issues. In particular, Pakistan felt betrayed when
Washington cut off aid to Islamabad during its 1965 and 1971 wars with India. Pakistan played a
pivotal role as an intermediary during the U.S.-China rapprochement in the early 1970s, but
Pakistanis are still stung by what they see as U.S. indifference toward their country after using it
to funnel aid to the Afghan mujahadeen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

The India-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement compounds Pakistan's distrust of the United States,
spurring efforts by Pakistani officials to secure a similar deal with China. In April 2010, China
announced its plan to build two new nuclear power reactors in Pakistan. The deal is seen as a
violation of the guidelines laid down by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of which China is a
member. In a CFR interview, Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund of the United States,
says "in private, Chinese analysts are quite clear that this is a strategic tit-for-tat [in response to
U.S-India nuclear deal] and it's a very worrying portent if this is going to be China's approach to
the nonproliferation regime in future."
Meanwhile, China is concerned over the increasing level of extremism inside Pakistan. Some
experts say China is also concerned about Chinese Uighur separatists in the western province of
Xinjiang finding a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas. According to Ziad Haider in a 2005
Asian Survey article, Uighur militants were enrolled in Pakistani madrassas during the 1980s and
fought the Soviets alongside the Taliban and later against the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.
Some of these madrassas, Haider writes, "provided an important site for the recruitment of
[Uighur] fighters" who later returned to Xinjiang.

China has also publicly expressed concern over the increased level of kidnappings and killings of
Chinese citizens by Pakistani militants. China's ambassador in Islamabad urged Pakistan to "take
effective measures to protect all the Chinese in Pakistan" after militants shot and killed three
Chinese nationals in July 2007. Militants continue to target Chinese workers in Balochistan
Province. However, Beijing is wary of getting heavily involved in counterterrorism efforts.
"China is well aware of the threat it faces if it becomes too involved in counterterrorism efforts
within Pakistan," says Garver, "and that means taking a more cautious and calculated approach--
at least publicly--in strengthening Pakistan's secular institutions against the Islamist challenge.
This may partly explain why China has been quite comfortable in encouraging the United States
to engage more with Pakistan: to take the heat off of China."

Regional Cooperation

Experts say all countries in the region are reevaluating their traditional positions. "Everyone in
the region has learned to [develop] a relatively non-ideological set of policies," says Kenneth G.
Lieberthal, a noted China expert and professor at the University of Michigan. As CSIS's Parker
and Schaffer note, China has taken a more neutral position on India-Pakistan issues such as
Kashmir in the past decade and a half, and has "begun to take the relationship with India more
seriously." A case in point, they say, was China's dissatisfaction with Pakistani military action
across the Line of Control, which separates India- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, during the
1999 Kargil conflict.

Pakistan is also not the only South Asian nation China is interested in strengthening ties with:
Beijing has expanded its relations with Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and the
Maldives. "China has a clear-cut strategy for using its leverage in the region," says Ganguly of
Indiana University. "They're going to continue to work with India's neighbors as a strategic
hedge against New Delhi, but Pakistan will remain central to this strategy."

Experts believe that any confrontation between India and Pakistan is not in China's interest and
would put Beijing in the position of having to choose between the two countries and draw the
United States further into the region. "In this sense," writes Kronstadt, "peace between India and
Pakistan is in China's interest."
Intensifying China-Pakistan Ties

Interviewee:Andrew Small, Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States
Interviewer:Jayshree Bajoria, Staff Writer, CFR.org

July 7, 2010

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari is on a six-day trip to China that began July
6. Zardari is meeting with China's top leaders, and on Wednesday the two countries signed pacts
on cooperation in agriculture, healthcare, justice, media, economy, and technology. Both sides
also vowed to step up joint efforts against terrorism. But while the relationship between the two
countries is strong, it's shadowed by Beijing's concerns about Pakistan's security threat and its
impact on Chinese investment and personnel in Pakistan, says Andrew Small, an expert on
China-Pakistan relations at the German Marshall Fund for the United States. Small adds that
China might make deals with various militant groups inside Pakistan to ensure safety for its
assets and workers. As for China's plan to build two nuclear power reactors in Pakistan, Small
says it is likely Beijing will ignore international nonproliferation guidelines to go ahead with the
deal.

What agreements or announcements are we likely to see coming out of President Zardari's
visit?

These trips had become relatively routine--soon after assuming office, President Zardari
announced that he would visit China every three months, a commitment that he's largely stuck to.
The visit will again be dominated by Zardari's push to attract Chinese investment and boost trade
ties, which are still the weakest element of the relationship. But aside from the fact that it's a full
state visit, the unusually high interest this time around is largely connected to the nuclear deal.

[I]n private, Chinese analysts are quite clear that [nuclear deal with Pakistan] is a strategic tit-for-
tat [in response to U.S-India nuclear deal] and it's a very worrying portent if this is going to be
China's approach to the nonproliferation regime in future.

The nuclear deal, in which China plans to sell two new civilian nuclear reactors to
Pakistan, is seen as violating the rules set by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), of which
China is a member. What are China's options? Will it proceed with the sale to Pakistan or
follow the U.S.-India example and seek a special exemption?

The indications so far are that China will ignore the NSG guidelines and simply claim that the
deal is part of the exemption for prior Sino-Pak civil nuclear cooperation--the power plants
Chashma 1 and 2, which were "grandfathered" as conditions of China's membership in the
Nuclear Suppliers Group. No one accepts this argument, though. Beijing has been testing the
water to see how other countries--and particularly the United States--react, but so far seems to
think that it won't encounter serious pushback. There is little appetite in Beijing for going
through the sort of process that the United States undertook at the NSG for the India deal.

The United States has expressed concern over the nuclear deal and has asked Beijing for
details. How damaging is this deal for the nonproliferation regime? Are there any real
options available to Washington, which is seen by some as the culprit for bending the rules
for India?

The United States expressed concern in the past, but official reaction to the actual conclusion of
the deal has been relatively muted, and many in China think it will stay that way. Aside from the
obvious gaps between the Indian and Pakistani proliferation records, the major difference
between the Indo-U.S. and Sino-Pakistan deals is that there has been no attempt on China's part
to secure an international consensus behind it, nor to extract any concessions from Pakistan vis-
à-vis proliferation issues.

The United States and other countries are perfectly entitled to require Beijing to go through the
same tough process if it expects to move ahead with the deal while remaining a member of the
NSG. But the Chinese also believe that Washington needs Beijing's support on issues such as
Iran at the moment and will be unwilling to mount serious resistance to the deal. Moreover, in
private, Chinese analysts are quite clear that this is a strategic tit-for-tat [in response to U.S-India
nuclear deal], and it's a very worrying portent if this is going to be China's approach to the
nonproliferation regime in future.

Pakistan and China have often referred to their relationship as one that has stood the test
of time. What are current priorities on each side in the relationship?

Beijing is somewhat skeptical in general about civilian rule in Pakistan and is more comfortable
with military governments, which they perceive to be more stable.

The traditional elements of the relationship are still very much alive--China supports Pakistan as
a counterbalance to India, and military cooperation is uniquely close. If anything, this matters
more now, as India's path to great power status--and to deeper ties with the United States--grows
more assured. Islamabad looks to Beijing for economic support and diplomatic protection, acting
in turn as a political ally in the Islamic world and in international organizations. China expects
Pakistan to play an active role in containing the threat from militant groups to Xinjiang. Chinese
companies are given privileged access in Pakistan and opportunities for major strategic projects
such as ports and pipelines.

The newer concerns on Beijing's side are the security of Chinese personnel and assets in
Pakistan, and the broader consequences of internal instability. For Pakistan, the push for Chinese
investment in an array of economic sectors is much higher than it has been in the past.

What is China's relationship with Pakistan's current civilian government?

Beijing is somewhat skeptical in general about civilian rule in Pakistan and is more comfortable
with military governments, which they perceive to be more stable. Chinese diplomats and
military officers will quite openly say that they miss [former Pakistani president and army chief]
General Pervez Musharraf. And even though China enjoys good relations with all the political
parties in Pakistan, it has often found the [ruling] Pakistan People's Party too pro-Western for its
taste. President Zardari in particular had a frosty start to relations with Beijing when he assumed
the presidency. They have improved since then but still couldn't be described as close.

Chinese workers have increasingly become targets of militant groups inside Pakistan since
2007. Has this affected how China perceives its interests as well as the security threat inside
Pakistan?

China has leaned hard on Pakistan to protect its workers, and there have been moments of real
tension when Beijing has felt that Islamabad's response was inadequate--particularly during the
Lal Masjid incident [the Red Mosque in Islamabad, where Chinese workers were kidnapped by
extremists in 2007] and the kidnapping of Chinese engineers in Swat.

Senior Chinese leaders such as President Hu Jintao have been very directly engaged in the
situations, adding to the pressure. China at points has threatened to pull funding and to withdraw
its workers from the country. Needless to say, this has at points made for a far more fraught
relationship than in the past. China has become more concerned about the security threat in
Pakistan, but it has largely relied on its traditional approach--leaning on the Pakistani
government to do more to protect its people--rather than addressing some of the systemic
conditions that are leading to these threats growing.

What kind of cooperation is there between the two countries on fighting militancy inside
Pakistan?

China has provided some practical support to Pakistani operations--equipment, provisions for
internally displaced persons during the Swat campaign, and so on. During the time of Zardari's
visit, the two sides' militaries will be conducting their third set of joint counterterrorism exercises
in Ningxia [Chinese province]--the timing pointedly crossing over with the anniversary of the
riots in Xinjiang last year. To the extent that Pakistan asks for China's help on the threat of
militancy, it has evidently been willing to provide it. But the bulk of military cooperation is still
focused on India, and China evidently has little desire to get too much caught up in or associated
with broader internal campaigns aside from the crackdowns on the East Turkestan Islamic
Movement and Turkestan Islamic Party, the Uighur militant groups.

In your latest piece in the Washington Quarterly, you write China is willing to make deals
with militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and the Hezb-i-Islami-Gulbuddin to secure its
interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan. How does this fit into China's strategy for dealing
with militancy inside Pakistan? Does it jeopardize U.S. and Western interests in the
country?

China has become more concerned about the security threat in Pakistan, but it has largely relied
on its traditional approach--leaning on the Pakistani government to do more to protect its
people--rather than addressing some of the systemic conditions that are leading to these threats
growing.

China's main interest is ensuring that it does not become a primary target for militant groups, and
it is willing to make deals and pay people off if necessary. It also aims to starve Uighur militants
of any support. Beijing's expectation has been that Pakistan's military and intelligence services
can lean on some of these militant groups to ensure that they steer clear of Chinese interests. This
strategy has worked well in the past, and although it has become more difficult since the
Pakistani military's relations with certain groups have fractured, there are plenty of groups for
whom Pakistan's military can still act as an effective intermediary.

Nevertheless, there has been a perception on China's part that it needs to reach out to some of
these groups through additional channels--political parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami--as the
traditional ones are no longer sufficient. None of this is actively harming U.S. and Western
interests, but it's a strategy that is basically parasitic on the United States and the West remaining
the primary targets [for militants]--it is not one that identifies shared interests in combating these
groups and looks for ways to cooperate.

Under the Obama administration, China and the United States have discussed Pakistan as
part of their bilateral dialogue. Do the two share common goals/interests in the country?
How can they better cooperate toward achieving them?

The two sides do share some fundamental interests in ensuring the stability of Pakistan,
preventing the rise of militancy, avoiding direct conflict with India, securing Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal, and so on. In times of crisis--Kargil [war in 1999], Mumbai [attacks in 2008], Pakistan's
financial crisis [in 2008]–-cooperation has actually been quite effective. The difficulty is that
when it comes to identifying longer-term ways to cooperate, China becomes very resistant. It
outright refused even to talk about a U.S. State Department plan for joint activities. Coordination
rather than cooperation is a more realistic expectation--and plenty of China's economic activities
in the country serve shared interests anyway.

Both the United States and China know that Pakistan's economic development is essential to its
stability, and Chinese investments in infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, joint industrial
zones, and many other areas will provide important support to that objective. Few other countries
have the resources, capacity, and appetite for risk to have such a transformative impact in
Pakistan. But even coordination is difficult while China--and the Chinese military in particular--
seeks to protect the privileged nature of the bilateral relationship [with Pakistan] and while many
of the gaps in goals and interests also exist. Not least, China is essentially suspicious of the U.S.
role in Pakistan and the region more broadly and sees direct risks in being associated with
unpopular U.S. activities.

In October last year, you wrote Pakistan has become "one of the only countries where
Beijing has undertaken crisis contingency planning for scenarios ranging from state
collapse to loose nukes." Could you elaborate? Is this a distinct change in Chinese policy
toward Pakistan?
My understanding is that these are more along the lines of scenario planning for Chinese options
in various eventualities rather than full military contingency planning, but it's difficult to
ascertain with precision. Some scenarios I've heard cited are nuclear weapons falling into the
hands of terrorists, a failure of Pakistan to contain militancy in the country, and war with India,
but this is a murky realm of any country's military planning.

What it does signify is that Chinese anxiety about worst-case scenarios has undoubtedly risen.
Threat-perceptions for Pakistan are generally lower in China than they are in the United States,
but some of the scenarios have even more serious repercussions for Beijing than they do for
Washington. There are direct spillover consequences for Xinjiang and to the full spectrum of
China's strategic interests in South and Southwest Asia in situations where the Pakistani state is
no longer capable of functioning effectively.