Comment by Riaz Haq on July 18, 2021 at 7:05am

Pakistan’s geo-economics is working well. Despite their friendly relations with #China (& #Russia), both #Uzbekistan & #Pakistan (biggest 2 nations in Greater Middle East) are eager to deepen ties with the #US. China has huge stakes in Pak & #Afghanistan https://www.indianpunchline.com/pakistans-geo-economics-is-working-...


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The parties agreed to meet in the coming months to determine the modalities of this cooperation with mutual consensus.

The US is intensely conscious that its prestige in the region is at its nadir today and it stands isolated, as the reported cheeky Russian offer volunteering to be America’s gatekeeper shows.


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Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are also Muslim countries and they provide a market of around 300 million people. No doubt, the US did its homework. This QUAD has viability unlike its insipid namesake in the “Indo-Pacific.”

In the recent years, the US has been paying extra attention to cultivate friendly ties with Uzbekistan, which is not only the biggest country in Central Asia but a relative success story regionally in political stability and overall developmental trajectory.

Tashkent has been receptive to Washington’s overtures, as strong ties with America help it to balance Russia and will strengthen its strategic autonomy.

The new Quad signals the US’ receptiveness to Pakistan’s persisting demand for a bilateral relationship that goes beyond Afghan issues. There are fault lines in the China-Pakistan relationship, which are no more possible to conceal, and in Washington’s judgment, Pakistani elites, civilian and military, have remained as western-oriented as ever despite their alienation in the recent decade.

To be sure, with the curtain coming down on the Afghan war, the time has come for establishing rail/road links connecting Central Asia with Karachi/Gwadar ports. The expected improvement in the security situation allows mega projects to be implemented. Conceivably, the Taliban would have no reservations over the QUAD. The Pakistani ports are ideally placed to connect the resource-rich Central Asian region and Afghanistan with the world market.

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Clearly, by having both the CPEC and the QUAD on its platter, Pakistan is tasing success in its foreign-policy shift toward geoeconomics. Pakistan’s geography makes it a turf for competition between China and the West in infrastructure development. Simply put, the new QUAD will impact regional politics.

Indeed, the US hopes to wean Pakistan away from its heavy dependence on China. The new QUAD will make India look an outlier drifting aimlessly without a sense of direction. India turned its back on China’s BRI but Pakistan secured the $60 billion CPEC and is now looking forward to the US-led QUAD.

India’s relations with China are in deep chill and its traditional friendly ties with Russia have become listless, whereas, Pakistan not only enriched its ties with China but is successfully exploring the multipolarity in the world order.

On July 16, Pakistan and Russia signed a mega deal for a 1100 km gas pipeline project costing between $2.5 – $3 billion connecting Karachi and Lahore which will transport imported LNG (for which it has separately signed a deal with Qatar whereby 200 mmcfd of gas will initially reach Karachi’s LNG terminal in the beginning of next year that would be enhanced to 400 mmcfd in the coming years.) Whereas, India’s gas pipeline project with Iran has been languishing as pipe dream. read more

Pakistan is anxious to have President Putin inaugurate the groundbreaking of the gas pipeline project, which is expected to be held later this year or in early 2022. Delhi should seriously introspect whether its passionate embrace of the US bandwagon through the past decade under successive governments, brought any significant dividends.

Pakistan is once again becoming a frontline state in big-power rivalry. But this time around, Pakistan stands to gain out of its geography and hopes to create equity for its development.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 18, 2021 at 7:06am

#US, #Afghanistan, #Pakistan, #Uzbekistan to form quad group to enhance regional connectivity for #rade, #transit links. The new quad group is important amid #China's desire to extend its Belt Road Initiative (BRI) to Afghanistan. #BRI #CPEC #SilkRoad https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/us-afghanistan-pakistan...

The US, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan have agreed in principle to establish a new quadrilateral diplomatic platform focused on enhancing regional connectivity, the Biden administration has said.

“The parties consider long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan critical to regional connectivity and agree that peace and regional connectivity are mutually reinforcing,” the State Department said on Friday.

Recognising the historic opportunity to open flourishing interregional trade routes, the parties intend to cooperate to expand trade, build transit links, and strengthen business-to-business ties, it said.

“The parties agreed to meet in the coming months to determine the modalities of this cooperation with mutual consensus,” said the State Department.

Afghanistan’s strategic location has for a long time been touted as a competitive advantage for the country. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north, and China to the northeast.

Located at the heart of the historic Silk Road, Afghanistan was long the crossroads of commerce between Asian countries connecting them to Europe, and enhancing religious, cultural, and commercial contacts.

The formation of the new quad group is important amid China's desire to extend its Belt Road Initiative (BRI) to Afghanistan.

The BRI, a multi-billion-dollar initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013, aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes.

By virtue of its location, Afghanistan can provide China with a strategic base to spread its influence across the world.

Since the announcement of the withdrawal of U.S. forces by August 31, violence has been rising and efforts to broker a peace settlement between the Afghan government and insurgent Taliban have slowed.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 18, 2021 at 5:07pm

UNPACKING PAKISTAN’S GEO-ECONOMIC AMBITIONS
Pakistani leaders have repeatedly signaled a shift from ‘geopolitics’ to ‘geo-economics’ in recent months

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2311110/unpacking-pakistans-geo-econom...


Pakistan’s pivot from ‘geopolitics’ to ‘geo-economics’ came into sharp focus recently as Prime Minister Imran Khan concluded his visit to Uzbekistan. The term has been repeatedly brought up since the beginning of this year – first when the premier visited Sri Lanka in February and then in March, when both the army chief and Pakistan’s foreign minister announced in clear words the country’s developing geo-economic vision for its future.

The Uzbekistan trip, which spanned July 15 and 16, culminated in a slew of agreements across a range of sectors, from trade to culture. Among other things, the two nations agreed to finalise a preferential trade agreement (PTA) within three months to boost bilateral trade volume, which for now is far below potential. But perhaps most the significant one was a deal to enhance rail links between the two nations via Afghanistan.

The benefits of this particular agreement appear obvious. For the landlocked Central Asian nation, greater connectivity will allow it access to Pakistan’s three ports in Gwadar and Karachi.

For Pakistan, however, the end goal goes beyond more trade opportunities with resource-rich Central Asia. Linking Gwadar and Karachi to the 11-nation Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) corridor would open the country and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor to both Russia and Europe – the benefits of which, most observers agree, would be unimaginable.

But Pakistan’s pivot seems to be taking shape in a crowded geopolitical space that poses a new set of challenges.

A battle of ‘new world orders’

In his first news conference in March, US President Joe Biden kept observers on their toes by dubbing his country’s great power competition with China a ‘global ideological fight between democracy and autocracy’. His language signified the emergence of a new divided world, the likes of which had not been seen since the end of the Cold War.

The 1990s saw the emergence of a unipolar world, perhaps for the first time in human history, as the Soviet Union disintegrated and the US, starting with Iraq and Kuwait, discovered it could decide global matters alone. Empowered by its technological and military supremacy, the US cemented its lone influence over major trade routes, like the straits of Malacca and Hormuz, and thus found itself in control of other nations economic and energy bloodlines. Through organisations it led, like the World Bank and IMF, the US also strengthened its global financial influence around the same time.

Against this backdrop, the China-led OBOR appears to contest the old US-led ‘new world order’ by providing alternative strategic routes to the ones the latter controls. Simultaneously, China’s rapid military modernisation, especially in terms of naval power projection, threatens America’s singular dominance of the seas.

Beijing’s large-scale investment in various regions, likewise, has appeared as a challenge to US financial might and the latter has already fired the first salvo in an emerging economic war by slapping sanctions on certain Chinese firms.

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Speaking on internal challenges, former principal economic advisor and prominent economist Sakib Sherani said the implementation of geo-economics strategies would become near impossible for Pakistan if reforms in various areas are not implemented. “Take for example taxation, the system is so flawed that the entire burden is on formal and registered businesses instead of informal or unregistered businesses. Which is why informal sector in the country is growing,” he stressed. “It is not only affecting the government’s revenue but discouraging direct foreign investment as well,” he added.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 7, 2021 at 4:23pm

Why Did The #UAE Give #Pakistan An #Oil/#Gas Exploration License For The First Time Ever? It is an indication that #Washington has not yet lost all hope that #Islamabad can remain at least partly under the #US influence | OilPrice.com https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-The-UAE-Gave-Pakista... #oilprice

The awarding of exploration, development, and ancillary contracts for its onshore and offshore oil and gas fields is a principal mechanism by which ADNOC is used to promote engagement with countries regarded as ‘in play’ by Washington. A longstanding prime example of this is Pakistan and the awarding last week of the first ever oil concession to it by the UAE can be regarded as a signal that despite its history of double dealings with the U.S. over Islamic terrorism, Washington has not yet lost all hope that Islamabad can remain at least partly under U.S. influence. As part of ADNOC’s broad-based drive to increase its crude oil production from the current 4 million barrels per day (bpd) to at least 5 million bpd by 2030 at the latest, it has awarded a slew of contracts recently, almost all of them to U.S.-aligned companies. Indeed, the last set of contract awards - US$764 million in drilling contracts for activities in the Upper Zakum and Satah Al Razboot fields - went only U.S. companies (Schlumberger, and Halliburton), in addition to the UAE’s own ADNOC Drilling. The last major concession award, in the meantime, went in February to the U.S.’s long-term principal ally in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, with Cosmo Energy Holdings Co. being granted a 100 per cent stake in the exploration phase of Offshore Block 4 in exchange for a US$145 million investment in the site.

Last week’s award is also for a 100 per cent stake in the exploration phase – for Offshore Block 5 – and has been given to a consortium of Pakistan companies led by Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. (PPL) that accounts for around 20 per cent of the country’s total natural gas supplies and produces crude oil, liquefied petroleum gas and other natural gas liquids as well.

The remainder of the consortium that will invest up to US$304.7 million towards the exploration and appraisal drilling of the offshore 6,223 square kilometre field located 100 kilometres northeast of Abu Dhabi city is comprised of the Mari Petroleum Co. Ltd., Oil and Gas Development Co. Ltd., and Government Holdings (Private) Ltd. Once the initial new developments of Offshore Block 5 have been done, the PPL-led consortium will also have the right to activate a 35-year production concession for the site, over which ADNOC will have the option to hold a 60 per cent stake. The strategic nature of ADNOC and its awards since the UAE signed a U.S.-sponsored ‘relationship normalisation’ deal with Israel in August last year was highlighted again by a statement from the firm that accompanied the groundbreaking award to the Pakistanis that the contract: “Underscores ADNOC’s expanded approach to strategic partnerships.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2021 at 7:59pm

ASEAN needs more Belt and Road money, say ministers - Nikkei Asia

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/ASEAN-needs-more-Be...

Meeting online at a Belt and Road Summit, ASEAN ministers said the region has benefited from the infrastructure and digital connectivity already brought about by BRI, but new initiatives are needed to create opportunities amid pandemic-induced uncertainties.

"I am of the view that there are many tangible aspects that could be derived from the multinational partnership and cooperation under the BRI," said Sansern Samalap, Thailand's vice minister for commerce.

Sansern gave the example of the BRI flagship $5.75 billion China-Thailand high-speed railway project that will promote investments in the Greater Mekong Subregion, which includes Cambodia and Laos as part of the China-Indochina economic corridor.

Finally signed last October after numerous delays over terms and conditions, the initial 253 km line will connect Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima, the gateway to northeastern Thailand. Phase one of construction has already begun, and is slated for completion in late 2026. The final 873 km line will carry on up to Vientiane, the Laotian capital, and from there continue north to Kunming in China's Yunnan Province.

"Investors can grab this business opportunity and use Thailand as the gateway into the subregion and ASEAN," said Sansern.

Top Chinese officials participated in the summit, including Gao Yunlong, vice chairman of the national committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

The BRI was unveiled by President Xi Jinping in 2013. In 2020, China signed BRI cooperation agreements with nearly 140 countries to promote connectivity between Asia, Europe and Africa, mainly through infrastructure projects.

Tan See Leng, Singapore's minister for manpower, told the summit that accelerating ASEAN development plans has become more important if countries are to overcome the current economic slowdown,

"In such times, the BRI plays an even more important role in strengthening regional and multilateral cooperation by promoting connectivity in infrastructure, in finance and in trade," said Tan.

The Asian Development Bank recently downgraded its growth forecast for Asia to 7.2% from the 7.3% projected in April, citing the recent rapid spread of COVID-19 and low vaccination levels in Asian countries.

Tan said Singapore will partner China on some investments in BRI projects. Companies from the two countries are collaborating in various sectors, including logistics, e-commerce, infrastructure, finance and legal services.

Jerry Sambuaga, Indonesia's vice minister for trade, said BRI projects have boosted connectivity and created business opportunities.

"We must maintain this mutually beneficial partnership amidst uncertain global challenges," Sambuaga said. He called for more collaboration on Indonesian tourism projects that benefit local communities, and for the BRI to complement the Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation agreement.

RCEP, a 15-country multilateral free trade deal signed in 2020 by ASEAN along with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, is due to take effect on Jan. 1, 2022. Some analysts expect a delay, however, as not all governments have ratified the agreement in their national legislatures.

Singapore's Tan said today that the city state expected the "timely" implementation of RCEP on schedule.

"We look forward to the implementation of the RCEP in order to realize the benefit to businesses [and] to people while contributing to Asia's economy recovery and strengthening of confidence in the longer-term economic prospects of Asia," he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 3, 2021 at 10:53am

Pakistan's cautionary tale of digital dependence on China
Beijing is successfully exploiting the need for connectivity in developing countries


Jonathan E. Hillman

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Pakistan-s-cautionary-tale-of-digit...

The questions also pertain to the evolution of China's Belt and Road Initiative project. Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature initiative is putting a greater emphasis on technology because the economies of many of its partners are under strain and lack the fiscal resources to borrow for large transport and energy projects. It is also part of a strategy to find new markets for Chinese tech companies that are being squeezed out of advanced economies.

Most importantly, digital infrastructure is widely viewed as the foundation for tomorrow's economies. Especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, countries are trying to connect their populations and expand access to essential online services, from health care and taxes to voting. No one wants to be on the losing side of the digital divide.

Competing with China's Digital Silk Road will require the U.S. and its allies to offer affordable alternatives. They are playing catch-up in developing fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks, but in other important areas, including submarine cables, smart cities, cloud computing and satellite broadband, U.S. companies are ahead. Success will require packaging hard infrastructure with services, financing and training as well as setting standards and safeguards to promote the responsible use of technology.

Coordination costs loom large, but several allied efforts are gaining steam. The Group of Seven's Build Back Better World partnership and the European Union's Global Gateway initiative both include a focus on digital infrastructure. Australia, Japan and the U.S. are cofinancing a submarine cable to Palau, and these countries along with India are jointly working on technology and infrastructure as well. The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council includes a working group that seeks to expand financing for digital projects in developing countries.

Pakistan may be too deeply entangled in China's Digital Silk Road to turn around and chart its own course. Its data, and its future, are increasingly in Beijing's hands. This growing dependency is a cautionary tale for developing countries looking to harness technology. But with half of the world still lacking access to reliable internet, the global connectivity contest is just getting started.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 3, 2021 at 10:56am

Pakistan's cautionary tale of digital dependence on China
Beijing is successfully exploiting the need for connectivity in developing countries


Jonathan E. Hillman

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Pakistan-s-cautionary-tale-of-digit...

The questions also pertain to the evolution of China's Belt and Road Initiative project. Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature initiative is putting a greater emphasis on technology because the economies of many of its partners are under strain and lack the fiscal resources to borrow for large transport and energy projects. It is also part of a strategy to find new markets for Chinese tech companies that are being squeezed out of advanced economies.

Most importantly, digital infrastructure is widely viewed as the foundation for tomorrow's economies. Especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, countries are trying to connect their populations and expand access to essential online services, from health care and taxes to voting. No one wants to be on the losing side of the digital divide.

Competing with China's Digital Silk Road will require the U.S. and its allies to offer affordable alternatives. They are playing catch-up in developing fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks, but in other important areas, including submarine cables, smart cities, cloud computing and satellite broadband, U.S. companies are ahead. Success will require packaging hard infrastructure with services, financing and training as well as setting standards and safeguards to promote the responsible use of technology.

Coordination costs loom large, but several allied efforts are gaining steam. The Group of Seven's Build Back Better World partnership and the European Union's Global Gateway initiative both include a focus on digital infrastructure. Australia, Japan and the U.S. are cofinancing a submarine cable to Palau, and these countries along with India are jointly working on technology and infrastructure as well. The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council includes a working group that seeks to expand financing for digital projects in developing countries.

Pakistan may be too deeply entangled in China's Digital Silk Road to turn around and chart its own course. Its data, and its future, are increasingly in Beijing's hands. This growing dependency is a cautionary tale for developing countries looking to harness technology. But with half of the world still lacking access to reliable internet, the global connectivity contest is just getting started.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 3, 2021 at 11:23am

BBC Misrepresents my Views on "Debt Trap Diplomacy"


By Debora Brautigam


http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/2021/12/bbc-misrepresents-my-vi...


The BBC misrepresented my views this morning, and I admit I'm stunned. I'm a big fan of the BBC. Living in Taiwan and Hong Kong, in the 1970s doing fieldwork across Africa in the 1980s, I used to listen to the BBC World Service on my shortwave radio and I trusted them to present nuanced and balanced analysis.
Last night I had a call from London. I picked up to find a BBC reporter who wanted my views on Chinese "debt trap diplomacy." Apparently the head of Britain's intelligence service, Richard Moore, had given the BBC an interview in which he said that the Chinese have deliberately used debt as leverage to acquire strategic assets. We spoke for awhile on background and I outlined why this idea had little basis in fact, drawing on my extensive research with Meg Rithmire about the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and other cases, and that of other researchers. I gave examples from Montenegro, Kenya, Zambia, and other places where these fears have been trumpeted in the media, but without evidence to support them. He said that another reporter would call me in an hour and record an interview.
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I quickly listened to the BBC recording (my clip is about 1 hr 50 minutes into the program) and was horrified to find that the only clip they took from the interview was my explanation of the "idea" of debt trap diplomacy and the "conventional wisdom" about the case in Sri Lanka. They completely discarded all the evidence I presented after that about why that conventional wisdom was not correct. Then, they brought in a former adviser to the Trump administration whom he interviewed at some length about the China threat, but again providing no evidence about "debt trap diplomacy" aside from this: "we've charted it globally and it's fairly widespread". She also repeated the claim that the Chinese bring in all their own workers.

The reporter leading the story clearly had his mind made up already about the point of view he wanted to present. My little clip was prefaced by a question I was never asked: "What can we do to combat this?" he said, rather than a question that would have made room for a more balanced discussion of this claim. It all reminds me, rather depressingly, about the widespread belief that the Chinese were acquiring large amounts of land in Africa to grow food to send back to China. I spent three years doing field research on that myth and wrote an Oxford University Press book debunking it. No one makes that claim anymore--not due to me, I think, but simply because a more interesting "threat narrative" has now gripped the media's mind. Sigh.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 3, 2022 at 7:14am

#US @StateDept Spokesman Ned Price: “Pakistan is a strategic partner of the United States. We have an important relationship with the government in Islamabad, and it’s a relationship that we value across a number of fronts” #India #Pakistan #China https://indianexpress.com/article/world/china-pakistan-rahul-gandhi...

The United States does not endorse Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s comment that China and Pakistan are closer than ever due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ineffective policies, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Thursday.

Price was answering a question about Gandhi’s comments in the Lok Sabha Wednesday.

Price was further asked if Pakistan and China have become closer because “they feel abandoned” by the US.

“We’ve made the point all along that it is not a requirement for any country around the world to choose between the United States and China. It is our intention to provide choices to countries when it comes to what the relationship with the United States looks like. And we think partnership with the United States conveys a series of advantages that countries typically would not find when it comes to the sorts of partnerships that – “partnerships” may be the wrong term; the sorts of relationships that the PRC has seeked to – has sought to have around the world,” he replied.

“Pakistan is a strategic partner of the United States. We have an important relationship with the government in Islamabad, and it’s a relationship that we value across a number of fronts,” added the spokesperson.

Pakistan’s alliance with China has grown considerably in the past few years, with China investing billions of dollars in the strategic Gwadar Port in Balochistan province. The two countries have also been among the few nations to call for international engagement with the Taliban government in Afghanistan following a botched US-led exit of Western forces from Kabul in August 2021.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 28, 2022 at 10:25am

India, Pakistan ​Could End-Up Fighting On The Same Side In US, China Cold War -- US Expert

https://eurasiantimes.com/%E2%80%8Bcold-war-between-us-china-india-...

In a conversation with the Pakistani journalist Ejaz Haider in an online session, Mearsheimer said that what he meant by a cold war is that there will be an intense security competition between the two sides, which will definitely create a crisis.

“But it’s hard to say for sure whether there will actually be a shooting war, but that danger will always be present. And that was basically the situation we had during the first Cold War. And again, my argument is that we are destined to be in a similar situation moving forward,” he adds.

Mearsheimer said China’s focus will primarily be Asia, and it will try every trick to dominate the region and be the hegemon.

“I think there is a likelihood that Pakistan would side with China and the US would try to peel off Pakistan from China in the emerging Cold War. The Indians would ally with the US. The Americans would try to get Myanmar in its fold”.

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