The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics

by Andrew Small

  The risks in China’s north-east and south-west are longstanding, whether it be large flows of North Korean refugees54 or the spillover from the Burmese government’s conflicts with the ethnic groups that straddle the Chinese border.55 In recent years, though, concerns about the state that lies across the mountain passes to China’s north-west have assumed growing importance. Official Chinese expressions of anxiety have appeared in coded form, studiously avoiding the name of the country in question. In 2009, a set of instructions was issued by the Chinese government for methods to deal with nuclear emergencies, allusively mentioning the “rising numbers of nuclear facilities in neighbouring countries and threats of attacks” and the fact that “the threat of global terrorism is a reality”.56 In private exchanges, representatives of Chinese military intelligence were less veiled. Pakistan had started to appear high on a list of countries of concern in its neighbourhood, perhaps second only to North Korea, and China was preparing for a number of scenarios, from the familiar—war with India—to the novel—the further weakening of the Pakistani state and the diversion of nuclear materials into the hands of terrorists.57 The events that had prompted the scenario-planning just kept accumulating. The Mumbai attacks in December 2008 saw the sub-continent again pushed to the brink of war, this time by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an ISI-backed militant group which China’s own diplomats had protected from sanctions at the UN Security Council on Pakistan’s behalf.58 There was speculation that terrorists might be seeking to get the Pakistanis to deploy their nuclear weapons—by putting the country on a war-footing with India—precisely so that they could seize them.59 The aftermath of the Mumbai attack saw less military brinkmanship than during the last crisis on the subcontinent in 2001, but Chinese officials wondered whether India would show the same restraint if Mumbai were to happen again.60 The nature of the attacks in Pakistan itself was also becoming more worrisome. In 2009, uniformed militants infiltrated the army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi,61 and in 2011 militants managed to stage a major attack at the Mehran naval base in Karachi, the assailants clearly benefiting from insider assistance both times.62 On the latter occasion Beijing had a close view: China’s own engineers and technicians were nearly killed in Karachi, the vehicle in which they escaped being fired at by militants from point blank range.63 Pakistani security forces took fifteen hours to regain full control of the base. In August 2012, Chinese engineers again needed to be shifted to a “high profile secure location” as Kamra air force base, where China and Pakistan were jointly assembling the JF-17 fighter jet, came under attack in a five-hour gun battle.64 Although Pakistani officials denied it, there were rumours that nuclear weapons were stored at or very close to the base.65

  “One conclusion we reached was that there is very little that we can do unilaterally if there’s a crisis in Pakistan,” said one Chinese expert who had worked on the scenario planning, “Any action would have to be coordinated.”66 A 2011 article based on briefings by senior US officials went as far as to claim that “China has, in secret talks with the US, reached an understanding that, should America decide to send forces into Pakistan to secure its nuclear weapons, China would raise no objections.”67 People familiar with the exchanges described that as “an over-interpretation”, but the fact that issues of this nature were being discussed between the two sides was not fiction: Pakistan’s internal stability has been addressed at length in talks between some of the most senior figures in US and Chinese policymaking.68 As one Chinese expert with whom I discussed the subject put it:

  “Would we accept a U.S. intervention to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? No. Are we as worried as [the United States] about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? No. Nuclear weapons are all they have, it’s the single thing we’re sure they’ll protect. But China is willing to help Pakistan defend a Pakistani bomb. We won’t help them protect an Islamic bomb. If it’s under the control of a mullah, then everything changes. It’s not unconditional.”69

  An illustration of what has been a quietly growing Sino-US comity in policy towards Pakistan came during a period of exceptional tension in US-Pakistan relations. It followed the most notable occasion on which the United States did indeed send forces, undetected, deep into the country.

  For a select group of Chinese soldiers watching television footage of the aftermath of the Navy SEALs raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad on 2 May 2011, much of what they were seeing would have been familiar. In December 2006, Abbottabad, where the compound was located, had been the location of an extensive set of joint Sino-Pakistani counterterrorism exercises.70 The hills that loomed behind Bin Laden’s house were used for “large-scale intelligence gathering”, “ambushes” and “search and destroy missions”.71 Cadets from the Pakistani military academy witnessed a Chinese martial arts and Pakistani unarmed combat show, featuring “special tactics against terrorists”.72 The world’s most wanted terrorist is believed to have set up home barely a few streets away from the military academy in the previous year.73

  The aftermath of the May operation saw US-Pakistan relations plunge to one of the lowest points in their history. They were already under strain that year following the Raymond Davis incident, in which the CIA contractor, a former US special forces operative, shot and killed two Pakistanis in downtown Lahore.74 The sheer accumulation of frustration among American officials over Pakistan’s double-dealing with militant groups was also at its peak, perhaps epitomized by the devastating December 2009 attack on a CIA border camp in Afghanistan, Forward Operating Base Chapman, in which seven agents were killed by a bomber affiliated to a Taliban group closely linked to the Pakistani intelligence services.75 It was the worst attack the CIA had suffered in decades. The Abbottabad raid confirmed the worst fears of both sides. Pakistan’s military demonstrated either incredible negligence, or a profoundly disturbing willingness to afford protection even to the leader of Al Qaeda, in a garrison town barely 75 miles from Islamabad. The United States demonstrated that it was prepared to conduct unilateral operations in the very heart of Pakistan, a performance that it might repeat if another major security threat—such as an incident involving Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—occurred. The Pakistani military was humiliated by the raid, of which it was unaware until the US special forces had left the country. It faced serious tensions both internally, as seething junior officers criticized the leadership over its relationship with the United States, and externally, as the big question—“Who knew he was there?”—echoed around the world’s capitals. With its back against the wall, Pakistan turned to an old friend.76

  Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani was due to go to Beijing within two weeks of Bin Laden’s death, and the trip now took on a completely difference resonance, drawing febrile speculation about Chinese support to an embattled Pakistan in the face of US pressure. The world’s media ran front-page stories on China’s promise to expedite delivery of JF-17 fighter jets,77 and claims from the Pakistani defence minister that China had agreed to build a naval base at Gwadar.78 New meaning was read into old phrases about China being “our best and most trusted friend”.79 Extended analysis in serious newspapers looked at the building of a “China-Pakistan alliance”.80 Beijing, it appeared, was ready to provide the backing that Pakistan needed if relations with Washington continued to plummet.

  The country that was least worried about this, though, was the United States. Before and after Gilani’s visit, China went to unusual lengths to ensure that US diplomats in Islamabad and Beijing were carefully briefed on exactly what had and had not been offered to the Pakistanis.81 For China, the deteriorating US-Pakistan relationship was not an opportunity to poke a stick at the Americans or to further deepen Sino-Pakistani ties, which were already quite as deep as they needed to be. It was a serious source of concern. China was already worried enough about the situation in Pakistan without the additional threat of a shut-down of US aid and military support, or even an outright confrontation between the two sides. Bin Laden’s location in Abbottabad reinf
orced fears among Chinese officials about extremist sympathies in the Pakistani military.82 Not only would Beijing resist any attempt to take advantage of the situation, it would try to help resolve the problem. The Pakistanis were told that while they could continue to count on China’s regular economic and military support, Beijing was not going to backfill for the Americans, and Islamabad urgently needed to patch up its relationship with Washington.83 Pakistani proposals for a defence agreement between the two sides were rebuffed.84 “We’re willing to give them everything they ask for in terms of defence cooperation but not actually to sign a defence pact,” said one Chinese expert.85 And while they were happy to speed up the delivery of the already-promised fighter jets, Chinese officials explicitly denied that a deal had been agreed for a naval base at Gwadar.86 Privately, the Chinese gave reassurances that they would protect Pakistan if there was any attempt to impose sanctions on the country or on specific individuals for their links to Bin Laden.87 They were happy to have a chance for a look at the downed US stealth helicopter.88 But they maintained their basic line to the Pakistanis—fix your relationship with the United States—in what would prove to be a difficult period ahead for US-Pakistan ties. As on so many occasions in the past, Beijing made the limits of its support to Pakistan crystal clear. And as has happened with increasing frequency it made sure that US officials knew this.

  The story of Sino-US cooperation in Afghanistan followed a similar path, from deep scepticism to growing alignment. In late 2009, the State Department submitted a “Joint Action Plan” with a very modest set of proposals for areas in which the two sides could work together: vocational training for Afghans, scholarships to US and Chinese universities, equipment provision to hospitals, agriculture projects and so on.89 It elicited a resounding silence. Hillary Clinton ultimately had to raise the fate of the document in one of her meetings with the Chinese foreign minister, so hard was it to get a response.90 All that came back was more obfuscation. The story was the same on the ground. The US ambassador in Kabul at the time was Karl Eikenberry, a Mandarin speaker and Sinologist, who had dealt extensively with Chinese officials in a career that included two tours as attaché in Beijing.91 But despite his being on good terms with his Chinese counterpart, even the smallest suggestions for joint activities drew blanks. At one point he proposed that the two of them take a trip together to Logar province. After he was told that it would require a two-month long security clearance process, the real reasons were privately made clear: Beijing didn’t want the US and Chinese ambassadors even being seen in public together on a bilateral basis.92 By the summer of 2010, about the only example of bilateral cooperation on Afghanistan was the US embassy’s provision of security advice to the Chinese delegation in advance of its visit for the July 2010 Kabul conference.93

  China’s involvement in the multilateral processes around Afghanistan and Pakistan was equally desultory. At a succession of different conferences, from London to The Hague, Chinese officials turned up, made pro forma statements, and then engaged in virtually none of the substance of the subsequent discussions.94 It was even worse at the donor group meetings for Pakistan, the freshly established “Friends of Democratic Pakistan”, where China only sent junior officials and stressed that it would only provide assistance bilaterally. At least the Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, was the man sent to say very little during the Afghanistan discussions.95 If China wasn’t going to engage multilaterally or through any form of cooperation with the United States, American officials suggested that there were a couple of things that it might helpfully do that were purely bilateral in nature. In Afghanistan, simply moving ahead with its copper mine investment at Aynak would provide significant support to the Afghan economy.96 And financial aid to Pakistan would be even more helpful than any comparable escalation of assistance to Afghanistan, given how difficult it was to get assistance packages there through the US Congress.97

  Beijing continued to demur. For a host of reasons, detailed in the previous chapter, Aynak was going nowhere fast.98 China certainly had little intention of putting together anything that even faintly resembled the Kerry-Lugar bill, the most significant US effort in many years to step up civil rather than military aid to Pakistan.99 This was not a civilian government that Beijing felt much like rewarding. Any of the more ambitious US hopes that Beijing might use its influence with Pakistan to steer it away from its assistance to insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan were even further away from realization. Expectations of China in Washington had never been high, when it came to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but its behaviour for the first two years of the Obama administration fell short of even the most modest of them. At one level this didn’t matter too much. China had been a relatively marginal actor in Afghanistan over most of the last decade, and a continued position on the sidelines wouldn’t greatly affect matters either way. But the sense persisted that a major source of economic capacity and diplomatic influence remained untapped.

  The sharpest debate underway in Beijing was not just over what its response to US requests should be, but over what US policy in Afghanistan actually amounted to.100 For much of 2009, Chinese officials watched the painfully drawn out policy review process in Washington in a state of some confusion.101 Above all, it was unclear whether a Chinese contribution would help the United States consolidate a sustained military presence or speed its way to an exit. President Obama’s speech at the end of the year, in which a troop surge was announced alongside a withdrawal date, did not help to clarify matters.102 Different Chinese agencies reported different answers over the course of 2010. The Chinese military watched the build-up of US bases in Afghanistan, listened to what they were being told by their American counterparts, and believed they were seeing plans put in place for the long haul. The foreign ministry detected something different—a political dynamic in Washington that would override the US military’s preferences and make the 2014 withdrawal date a far more important part of the Obama speech than the surge.103 By 2011, it was clear who was right.

  On 10 May, a full line-up of China’s diplomatic, military and economic leadership was in Washington for the US-China strategic and economic dialogue (S&ED), the Obama administration’s annual jamboree that involved as many as twenty government agencies on the two sides. Despite China’s ambivalence, US officials had kept plugging away with the exchanges on Afghanistan, and this would be an important set-piece occasion on which to signal that the Chinese position was changing. Luo Zhaohui, who had returned to Beijing from Pakistan to take over as head of the Asia department at the ministry of foreign affairs, informed US diplomats that China had identified three areas that might be amenable to bilateral cooperation.104 Sections of the long-forgotten “action plan” were going to be put into motion.105 The content—agricultural and health projects, and the joint training of Afghan diplomats—was less important than the form: China wanted the cooperation announced as part of the outcomes of the meeting in Washington.106 A modest programme of bilateral cooperation would now get underway.107 Chinese officials were already using different language to talk about the prospect of the withdrawal of US troops: instead of asking when it would happen, they started expressing concern that the United States should not leave too hastily.108 Beijing had finally come to believe that the prospect of withdrawal was real, and wanted to be in a position to influence what happened next.109 The change in China’s stance was publicly on show in the two multilateral conferences on Afghanistan that took place later that year in Istanbul and Bonn. At the first, US officials were struck by the fact that Chinese diplomats were not only finally speaking up,110 but also willing to split openly with the Pakistanis on certain issues.111 The continued closeness between China and Pakistan was clear in Bonn—Pakistan refused to turn up to the meeting at all, following the border incident at Salala at which 24 of its soldiers were killed by NATO forces,112 but China represented its position in the relevant meetings.113 This was a responsibility that Beijing would have been unwilling even to contemplate
a year before.

  If these developments were too small in scope to suggest that Beijing was really intending to play a more significant role in dealing with Afghanistan post-2014, an array of developments in 2012 left less doubt. In June, Afghanistan was formally admitted as an observer to the SCO, the regional organization that China had formed and in which it still plays a leading role.114 A bilateral “partnership agreement” was signed during Karzai’s visit to Beijing for the SCO summit.115 And in September, China sent the first politburo-level visitor to Afghanistan in forty years, Zhou Yongkang, the security chief.116 The same year, its level of involvement in regional diplomacy intensified—China started convening an increasingly regular sequence of trilateral and bilateral meetings: China-Pakistan-Afghanistan; China-Pakistan on Afghanistan; China-Russia-India on Afghanistan;117 and China-India on Afghanistan, to name only a few.118 In its meetings with the United States, Beijing even started to suggest that it might play a role on the vexed issue of political reconciliation in Afghanistan through talks with the Taliban, with whom China had been conducting meetings of its own.119 After many years in which its exchanges with the Taliban had essentially been kept covert, the fact that China was, as one former Chinese official claimed, “the only country other than Pakistan that has maintained a continuous relationship with the very top leadership of the Taliban” was a potential asset now that the United States was seeking a political solution rather than a military one.120 Beijing’s own meetings with the Taliban, which took place with Pakistan’s encouragement, were more about allaying Chinese concerns about whether they would allow Afghanistan to become a base for Uighur separatists, and sounding them out about their intentions.121 “I would describe them as ‘contacts’ rather than serious meetings,” argued one Chinese expert.122 But the Taliban representatives also expressed their support for a Chinese role in facilitating a political reconciliation process in which they were looking for any leverage they could gain over what they saw an overbearing Pakistan presence.123