by Andrew Small
The economic project that he was there to sell did get a hearing, the first time that it had been taken up at such high levels of government on the two sides.30 The so-called “Southern Silk Road” or “BCIM economic corridor” would link Yunnan province in China’s south-west to India’s north-east and the Bangladeshi port of Chittagong, via northern Myanmar.31 The proposal had been kicking around for years, and a Kunming-Calcutta car rally had recently been staged to demonstrate that the route was no longer just a theoretical one.32 But while the Chinese, Burmese, and Bangladeshis were enthusiastic, the Indians were still cautious. There were some concerns that this would be yet a further contributor to India’s huge bilateral trade deficit with China, unleashing another flood of cheap Chinese goods.33 There were security concerns too. New Delhi has long been worried about the military advantages that could accrue to China from the build up of infrastructure around its borders, one of the reasons that India’s own transport networks in these areas have been so underdeveloped.34 And when it came to the strategic economic geography of connecting India’s northeast with southeast Asia, New Delhi was not at all sure that it wanted China in the lead. When Li stated in his speech to the Indian Council of World Affairs that “No country can choose its neighbours, and a distant relative may not be as helpful as a near neighbour. China and India should not seek cooperation from afar with a ready partner at hand,” the Indians had their doubts.35 Moreover, while the target of Li’s remarks was the United States, another Chinese adversary “from afar” was drawing the attention of the Indian leadership. Not long after Li’s departure, his counterpart Manmohan Singh was off to Tokyo. There he would finalize a deal to acquire Japanese nuclear technology and equipment, and push ahead with plans for various Japanese-backed “industrial corridors”—Delhi-Mumbai and Chennai-Bangalore—that New Delhi found a great deal more congenial than the BCIM.36
Li Keqiang would find a far warmer welcome on the next leg of his trip. The Pakistanis were well aware that they were the necessary add-on to his South Asian tour this time rather than the main event. With the political transition after Pakistan’s elections still underway, what would ordinarily have been an extensive bonanza of MOUs and joint agreements instead had to proceed with more modest preparation. Li arrived to a grand reception nonetheless. JF-17 jets accompanied his plane as it entered Pakistani air space,37 and Pakistan’s “entire civil and military leadership” was waiting to greet him on his arrival at Chaklala airbase in Rawalpindi.38 Here, the Chinese prime minister’s talk of a new economic corridor was rapturously received, the departing President Zardari responding to his proposal with the statement that “today is one of the happiest days of my life”.39 After years of featuring more regularly in the fantasies of geostrategists than in realities on the ground, the long-talked-about Xinjiang-Gwadar connection looked as if it was getting a new lease on life. When Li sat down with Nawaz Sharif and his advisers, barely a week after the election, the modalities of the plan were one of the main subjects of discussion, and its most ambitious element—a new railway—featured prominently in Sharif ’s inaugural speech as Prime Minister on 5 June.40 “This is a game changer,” he declared, “it will change the fate of Pakistan.”41
There was plenty more too: China was ready to do its bit for Pakistan’s energy crisis, with everything from new hydro-electric dams and coal-fired power stations to the next phase of civil nuclear cooperation on the table. China was in the process of exporting its first 1000MW reactor, which, unlike the smaller reactors at Chashma, could actually start to make a dent in Pakistan’s energy needs.42 It also appeared that, for once, Pakistan had caught a lucky break. On the eve of Li’s visit, a bomb was detonated in Karachi’s affluent Clifton neighbourhood. The 10kg home-made bomb, filled with ballbearings and bolts, was packed in a metallic bucket and placed inside a sack by the roadside.43 The target was a van of Chinese engineers who were heading to work at the port and regularly passed by the spot close to the harbour. But while one of the detonators went off, causing a small explosion, the bomb itself misfired. It was a near miss. “If the 10-kilo bomb had exploded, it would have caused much destruction in an area of 25 to 30 metres, engulfing the vehicles of the delegation and destroying oil tankers parked there,” said bomb disposal squad official Ghulam Mustafa in a statement to the press.44 It would have been a catastrophic start for the two new prime ministers, and the fact that it ended up as little more than a minor item in the local press was a huge relief. But Pakistan’s luck didn’t hold for long.
Bordering on China, Gilgit-Baltistan is considered the safest province in Pakistan, largely free from the terrorist attacks that have plagued other regions. It is one of the few parts of the country that have continued to attract foreign tourists, most of them mountaineers drawn by the densest concentration of high peaks in the world. While the majority of visitors were driven away by Pakistan’s burgeoning security threats, Islamabad airport still thronged with groups in conspicuous climbing apparel waiting for the packed morning flights to Skardu and Gilgit. Thirteen of the world’s tallest thirty mountains lie within a span of barely a hundred miles, where the Hindu Kush meets the Karakoram and the Himalayas. One of the most fearsome peaks is Nanga Parbat, known as the “killer mountain”, a name that took on another meaning early on the morning of 24 June.45 The killers in question were on a carefully planned operation. Dressed as paramilitary police, the gunmen had hiked for at least eighteen hours to reach their target, one of the high-altitude base camps frequented by climbers. They would later claim to be from a new branch of the Pakistani Taliban, Jundul Hafsa, established specifically to target foreigners.46 They found ten of them at the camp, who were dragged out of their tents, tied up and executed. Among the dead were two Chinese nationals and one Chinese-American. Another Chinese climber, Zhang Jingchuan, who had served four years in the PLA, managed to escape.47 Five Russians, a Ukrainian, and a Pakistani guide (who was believed by the killers to be a Shia) also died in the attack. But the timing—squarely between Li Keqiang’s visit and Nawaz Sharif ’s return trip—immediately prompted suspicions from Chinese officials that damaging the China-Pakistan relationship itself was the real political motivation. The Chinese ambassador in Islamabad was quickly on the phone to the new Interior Minister, Chaudry Nisar: “He asked whether Chinese tourists were the target,” the minister explained to the press.48 The embassy would later call on Pakistan to “severely punish” the attackers, an echo of the language used around the time of the Red Mosque assault.49 The Pakistani foreign ministry stated that it was an attempt “to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries”.50
The attack was the single worst on foreigners in Pakistan since the Marriott Hotel bombing in 2008. And its location was a warning: not only did it demonstrate that even China’s projects in supposedly calm parts of the country could no longer be viewed as secure, but it was in close proximity to many of the proposed new hydro-electric dams, as well as the mammoth rebuilding job underway on the Karakoram Highway. The Pakistani investigators who were hunting the perpetrators in the weeks after the attack were shot dead in Chilas, a small town along the KKH near where the killers were believed to be hiding.51 The same faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. It was a worrying encroachment on territory that may have experienced deadly outbursts of sectarian violence in the past,52 but was known more for being a Taliban “home away from home”than a live zone of militant operations.53 For China, nowhere in Pakistan could fully be trusted.
Nawaz Sharif arrived in Beijing on 3 July. The choreography was not always seamless. In his meeting with Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People, with television cameras rolling, Sharif struggled to remember the China-Pak relationship mantras, requiring his brother, Shahbaz, to mouth them to him: “Higher than the…?” “Himalayas”.54 But the trip was a world removed from Zardari’s ill-fated 2008 visit. He had been sent packing to the IMF after his request for a large bailout was dismissed out of hand. Nawaz S
harif would come home with promises of substantial new Chinese investment. The economic corridor would be a “game changer” not just for Pakistan but for the whole region, he claimed.55 Pakistan’s Planning Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, and Sharif ’s Foreign Affairs Adviser, Tariq Fatemi, had been sent out ahead to sell the message to the Chinese that the new government was different.56 Above all, it would ensure that projects were delivered. A special “China cell” was being set up in the prime minister’s office committed to that single task—“The cell will oversee the execution of all such development projects in order to steer the country out of its crisis,” Nawaz Sharif announced.57 “The country does not need civil servants and concerned officials who cannot ensure the completion of development projects.”58 His aides briefed the press that Sharif “did all he could to offset a perception among Chinese financial and investment circles that Pakistan is only good for signing MoUs and then sleeping over them.” “Write to me directly on my e-mail,” he told Chinese business leaders, and “we will get back to you in 24 hours…And see to it that hiccups are removed within 7 days.”59 The Chinese weren’t enthralled but they believed that they had someone to work with now. “The PPP government was hopeless. And with Zardari we always had to check that the money was going to Pakistan, not to Switzerland. Nawaz isn’t so much better but he can at least get things done.”60 For China, the line about the PML-N that “their real ideology is managerialism” was a major point of appeal.61
But there was caution on Beijing’s part too. Yes, they were willing to move ahead, but they had some reservations. “The strategic decision to expand investments in Pakistan has been made, by the political leadership and the military, but there are still real practical difficulties,” one Chinese official explained.62 “Above all, security.” “If terrorist attacks like the one last month continue, the corridor will be impossible to realise,” said another former official.63 They would tread carefully—there were motorways to build and industrial parks to develop before any grandiose $18 billion railway plans were put into motion. “We still think the railway line is ridiculous,” one Chinese expert remarked after the visit, “but that’s not to say it won’t happen… We and the Pakistanis just have a different sense of what ‘long term’ means for these projects.”64 The major unknown quantity was whether the new political dispensation in Pakistan could make a better job of securing peace than its predecessor. Certainly, the Sharifs’ base in the Punjab had been suspiciously untroubled by terrorist incidents, an achievement that many believed was due to a willingness to strike deals with militant groups operating in the south of the province, such as the electoral alliance formed with Lashkare-Jhangvi65 and the financial contributions provided to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s parent organization.66 But Nawaz Sharif ’s strategy for dealing with them from the prime minister’s office was unclear. His proposed peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban67 may have been motivated by no more than the need for a political gesture before mobilizing public opinion behind a military operation.68 To the Chinese, the means didn’t matter. They were happy to see the new government kill off, buy off, or settle with whoever it had to, if that helped to stabilize the country. And while they waited to see what happened, they were willing to make some significant early gestures of economic support.
On 26 November 2013, at a site just outside Karachi, Nawaz Sharif attended the groundbreaking ceremony for one of the largest energy projects in the country. After nearly a year of rumours, the next phase of Sino-Pakistani nuclear cooperation was now definitively moving ahead. Other projects, such as a coal venture in Sindh and a new set of hydroelectric plants, would deliver the more immediate energy fix. The Thar coal project alone should add 6,000MW of capacity within ten years.69 But the nuclear plants had an additional political frisson. In their meetings with Pakistani officials, the Chinese had been apprehensive about when and how they should announce this latest mega-project, given the international sensitivities. Now it was a fact on the ground. Two 1,100 MW reactors would be built by the China National Nuclear Corporation at a cost of nearly $10 billion, $6.5 billion of which was being financed by Chinese loans.70 Each of them would add more generating capacity than all the working reactors in Pakistan combined, and Sharif announced that several more would follow. Chinese investment, he said, was “the only way” that the country could overcome its energy shortage.71 Even critics of the smaller 300MW reactors at Chashma, who argued that they had more to do with political symbolism than practicality, admitted that the new round could make a real difference.72 This was not the only significance of the move. It was the first time that the Chinese nuclear industry had built a power plant on this scale outside the country. If successful, it promised to be the first of a wave of nuclear exports from China. The crucial technology for the reactors, the AP-1000 pressure vessels, had been transferred by the US nuclear power company Westinghouse, as part of an agreement that involved the firm in the dramatic take-off of China’s nuclear infrastructure.73 Because the pressure vessel was now “indigenous” Chinese technology, the only remaining obstacle to the export of the reactors had been removed: Beijing’s flaunting of objections from the Nuclear Suppliers Group over its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan could not be deterred by US legal obstacles to the use of American components. Some NSG members had acquiesced to the Chashma plants on the premise that they were the last piece of the “grandfathered” Sino-Pak nuclear cooperation.74 The new reactors, and the promise of many more to come, blew up the tacit compromise completely. Pakistan now effectively had a China-sized exemption to the NSG rules, and the showcase was a set of nuclear plants next to Pakistan’s largest and most chaotic city.75
There was one last transition to be completed in 2013. The most powerful position in Pakistan, that of Chief of Army Staff, would be changing hands at the end of November, and before that the outgoing Chief had a valedictory trip to make. General Kayani had last visited China at the beginning of 2012, and it was his meetings with the Chinese leadership rather than those of President Zardari that had defined the parameters of the bilateral relationship for the remainder of the two men’s terms in office.76 Kayani’s trip came after a turbulent year. 2011 had seen a little too much international interest in China-Pakistan relations for Beijing’s taste, as Islamabad flirted openly with the idea of making a political break with the Americans in the aftermath of the Abbottabad raid.77 China had not enjoyed the scrutiny that this placed on interactions between the two sides that would previously have been considered routine, from fighter jet sales to simple professions of mutual friendship. It was a throwback to an era that they thought had long been put behind them. With the Party Congress in China due in late 2012, and elections in Pakistan in early 2013 coming up too, it was preferable that there should be a quiet period in the relationship. Kayani made sure that the geopolitical rumblings out of Rawalpindi abated,78 a task made much easier by the fact that US-Pakistan relations had stabilized, and the absence of any more Bin-Laden-scale surprises.79 Defence cooperation between China and Pakistan rolled forward again without raising any eyebrows, and even the takeover of Gwadar port by Chinese companies proceeded without much fuss. The one awkward subject during Kayani’s January 2012 visit was a bilateral agreement that the Chinese were pressing on Pakistan over its handling of the East Turkistan “separatist threat”. The content itself was uncontroversial but the fact that so much time still needed to be spent on the Uighur issue was embarrassing, the single black mark against Kayani in Beijing’s eyes during his long tenure as army chief. As it turned out, his final visit to China would be dogged by the very same issue.
Kayani’s visit in late October was supposed to be a final courtesy call. A relatively light agenda80 touched on plans for an upcoming joint military exercise, as well as some regional issues, such as Afghanistan’s prospects and the recent tensions with India on the Line of Control.81 The next round of heavy lifting would be undertaken with the new civilian government and with Kayani’s successor, Raheel Sharif. But he wo
uld not receive a gentle send-off. On 28 October, the day of Kayani’s arrival, an SUV crashed through the crowds in Tiananmen Square and burst into flames by one of the stone bridges at the north side of the square. Two tourists were killed, thirty-eight people were injured, and black smoke was left billowing in front of the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong that hangs over the entrance to the Forbidden City. With the passengers in the 4x4 also losing their lives, Chinese officials had no hesitation about labelling the incident a suicide attack.82 It took place barely a few hundred metres from the seat of government in Zhongnanhai. The modus operandi—a low-tech vehicular attack with primitive explosives—immediately signalled its provenance in Xinjiang. And the protagonists turned out to be a Uighur family from a location close to the Pakistani border.83
Like clockwork, China’s top security official, Meng Jianzhu, blamed ETIM, which he allusively referred to as “based in Central and West Asia”.84 This was a vaguer formulation than that of the Xinjiang officials who were willing to accuse Pakistan by name. Chinese scholars, including one of those who had been in the CICIR delegation that met Mullah Omar, linked the attack to the upcoming 2014 transition in Afghanistan, claiming that this was likely to result in “a tougher security situation amid increased penetration of extremists”.85 Accounts suggested that the attackers may actually have been motivated by the demolition of a mosque in their home village.86 But the facts were not necessarily the most important thing. The Turkistan Islamist Party gleefully claimed responsibility for the “jihadi operation” and warned of future attacks in China’s capital.87 And the most damning narrative would be hard to shake off—that a Pakistan-based Uighur separatist group masterminded a successful suicide attack in the most visible location in China during the valedictory visit of Pakistan’s army chief. If the timing was embarrassing for Kayani, who had to sit down with China’s minister for public security the very next day, it certainly demonstrated Pakistan’s centrality to Beijing’s concerns. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman described Uighur terrorists as “the most direct and real threat to our security”.88 That threat was now unavoidably linked in the eyes of China’s military and political establishment with militancy across the region, Afghanistan’s future, and the stability of Pakistan itself.