Wednesday, October 27, 2004 8:39:22 PM
The U.S./China Battle for Gwadar Port
This is the real war. I have already posted my suspicions regarding Abdullah Mehsud being an American agent and the importance of Gwadar.
Please see:
#msg-4320350
#msg-4255871
Apparently China knows.
Gwadar would put the Chinese navy next to Iran’s shipping lane the Strait of Hormuz. The Chinese have a considerable investment in Iran’s oil and gas. Bush plans on attacking Iran by choking the Strait of Hormuz.
See also:
#msg-3483139
#msg-2645232
#msg-3864658
While this may change, an amphibious attack was originally targeted against Iran from the Arabian Sea, with a provocative US blockade in the Gulf of Oman to choke Iran’s sealanes of communications. Pakistan would be the base for mounting massive air reconnaissance and surveillance of Iran, while Iranian dissidents, backed by the US army, would launch land assaults from the Iraq-Iran border. Diplomatic sources say, the main body of the plan would remain the same, although component tactics could change.
http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/07/03/d40703100483.htm
-Am
Viewpoint: China's relations with India have matured
Wajid Shamsul Hasan
October 27
For nearly five decades China and Pakistan have enjoyed best of relations despite occasional periods of strain and stress. Despite all that, our relations are deeply rooted, have the capacity and strength to withstand strongest of storms.
In the language of global diplomacy these relations are at best described as of mutual necessity based on sincerity and selfless commitment to help and stand by each other in times of adversity. This envious friendship has obviously withstood various tests and challenges, although hostile forces have left no stone unturned at sowing seeds of discord that have so far failed to be fruitful.
However, during the last five years there has been a growing perception that the nature of relationship is changing. It is being said that the change of leadership in China, from old to new, has been responsible for making its policies more pragmatic, largely subservient to the needs of changing times, in keeping with the dynamics of fast growing economy and Beijing's geo-strategic role as a much bigger player in global politics.
Despite some of the ugly incidents in Pakistan in which Chinese engineers have been killed, both Beijing and Islamabad are never short of words in reiterating the solid nature of their relationship. However, there are discerning eyes that can see of late that there is something amiss.
It cannot be described as cooling of relations but one can feel why Beijing should not have reasons to be at some unease. Major reason, of course, is overwhelming American domination and interference in the management of Pakistan to the extent that many analysts tend to dismiss Islamabad's claim to independence as a glorified myth.
Sino-Pakistani experts feel that Beijing has been keeping a close tab on the growing American influence on Islamabad as well as continuously assessing what impact it can have on Pakistan's commitment to China to be its all-weather friend.
Ever since China agreed to invest and develop economically crucial and strategically vital Gwadar Port, sinister moves to cast doubt and spells of uncertainty about the project have been noticed. It seems that some hidden hands are making concerted moves to subvert Sino-Pak march on pastures new, especially in the field of greater economic and defence co-operation.
China, for its own geo-strategic interests, had made sincere and genuine efforts to befriend Pakistan ever since its inception although the later had moved to sit comfortably into American lap soon after its birth. And surely one must give full credit to the Chinese leadership for having stuck to Pakistan despite occasions when our leaders were no more than lap dogs to the Americans and had been going out of the way to serve Washington at the first sound of the whistle. And some times even without it.
Pakistan's foreign policy had acquired an entirely pro-West and anti-Communist orientation from the day when Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was made to sit over the Soviet invitation while Pakistan Foreign Office had exploited this to make Washington invite him. This early flawed foreign policy approach of ignoring nearby Soviet Union and preferring far away United States sowed the seeds of permanent discord between Moscow and Pakistan not to be healed to even this day leaving the field for India to reap rich dividends from a friend that proved more reliable to it than America was to Pakistan.
Field Marshal Ayub Khan allowed this friendship to be converted into a relationship between a master and a servant to the extent that Pakistan had come to be known as one of the American states, most trusted of the allies East of Suez, a country transformed into an huge operation field for the American spies to snoop into the Soviet Union and a military camp to counter Communism.
It is much more of the same in President General Musharraf's Pakistan where for the first time, to make Washington happy, a full-fledged war is being waged against its very own people. In the ongoing military operation in South Waziristan hundreds of Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting their own compatriots. (Official figure of Pakistani military personnel killed is 171 while the number of Pakistani tribesmen along with their women and children killed has not been counted but unofficially it is estimated that several hundred have been killed, houses of thousands destroyed and no less than hundred thousand dislocated out of their hearths and homes.)
All our four military dictators sold Pakistan's vital interests cheap to the Americans just for the sake of getting fig leaves of legitimacy and acceptability from Washington while trampling upon the democratic rights of their own masses.
It was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Pakistan's foreign minister that a serious attempt was made to give independence and respectability to Pakistan's foreign policy. As architect of Sino-Pakistan friendship Bhutto laid solid foundation of ties between the two, burying deep down the suspicions generated by Ayub's offer to India at the behest of American president John F. Kennedy, of a joint defence against the "common enemy in the north".
When Bhutto took over the reins of government both as its president and prime minister (December 1971 to July 1977) he worked painstakingly to build this relationship between Islamabad and Beijing to heights "higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the Seven Seas".
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had earned the wrath of the successive American administrations for undermining US dominance on Pakistan with emphasis on greater dependability on China especially in the field of procuring Chinese arms to replace dependence on the Americans.
Besides Bhutto had believed that it was in the best national interest to break American stranglehold on Pakistan and seek genuine "friends and not masters". Beijing has proved over
the years to be a true and dependable friend.
Sino-Pakistan friendship revived its previous warmth as it was during 1971-1977 when Benazir Bhutto was returned to power through general elections in December 1988 as a national vindication of her late father. Among her first foreign tours was her historic visit to China in early 1989.
Not only was she given an unprecedented welcome but also her meetings with the new Chinese leadership gave a boost to Sino-Pakistan relationship and brought them much closer and warmer than they were in the previous decade. It also opened newer vistas of co-operation that helped Pakistan to become invincible.
I still remember her long meeting with the last of the old warriors in the mould of Mao and Chou, Deng Xiao-ping. The veteran revolutionary, freedom fighter and the architect of modern China extended unprecedented affection to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as the daughter of an old trusted friend. Deng recalled his long association with ZAB and the two had a historic meeting brimming with nostalgic visit down the memory lane.
Deng's extra-ordinary treatment of Benazir Bhutto was a strong message to the new leaders in China at that time that she was a special friend to be treated differently than the usual foreign dignitaries. The extra-ordinary faith in another Bhutto was manifested when China
Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and counter jihad against it by the Americans manned and fueled by Pakistan and its military under General Ziaul Haq had made the Chinese leadership very cautious and careful of it. Despite the cold war between Beijing and Moscow, analysts in China had felt that the American presence in any form in that region could have implications for their country too when they had the taste of it at Tin Mien Square.
They had also taken note of increased "undesirable" activities of the Islamic fundamentalists, mostly backed by the Americans and their Wahabi supporters, under the garb of preaching Islam inside the Muslim dominated areas of China bordering Pakistan.
In later half of 1990 President Ghulam Ishaq Khan visited Beijing to sign the Nuclear Power Plant deal that the Chinese had agreed to provide to Benazir Bhutto (by this time dismissed). The Chinese leaders instead of doing that took GIK to task for what they charged, as continuous
infiltration of the Islamic militants to foment trouble into their Muslim areas. They also accused his intelligence apparatus of having a hand in it. They did not say so but the inference was that it was being done at the instigation of their foreign masters who would like to see China too go the Soviet way.
During the last five years of Musharraf's era of 'good governance' the worst to be hit by lawlessness besides of course the hapless, law-abiding people of Pakistan, are the Chinese and the French. Incidentally China more and France a little less, these two countries have stood by Pakistan during the hour of its dire needs in alternate supplies to our defence procurements when it was denied even spares by the United States for its arms made in America.
The two countries seem to have been singled out as targets by hitherto unfound hands at whose behest we don't know but what we know is as to who would benefit most if both China and France are forced to leave Pakistan.
Some insiders in the corridors of power in Pakistan believe that notwithstanding mutual assurances, both China and France have definitely developed some genuine reservations. They would like foolproof guarantees to the lives of their personnel now involved in great projects like Gwadar and building of submarines.
Firstly, these sources say that Chinese do not like the interference of Pakistan-based Islamists in their Muslim-dominated areas. These Islamists have deep connections with Pakistan's intelligence apparatus after the success of the Afghan Mujahideen, Taliban and other Pakistan-based Jihadi organizations in their Jihad against erstwhile Soviet Union. They feel and are covertly encouraged by anti-Chinese forces that they can repeat history in China and get independence for the Muslims in China.
Secondly, Chinese emergence as a major global player in international politics as a super power second only to Washington, its enormous economic growth and its growing influence as a key security and economic factor in the region, have added more of pragmatism rather emotions to its policies vis-à-vis its neighbors.
Its relations with India have matured and its stand on Kashmir in which Beijing had always supported Islamabad in the past, has become more proactive. It has been supporting the need for a dialogue to settle Kashmir dispute and wants greater emphasis on bilateralism as opposed to politics of cross-border terrorism.
In its own behind-the-scene quiet diplomacy, it has been emphasizing upon Islamabad that it must forget to sort out issues with India through an armed conflict or misadventures such as Kargil.
Thirdly, China feels uneasy about Gwadar Port that it has taken upon itself to build at an enormous investment to develop as an alternate port to Karachi with easy access to warm waters for Central Asian republics. Recent killing of three of its engineers followed by kidnapping of two of the Gomal Dam project in the north, bomb blasts and firing of rockets at the site-have been seen by Beijing as the machinations of those forces that are opposed to increasing Chinese influence in that sensitive area.
It feels that Washington is opposed to greater role that Beijing has carved itself for to play in the economic development of the Central Asian region including Afghanistan. China looks with suspicion at the opposition to the Gwadar Project by some of the Baloch nationalists-as a dance on the tunes played by Washington-although it has not yet said it so openly.
It may be mentioned here that on several occasions Beijing has discovered the heavy presence of members of the Pakistani militant Jihadi organizations in its Muslim areas. They preach, train and coax the Chinese Muslims to revolt and seek their rights against what they call "oppression, slavery and denial of their religious rights" by the Mainland.
However, Beijing has never taken such intrusions lightly. It not only keeps its pressure on Islamabad by protesting to it but ensures that the Islamic miscreants involved in subversive activities in China having taken refuge in the rugged mountains in Pakistan, are returned to it to face public execution.
Sources say that China has been rather serious in securing itself against international terrorism. Therefore, it backs the US-led war on terrorism as a response to its energy and security requirements. In this endeavor it has called for international support in its campaign against ethnic Uighur separatists in Xinjiang (a mostly Muslim region that has borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan). Along with Russia, it has set up the Shanghai Five in order to protect its growing energy requirements from the military presence of the US around the vast untapped Caspian oil reserves in Central Asia.
Beijing is fully aware of the proximity between Pakistani intelligence apparatus and the American CIA. It is an open secret that the Pakistani intelligence services have worked and are closely working with the US on security planning in the region. It is also feared that Islamabad is a party to the United States setting up of its listening posts in Afghanistan to monitor China and Central Asia.
In September to test the extent of Pakistan's trustworthiness towards China, Beijing had forwarded a list of what it claims are Xinjiang Islamic insurgents operating under Pakistani territory that it wants extradited. In this connection former Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat had visited Beijing. On his return to Islamabad he had acknowledged: "Chinese government has provided us a list of its wanted criminals and terrorists who have sought refuge in Pakistan. We would shortly take action against them".
Islamabad's lukewarm attitude in its response to Beijing and dilly dallying have been attributed to the fact that MMA is a major shareholder in Musharraf's power game in Pakistan. While MMA is seen to be his opponent in public, in fact it supports him when and where it matters in the quiet from behind the scene. Surely, had it not been for MMA's support Musharraf could not have become President nor he could have had his Legal Framework Order (LFO) that gives him absolute powers, incorporated in the Constitution of Pakistan.
Besides, it is also learnt that while Americans have indicated to Islamabad that they are not interested, in particular, in helping China to crush its Muslim
In that situation, sources claim, as long as the insurgency in Xinjiang province continues to trouble Beijing, it is unlikely that the Americans will put any pressure on Pakistan to withdraw support to the insurgents or meet the Chinese demands. Sources say that Beijing has been deeply suspicious of the Pakistani intelligence apparatus' involvement in the Islamic insurgency in its Xinjiang province.
Moreover, it has reasons to be suspicious of indirect American involvement in its uranium and oil rich province due to the current closeness and collaboration between Islamabad and Washington and their respective high profile intelligence apparatuses.
In the final analysis, Sino-Pakistan experts are of the view that the two countries while maintaining proximity in public, are actually drifting away from each other. And in the long run, Pakistan would be the loser. Its friendship with China has withstood the most severe tests and stresses while Washington has always had the pleasure of letting Islamabad down in its hour of distress.
In the over all context of existing relations, the fact that Beijing is sending its own team of investigators to probe the kidnapping of the two Chinese engineers (one killed along with five of his captors) is rather significant and shows its lack of trust in Pakistani investigators.
What has made the tragedy much more than meets the eye is the fact that Abdullah Mahsud, a veteran of both Afghan Jihad and now Guantanamo Bay, who had ordered the kidnapping of the Chinese engineers must have known well that such a dastardly act would have no sympathy from any quarter except those who must have asked him to do the job.
He had returned to Pakistan from Guantanamo Bay after spending 25 months in custody at the US naval base before his release in March this year. It is being insinuated that Mahsud might have done it to please those who spared his life and freed him from the hell that Guantanamo Bay is. And that somebody on the Pakistani side is also involved since it is being felt that the kidnapping saga was mishandled and the killings could have been averted.
The big question is: Is it a conspiracy to shoo China away from Pakistan or pressurize it to abandon Gwadar for the Americans to develop it as their base at the mouth of the Gulf? No one has the answer to this question, yet.
(Published in satribune)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5983_1073374,004300140005.htm
This is the real war. I have already posted my suspicions regarding Abdullah Mehsud being an American agent and the importance of Gwadar.
Please see:
#msg-4320350
#msg-4255871
Apparently China knows.
Gwadar would put the Chinese navy next to Iran’s shipping lane the Strait of Hormuz. The Chinese have a considerable investment in Iran’s oil and gas. Bush plans on attacking Iran by choking the Strait of Hormuz.
See also:
#msg-3483139
#msg-2645232
#msg-3864658
While this may change, an amphibious attack was originally targeted against Iran from the Arabian Sea, with a provocative US blockade in the Gulf of Oman to choke Iran’s sealanes of communications. Pakistan would be the base for mounting massive air reconnaissance and surveillance of Iran, while Iranian dissidents, backed by the US army, would launch land assaults from the Iraq-Iran border. Diplomatic sources say, the main body of the plan would remain the same, although component tactics could change.
http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/07/03/d40703100483.htm
-Am
Viewpoint: China's relations with India have matured
Wajid Shamsul Hasan
October 27
For nearly five decades China and Pakistan have enjoyed best of relations despite occasional periods of strain and stress. Despite all that, our relations are deeply rooted, have the capacity and strength to withstand strongest of storms.
In the language of global diplomacy these relations are at best described as of mutual necessity based on sincerity and selfless commitment to help and stand by each other in times of adversity. This envious friendship has obviously withstood various tests and challenges, although hostile forces have left no stone unturned at sowing seeds of discord that have so far failed to be fruitful.
However, during the last five years there has been a growing perception that the nature of relationship is changing. It is being said that the change of leadership in China, from old to new, has been responsible for making its policies more pragmatic, largely subservient to the needs of changing times, in keeping with the dynamics of fast growing economy and Beijing's geo-strategic role as a much bigger player in global politics.
Despite some of the ugly incidents in Pakistan in which Chinese engineers have been killed, both Beijing and Islamabad are never short of words in reiterating the solid nature of their relationship. However, there are discerning eyes that can see of late that there is something amiss.
It cannot be described as cooling of relations but one can feel why Beijing should not have reasons to be at some unease. Major reason, of course, is overwhelming American domination and interference in the management of Pakistan to the extent that many analysts tend to dismiss Islamabad's claim to independence as a glorified myth.
Sino-Pakistani experts feel that Beijing has been keeping a close tab on the growing American influence on Islamabad as well as continuously assessing what impact it can have on Pakistan's commitment to China to be its all-weather friend.
Ever since China agreed to invest and develop economically crucial and strategically vital Gwadar Port, sinister moves to cast doubt and spells of uncertainty about the project have been noticed. It seems that some hidden hands are making concerted moves to subvert Sino-Pak march on pastures new, especially in the field of greater economic and defence co-operation.
China, for its own geo-strategic interests, had made sincere and genuine efforts to befriend Pakistan ever since its inception although the later had moved to sit comfortably into American lap soon after its birth. And surely one must give full credit to the Chinese leadership for having stuck to Pakistan despite occasions when our leaders were no more than lap dogs to the Americans and had been going out of the way to serve Washington at the first sound of the whistle. And some times even without it.
Pakistan's foreign policy had acquired an entirely pro-West and anti-Communist orientation from the day when Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was made to sit over the Soviet invitation while Pakistan Foreign Office had exploited this to make Washington invite him. This early flawed foreign policy approach of ignoring nearby Soviet Union and preferring far away United States sowed the seeds of permanent discord between Moscow and Pakistan not to be healed to even this day leaving the field for India to reap rich dividends from a friend that proved more reliable to it than America was to Pakistan.
Field Marshal Ayub Khan allowed this friendship to be converted into a relationship between a master and a servant to the extent that Pakistan had come to be known as one of the American states, most trusted of the allies East of Suez, a country transformed into an huge operation field for the American spies to snoop into the Soviet Union and a military camp to counter Communism.
It is much more of the same in President General Musharraf's Pakistan where for the first time, to make Washington happy, a full-fledged war is being waged against its very own people. In the ongoing military operation in South Waziristan hundreds of Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives fighting their own compatriots. (Official figure of Pakistani military personnel killed is 171 while the number of Pakistani tribesmen along with their women and children killed has not been counted but unofficially it is estimated that several hundred have been killed, houses of thousands destroyed and no less than hundred thousand dislocated out of their hearths and homes.)
All our four military dictators sold Pakistan's vital interests cheap to the Americans just for the sake of getting fig leaves of legitimacy and acceptability from Washington while trampling upon the democratic rights of their own masses.
It was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Pakistan's foreign minister that a serious attempt was made to give independence and respectability to Pakistan's foreign policy. As architect of Sino-Pakistan friendship Bhutto laid solid foundation of ties between the two, burying deep down the suspicions generated by Ayub's offer to India at the behest of American president John F. Kennedy, of a joint defence against the "common enemy in the north".
When Bhutto took over the reins of government both as its president and prime minister (December 1971 to July 1977) he worked painstakingly to build this relationship between Islamabad and Beijing to heights "higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the Seven Seas".
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had earned the wrath of the successive American administrations for undermining US dominance on Pakistan with emphasis on greater dependability on China especially in the field of procuring Chinese arms to replace dependence on the Americans.
Besides Bhutto had believed that it was in the best national interest to break American stranglehold on Pakistan and seek genuine "friends and not masters". Beijing has proved over
the years to be a true and dependable friend.
Sino-Pakistan friendship revived its previous warmth as it was during 1971-1977 when Benazir Bhutto was returned to power through general elections in December 1988 as a national vindication of her late father. Among her first foreign tours was her historic visit to China in early 1989.
Not only was she given an unprecedented welcome but also her meetings with the new Chinese leadership gave a boost to Sino-Pakistan relationship and brought them much closer and warmer than they were in the previous decade. It also opened newer vistas of co-operation that helped Pakistan to become invincible.
I still remember her long meeting with the last of the old warriors in the mould of Mao and Chou, Deng Xiao-ping. The veteran revolutionary, freedom fighter and the architect of modern China extended unprecedented affection to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as the daughter of an old trusted friend. Deng recalled his long association with ZAB and the two had a historic meeting brimming with nostalgic visit down the memory lane.
Deng's extra-ordinary treatment of Benazir Bhutto was a strong message to the new leaders in China at that time that she was a special friend to be treated differently than the usual foreign dignitaries. The extra-ordinary faith in another Bhutto was manifested when China
Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and counter jihad against it by the Americans manned and fueled by Pakistan and its military under General Ziaul Haq had made the Chinese leadership very cautious and careful of it. Despite the cold war between Beijing and Moscow, analysts in China had felt that the American presence in any form in that region could have implications for their country too when they had the taste of it at Tin Mien Square.
They had also taken note of increased "undesirable" activities of the Islamic fundamentalists, mostly backed by the Americans and their Wahabi supporters, under the garb of preaching Islam inside the Muslim dominated areas of China bordering Pakistan.
In later half of 1990 President Ghulam Ishaq Khan visited Beijing to sign the Nuclear Power Plant deal that the Chinese had agreed to provide to Benazir Bhutto (by this time dismissed). The Chinese leaders instead of doing that took GIK to task for what they charged, as continuous
infiltration of the Islamic militants to foment trouble into their Muslim areas. They also accused his intelligence apparatus of having a hand in it. They did not say so but the inference was that it was being done at the instigation of their foreign masters who would like to see China too go the Soviet way.
During the last five years of Musharraf's era of 'good governance' the worst to be hit by lawlessness besides of course the hapless, law-abiding people of Pakistan, are the Chinese and the French. Incidentally China more and France a little less, these two countries have stood by Pakistan during the hour of its dire needs in alternate supplies to our defence procurements when it was denied even spares by the United States for its arms made in America.
The two countries seem to have been singled out as targets by hitherto unfound hands at whose behest we don't know but what we know is as to who would benefit most if both China and France are forced to leave Pakistan.
Some insiders in the corridors of power in Pakistan believe that notwithstanding mutual assurances, both China and France have definitely developed some genuine reservations. They would like foolproof guarantees to the lives of their personnel now involved in great projects like Gwadar and building of submarines.
Firstly, these sources say that Chinese do not like the interference of Pakistan-based Islamists in their Muslim-dominated areas. These Islamists have deep connections with Pakistan's intelligence apparatus after the success of the Afghan Mujahideen, Taliban and other Pakistan-based Jihadi organizations in their Jihad against erstwhile Soviet Union. They feel and are covertly encouraged by anti-Chinese forces that they can repeat history in China and get independence for the Muslims in China.
Secondly, Chinese emergence as a major global player in international politics as a super power second only to Washington, its enormous economic growth and its growing influence as a key security and economic factor in the region, have added more of pragmatism rather emotions to its policies vis-à-vis its neighbors.
Its relations with India have matured and its stand on Kashmir in which Beijing had always supported Islamabad in the past, has become more proactive. It has been supporting the need for a dialogue to settle Kashmir dispute and wants greater emphasis on bilateralism as opposed to politics of cross-border terrorism.
In its own behind-the-scene quiet diplomacy, it has been emphasizing upon Islamabad that it must forget to sort out issues with India through an armed conflict or misadventures such as Kargil.
Thirdly, China feels uneasy about Gwadar Port that it has taken upon itself to build at an enormous investment to develop as an alternate port to Karachi with easy access to warm waters for Central Asian republics. Recent killing of three of its engineers followed by kidnapping of two of the Gomal Dam project in the north, bomb blasts and firing of rockets at the site-have been seen by Beijing as the machinations of those forces that are opposed to increasing Chinese influence in that sensitive area.
It feels that Washington is opposed to greater role that Beijing has carved itself for to play in the economic development of the Central Asian region including Afghanistan. China looks with suspicion at the opposition to the Gwadar Project by some of the Baloch nationalists-as a dance on the tunes played by Washington-although it has not yet said it so openly.
It may be mentioned here that on several occasions Beijing has discovered the heavy presence of members of the Pakistani militant Jihadi organizations in its Muslim areas. They preach, train and coax the Chinese Muslims to revolt and seek their rights against what they call "oppression, slavery and denial of their religious rights" by the Mainland.
However, Beijing has never taken such intrusions lightly. It not only keeps its pressure on Islamabad by protesting to it but ensures that the Islamic miscreants involved in subversive activities in China having taken refuge in the rugged mountains in Pakistan, are returned to it to face public execution.
Sources say that China has been rather serious in securing itself against international terrorism. Therefore, it backs the US-led war on terrorism as a response to its energy and security requirements. In this endeavor it has called for international support in its campaign against ethnic Uighur separatists in Xinjiang (a mostly Muslim region that has borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan). Along with Russia, it has set up the Shanghai Five in order to protect its growing energy requirements from the military presence of the US around the vast untapped Caspian oil reserves in Central Asia.
Beijing is fully aware of the proximity between Pakistani intelligence apparatus and the American CIA. It is an open secret that the Pakistani intelligence services have worked and are closely working with the US on security planning in the region. It is also feared that Islamabad is a party to the United States setting up of its listening posts in Afghanistan to monitor China and Central Asia.
In September to test the extent of Pakistan's trustworthiness towards China, Beijing had forwarded a list of what it claims are Xinjiang Islamic insurgents operating under Pakistani territory that it wants extradited. In this connection former Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat had visited Beijing. On his return to Islamabad he had acknowledged: "Chinese government has provided us a list of its wanted criminals and terrorists who have sought refuge in Pakistan. We would shortly take action against them".
Islamabad's lukewarm attitude in its response to Beijing and dilly dallying have been attributed to the fact that MMA is a major shareholder in Musharraf's power game in Pakistan. While MMA is seen to be his opponent in public, in fact it supports him when and where it matters in the quiet from behind the scene. Surely, had it not been for MMA's support Musharraf could not have become President nor he could have had his Legal Framework Order (LFO) that gives him absolute powers, incorporated in the Constitution of Pakistan.
Besides, it is also learnt that while Americans have indicated to Islamabad that they are not interested, in particular, in helping China to crush its Muslim
In that situation, sources claim, as long as the insurgency in Xinjiang province continues to trouble Beijing, it is unlikely that the Americans will put any pressure on Pakistan to withdraw support to the insurgents or meet the Chinese demands. Sources say that Beijing has been deeply suspicious of the Pakistani intelligence apparatus' involvement in the Islamic insurgency in its Xinjiang province.
Moreover, it has reasons to be suspicious of indirect American involvement in its uranium and oil rich province due to the current closeness and collaboration between Islamabad and Washington and their respective high profile intelligence apparatuses.
In the final analysis, Sino-Pakistan experts are of the view that the two countries while maintaining proximity in public, are actually drifting away from each other. And in the long run, Pakistan would be the loser. Its friendship with China has withstood the most severe tests and stresses while Washington has always had the pleasure of letting Islamabad down in its hour of distress.
In the over all context of existing relations, the fact that Beijing is sending its own team of investigators to probe the kidnapping of the two Chinese engineers (one killed along with five of his captors) is rather significant and shows its lack of trust in Pakistani investigators.
What has made the tragedy much more than meets the eye is the fact that Abdullah Mahsud, a veteran of both Afghan Jihad and now Guantanamo Bay, who had ordered the kidnapping of the Chinese engineers must have known well that such a dastardly act would have no sympathy from any quarter except those who must have asked him to do the job.
He had returned to Pakistan from Guantanamo Bay after spending 25 months in custody at the US naval base before his release in March this year. It is being insinuated that Mahsud might have done it to please those who spared his life and freed him from the hell that Guantanamo Bay is. And that somebody on the Pakistani side is also involved since it is being felt that the kidnapping saga was mishandled and the killings could have been averted.
The big question is: Is it a conspiracy to shoo China away from Pakistan or pressurize it to abandon Gwadar for the Americans to develop it as their base at the mouth of the Gulf? No one has the answer to this question, yet.
(Published in satribune)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5983_1073374,004300140005.htm
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