The meeting of Chinese Ambassador Xi Ron with Chief of Army Staff with Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa may be seen as preparatory to the impending visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to Beijing for the opening of the Winter Olympics there, but it has a significance of its own, because of General Bajwa’s previous foray into Sino-Pak relations, when he intervened after PM’s Commerce Adviser Razzak Dawood had made adverse comments about CPEC, and mended fences with China. CPEC still remains an issue, as progress on its schemes, particularly on its latest phase are both proceeding as smoothly as could be wished.
Mr Khan’s visit to China not being a bilateral visit, he may only meet Chinese President Xi Jinping briefly at the opening of the games, but there are issues which have arisen which do not bode well for the future of the relationship. Apart from the progress on CPEC, there is also the failure to capture the perpetrators of the July incident in Dasu, in which nine Chinese citizens were killed, as promised, but also the pay compensation for those killings, and the May 2019 attack on the Gwadar hotel where the Chinese ambassador was staying. It is not without significance that this came under discussion during General Bajwa’s call.
It is significant that this meeting should take place at a time when Pakistan is doing its best to steer a course between the USA and China at a time when the two seem headed for a new Cold War. There is a strong lobby in Islamabad, which wants the US relationship strengthened, and which parrots US arguments about Pakistan falling into the Chinese debt trap. That lobby would also like to see Pakistan and China fall apart because of security concerns for both arising from the US discomfiture in Kabul and the success there of the Taliban. Pakistan must realize that the special relationship needs it to be more responsive to Chinese concerns rather than making unjustified assumptions about Chinese patience never wearing thin.
