The much speculated visit of the Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pakistan has an element of the pantomime about it and it now appears that this may finally take place in mid April.
On Thursday, April 9, the Pakistan foreign office in a guarded statement indicated that the Xi visit will take place “this month”, though no firm dates have been announced.
It may be recalled that President Xi was expected to visit Pakistan in September last – before his visit to India – so as to assuage Islamabad’s sensitivities and signal the distinctive nature of the Sino-Pak relationship.
However, this visit had to be put on hold given the intense anti-government protests that rocked Pakistan at the time and Beijing felt that it would be imprudent to wade into the troubled domestic politics of Pakistan.
.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
Subsequently, in the wake of the Obama visit to Delhi in January for the Indian Republic Day Parade, it was hinted by Islamabad that perhaps President Xi would be accorded similar status at the Pakistan National Day Parade on March 23rd.
Again, an objective review of the Chinese leader’s calendar and related summit scheduling would have indicated otherwise. At the time, Xi was committed to domestic legislative matters and the Boao forum and the visit remained elusive.
Will he – won’t he is now the leit-motif of the Chinese President’s visit to Pakistan and the urgency from Islamabad’s perspective is derived from the intense need to publicly demonstrate the special nature of the Sino-Pak relationship. Rich imagery has been invoked in the past to describe this robust, albeit opaque strategic relationship and the phrases include: ‘higher that the highest mountain /deeper than the deepest oceans/ sweeter than honey’ et al.
Islamabad’s relationship with Beijing has been truly all-weather since the late 1950’s when the deteriorating China-India relationship encouraged Mao to invest in Pakistan. Over the last seven decades, this Chinese support to Pakistan has been steadfast and calibrated in such a manner that it emboldened the latter to imagine an equivalence in its relationship with India and embark on many ill-advised ventures – including the Kargil War of 1999.
This bi-lateral is in contrast to the Pakistan-US relationship which in the same period has gone through a series of highs and lows notwithstanding the fact that Uncle Sam and Saudi Arabia remain the largest benefactors of Islamabad and Rawalpindi - the latter being the GHQ of the Pak Army.
Given the prevailing discord and low trust that now characterises the Washington-Islamabad relationship (this however did not prevent the US from announcing 1 billion $ more worth of military aid to Pakistan ) , it would be even more necessary for Pakistan to visibly display the texture of its relationship with China through the Xi visit.
For China, it is strategic geography that matters the most and Pakistan’s location makes it that distinctive ally. The Xi visit – when it occurs – will primarily focus on the land-sea connectivity possibilities that Pakistan offers to further the grand ‘belt-road’ Xi vision. The port of Gwadar may also see renewed Chinese interest and the more recent US-Iran initiatives and the turbulence in Afghanistan will heighten the relevance of Pakistan in the Chinese calculus.
And the Modi visit to China later in May could also add to Pakistan’s exhortation to Beijing ensure that the Xi pantomime becomes a real talking show in April.
(C. Uday Bhaskar is one India’s leading experts on Strategic Affairs. He is currently Director, Society for Policy Studies)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)