' Experts' Are Not Right about the Pakistan-China Corridor
By Riaz Haq
CA
The United States is home to many foreign affairs "experts" from various countries around the world.
These "experts" are employed by think tanks and invited by the US media to appear on television shows and write Op Ed columns for newspapers whenever there is a significant event anywhere in the world.
The analyses and opinions offered by these experts depend on how the United States policymakers view the countries being discussed. Discussions on India, a current favorite of the United States, often feature Fareed Zakaria who portrays the country in a favorable light and its rival Pakistan as the villain in South Asia. Media coverage of the Middle East features "experts" who are almost always friendly toward Israel.
The recent announcement of major Chinese investment in Pakistan during Chinese P resident Xi Jinping's visit to the South Asian country has received a lot of attention in the mainstream US media. Pakistan's ex-Ambassador Husain Haqqani has been used as the "expert" to do the hatchet job on Pakistan by Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. Here's an excerpt of it:
"...the promise of Chinese money will lead Pakistan’s leaders to think China will become their economic and military patron. Mr. Xi would do well not to let that happen, and instead to emphasize reform. He shouldn’t forget that money does not always buy Pakistan’s favor or encourage change in Pakistan’s policies. China may actually lose popularity in Pakistan once its companies arrive and demand primacy of economic considerations. Then China might find itself where Pakistan’s previous benefactor, the US, is today. After having provided $40 billion in aid to Pakistan since 1950, the US is now viewed favorably by only 14% of Pakistanis."
There are two problems with Mr Haqqani's analysis:
1. Mr Haqqani lacks the basic understanding of the key difference between the US aid model and the Chinese assistance paradigm. The United States gave "aid" to the governments of countries in Asia and Africa much of which was siphoned off by corrupt officials. China focuses on infrastructure investments and trade in the developing world.
2. It's Mr Haqqani's failure to understand the Chinese model that is the basis of his flawed advice to China to repeat the failed policies of the United States in Pakistan. Or is it his wish to see China's investments fail in Pakistan?
Haqqani is not alone in being wrong about China and Pakistan. Gordon Chang and Minxin Pei give him good company.
Here's an excerpt of a piece by "expert" Gordon Chang in The National Interest about China-Pakistan corridor:
"Beijing, despite everything, looks like it is absolutely determined to do whatever it takes to first build and then secure its corridor running through the heart of Pakistan. Its plan, however, is almost certainly misconceived, bound to cause more turmoil in already troubled areas."
Another "expert" Minxin Pei writes in an Op Ed in Fortune magazine on China's Pakistan investment:
"Beijing ought to be spending its money at home to shore up its economy, instead of chasing elusive prestige abroad. Empires fall for many reasons. One of them is overreach: the lust for power often drives imperial rulers to extend their commitments beyond what their resources can support. The collapse of the Soviet Union is among the most recent illustrations of the perils of imperial overreach. During the Cold War, Moscow recklessly took on unaffordable security commitments around the world and engaged in an un-winnable arms race against a foe with a much larger economy."
To put the above opinions of the two China "experts" in perspective, let me just say that they have both been consistently wrong about China. Gordon Chang wrote "The Coming Collapse of China" back in 2001. Need I say more?
Minxin Pei, the other favorite China "expert" in the West, wrote a 2006 book "China's Trapped Transition" that gave a gloomy forecast for China's future.
In spite of being consistently wrong, these "experts" continue to enjoy their status as "experts". They peddle what their Western patrons want to hear. And they are "gainfully" employed as professors, authors , think-tank analysts and media guests in America.
