By Nusrat Mirza
As Pakistan helped USA in the deal with Afghan Taliban, the mistrust in the relations between Pakistan and the United States has markedly been overcome over the last one year and a half. But it USA’s continued demand that Pakistan should reduce the close ties with China and limit CPEC activities. Pakistan did so to some extent but virus phenomena have hidden it as the activities itself reduced.
The improvement in the ties is largely attributed to Pakistan’s efforts to persuade Afghan Taliban to hold direct talks with the United States and the two sides are finalized a deal on 29th February 2020. The behavior of USA has to be observed now these American behave with Pakistan.
For Pakistan and China is the time to build the Economic zone has commenced. There several Economic zones understudy. Even Pakistan’s Kashmir, KP, Baluchistan, Sindh and Punjab 12 to 18 Economic zones shall be constructed. K2 and K3 shall be completed by 2020, 2021 and 2022 providing Pakistan 2200 Mega watts electricity to meet the requirement of these Economic zones.
So the activities between Pakistan and China are at work in spite of US pressure. USA is asking its share in the CPEC that its companies would like to participate in CPEC which is welcomed with caution. Alice Wells, top US South Asian diplomat, in a talk at the Washington’s Wilson Center, announced last month a series of visits of US business delegation would take place this year.
The United States also announced resumption of military training for the Pakistani army officials, though the overall military assistance would still stay suspended. But this time around, the cooperation between the two countries would not be restricted to security and military related matters but there are indications from Washington that it wants to extend cooperation to economic field as well.
In a further sign of improving relations, the United States is also expected to support Pakistan’s bid to get off so-called grey list of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its meeting, on February in Paris, of the countries which have not done enough to curb money laundering and terror financing.
Pakistani authorities also hope that US bilateral support as well as at the international forums would encourage foreign investors particularly from the West to bring their money into Pakistan. Pakistan has already been notified as a country having made significant progress by the World Bank on its index of ease of doing business.
President Trump called Prime Minister Imran Khan as a “friend” and said Pakistan and US have never been as close as are now. All these positive signals are welcome but there are some challenges for the two countries too. But, the United States has ramped up its criticism of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). In her Wilson Center talk, Wells wanted Pakistan that its debt burden would increase manifold as according to her much of the money invested and committed by China is in the form of loans and not assistance.
She also raised questions about the transparency in the CPEC-related projects and even claimed that some firms blacklisted by the World Bank have been signed up for the CPEC projects. Wells repeated her concerns over CPEC during her visit to Pakistan last week. Ironically, her outburst against CPEC at the time when Prime Minister Khan and President Trump were discussing ways and means to expand relations in Davos.
China on both occasions angrily rejected US concerns and Pakistan too rubbished the criticism. He thanked the Chinese government for its help to Pakistan in the infrastructure development. “When the Chinese came to help us with the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) and CPEC, [we] were really at the rock bottom,” he said in response to a question whether the project was a debt-trap for Pakistan.
“So we are really grateful to the Chinese that they came and rescued us.” Thus Pakistan China continues to grow in spite of US pressure.